Phew! Brillstein and Ovitz Are Talking Again (and They Did Lunch)

By NIKKI FINKE

Dec. 4, 1988 12 AM PT

Sometimes it’s astonishing how true those old Hollywood maxims turn out to be. Take, for example, the one that says, “I’ll never work with you again! (Until I need to.)”

Things have a way of going full circle.

Just ask producer Bernie Brillstein and Creative Artists Agency founder Michael Ovitz.

The feud (some even call it an all-out war) between Ovitz and Brillstein--a one-time CAA client himself when he was manager to the late John Belushi, Jim Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and others--apparently started back in 1986.

But now it has ended. How to tell? Because two CAA superstars, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, are in the running for Wall Street raider role in Brillstein’s new feature film, “The Predator’s Ball” (based on Connie Bruck’s chronicle of the life and times of “junk bond” czar Michael Milken).

“We have made up and gone on a honeymoon,” Brillstein stated.

“They have had a 15-year relationship and now everything is just fine,” acknowledged New York PR man Howard Rubenstein, the spokesman for Ovitz.

Exactly when the brouhaha broke out in 1986 is open for discussion. Some say it occurred after Ovitz’s star rose fast and furiously following a December 1986 Wall Street Journal article proclaiming him king of the Hollywood Hill.

Others say the two were already fighting by October that year when Lorimar chairman Merv Adelson purchased Brillstein’s management company and later installed him as head of Lorimar’s movie division.

Then, coincidentally or not, a game of musical chairs occurred. Aykroyd left Brillstein’s management but stayed with CAA as his agent. Jim Belushi did the same.

But TV writer-producer Jay Tarses resigned from CAA and stayed with manager Brillstein. And Brillstein’s daughter Lee resigned from her job as agent at CAA to go to work for ICM.

Got it?

Then, the Brillstein-Ovitz feud was the central focus of an Aaron Latham article in Manhattan Inc. magazine last April about how Brillstein would be hurt without the benefit of Ovitz’s packaging skills. Said one unnamed executive quoted by Latham: “The problem is you can’t run a movie studio if you can’t work with CAA.”

Brillstein called the Manhattan Inc. article “completely incorrect.”

Pause. “Well, it was more than 75% incorrect.”

So what’s the real story?

“There was a falling-out,” Brillstein said. “Just as there are between husbands and wives. You fall in and out of love with people in this business, and when you fall out of love, you wake up at 2 a.m. and think of things that should have been different.”

And their relationship before?

“Why, three years ago, we even spent Thanksgiving vacation with our families in the Kahala Hilton. And we never talked business.”

How bad did the feud get?

“It was never a thing where we sent away our ambassadors. Maybe they didn’t send me the scripts first. Now, I’m seeing a lot of scripts from a lot of people, including CAA. But I still don’t think I’m seeing the CAA scripts first. The problem is, I don’t have a studio at the moment.”

Ah, yes. While the feud was going on, Adelson worked out a deal to have Lorimar acquired by Warner Communications last May. But the deal didn’t sit well with Brillstein, who blamed Adelson for not keeping him in the know. Last week, Brillstein finally sent in his formal letter of resignation from Lorimar’s board.

Though Brillstein personally has “no production deal anywhere,” he is still nominally the chairman of Lorimar Film Entertainment and is still overseeing the nine films that he put into development for the studio and which Warner is “allowing” him to finish, including “Dangerous Liasons” due out this month and “See You in the Morning.”

Did the Ovitz-Brillstein fall-out affect these nine films?

“CAA never did not give me a client,” Brillstein stressed. “Glenn Close is a CAA client and she’s starring in ‘Dangerous Liasons.’ And both Jeff Bridges and Farrah Fawcett are with CAA and they’re starring in ‘See You in the Morning.’ What I always say is, none of us control this business or the clients we’re in business with. Creative people will do good material with or without us.”

So how exactly did the reconciliation come about?

“It was a gradual making up with a little bit of courting on his part. He was very gracious about it all. Mike gets a lot of bad raps and I want to un-rap this one. In fact, he was more gracious than I was in this case.”

The implication, then, is that Ovitz made the first move, right?

“It was a lunch at the Palm. Then a phone call. He picked up the check.”

Confirmed Rubenstein: “Yes, Michael Ovitz did pick up the check at the Palm. And it did not diminish his enjoyment of the lunch one bit.

So who is Brillstein feuding with now?

The answer is obvious: “Merv Adelson,” Brillstein said quickly. “I haven’t spoken to him in five months, and he hasn’t spoken to me.”