POWER 101: 1-25

In the world of entertainment, power is a game: The board giveth, and the board taketh away. If you don't believe it, consider the terminology. Those who have the right stuff-whether at studios, publishing houses, networks, or record labels-are major players. They roll the dice. They score. And their deals-$65 million record contracts, $90 million movies, multibillion-dollar mergers-often seem to be made with Monopoly money. In 1991, there was a lot of giving and a lot of taking away. In this, our second annual report on the 101 most powerful men and women (and, for the first time, children) in entertainment, nearly half the entries-including several that reflect Japan's increasing influence in show business-are newcomers to the list. That's only fitting in an industry in which the scorecards-sales, ratings, grosses-change every week, and daily trade journals mark hirings, firings, risings, and fallings. The other half demonstrated that they could hold onto their power, and in many cases increase it. In the following pages you'll meet 1991's power elite-the deal makers, meeting takers, and record breakers who make the entertainment business the most entertaining game in town. 1 MICHAEL OVITZ (2) F T V P M Mike the manipulator. Samurai economist. Pop-culture guru. Superbroker. Hollywood Shogun. Master of the Universe. International player. Superman. The fear and awe in those nicknames attest to what everyone in entertainment knows: Creative Artists Agency chairman Michael Ovitz, 44, has single-handedly redefined the meaning of agent-and power in Hollywood. His company, founded in 1975 by five ex-William Morris agents, has since built a roster of 700 clients, of whom about 70 are the top talents in town. Among them are Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams, and Dustin Hoffman, the major players in Hook, the perfect example of a CAA ''package.'' The Oscar-winning Rain Man, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Hoffman and Tom Cruise, was another, and so is the upcoming A League of Their Own, starring Geena Davis, Madonna, and Tom Hanks, under the direction of Penny Marshall. CAA's list goes on and on; it also includes Aaron Spelling, John Hughes, Sydney Pollack, Barbra Streisand, Goldie Hawn, Danny DeVito, Prince, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Stephen King, Sean Connery, Cher, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, Kevin Costner, Oliver Stone, Jane Fonda, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Douglas, Martin Scorsese, Paul Newman, and recent recruits Meryl Streep and Francis Coppola. Ovitz is even powerful enough to have convinced a major-league studio (Warner Bros.) to try making his aikido instructor (Out for Justice's Steven Seagal) into a stone-faced star. It worked. But Ovitz hasn't settled for percentages of what individual clients can earn-he now represents entire international corporations for millions of dollars. He advised Sony in its $3.4 billion acquisition of Columbia Pictures Entertainment (for an $8 million fee) and reportedly nabbed some $40 million for his pivotal role in Matsushita's $6.6 billion buyout of MCA. While a deal between Japanese and American corporate giants might seem the culmination of everything this student of Eastern philosophy has been striving for since he started out as a Universal tour guide, Ovitz is still moving. CAA not only represents Paramount Pictures but also engineered the 1989 merger of book agents Morton Janklow and Lynn Nesbit; this fall, CAA even landed the much- coveted Coca-Cola account. CAA's 65 agents follow Ovitz's teamwork philosophy, which combines an Eastern ethic (Sun Tzu's The Art of War has virtually become CAA's corporate handbook) with a Western business concept: the art of war as the art of the deal. And those deals-one success upon another-have led many to believe that Ovitz will seek to formalize his power over moviemaking by overseeing a studio. It is well known that MCA's legendary chairman, Lew Wasserman, who turned a talent agency into a major studio, is an Ovitz hero. Will Ovitz take CAA in the same direction? The superagencies are already moving into the film financing arena. But why should Michael Ovitz run one studio, insiders ask, when he already runs seven?