For Steven Seagal, Karma Is A Real Bitch

stevenseagal.jpgFor a real laugh riot, read how Steven Seagal thinks his movie career -- and I use that term loosely -- went into the crapper only because of being linked by the FBI to the Pellicano scandal. Wassup, Hollywood, you don't think the guy in this photo looks like he's still a hot action hunk? Let's thank Los Angeles Times writer Chuck Philips (who clearly expected everyone to sympathize with this has-been's predicament) for such unintentional hilarity. I particularly enjoyed flackmeister Howard Bragman's frank assessment on the situation. "Let's be honest: Steven Seagal was no Harrison Ford when this happened. But these accusations certainly hastened his decline." As did the double chin. But ain't karma a bitch? Because the reality is that, back when he still made major money at the box office, Seagal was one nasty piece of work. And still is, by most accounts. I surmise Seagal's downfall had less to do with the Pellicano scandal and more to do with Hollywood simply saying good riddance to Mike Ovitz's one-time martial arts teacher. Don't let the confessional door hit you in the ass on the way out, Steven.

The Mystery Of A Magazine Story On CAA

Speaking of Hollywood agents, that young Fortune magazine staff writer caalogo.JPGdoing an article on "The Mystery Of CAA" is back in town. Oh, when will these NYC reporters understand that snow job tactics don't work out here? (Full Disclosure: I declined a third-party request to speak to him for his article.) He's told CAA his piece is going to be a wet kiss for them. He's claimed to rival agencies it's a hit job on CAA. And he's demonstrating to studio execs and others that he's enthralled by Michael Ovitz. So now no one trusts him. 

Art & Hollywood: FBI's Most Wanted Pics

rockwell_clip_image002.jpg

The news is all around that Steven Spielberg unknowingly had a stolen Norman Rockwell painting in his art collection. Don't you hate when that happens? (By the way, if you want to know more about Hollywood and its art collections, then read my LA Weekly 2005 feature, Blame Ovitz: When Art Started Imitating Hollywood.)

The Horror, The Horror, Of CAA's 424

caalogo-thumb.jpgNow that CAA has finally made the move to its new office digs at 2000 Avenue Of the Stars -- known as the "hole" building -- in Century City (sorry, but I don't think I can be funnier about this than my pal Mark Lisanti at Defamer), something horrible has happened: CAA has lost its "310" area code. Its new phone number is (424)288-2000. What the fuck is "424"? (Actually, I looked it up on the Internet, and Wikipedia says it's the new area code overlay for the Westside of the Los Angeles Metropolitan area, and the first non-mobile area code overlay in Southern California, and became effective on August 26th. Sucks.) You mean to tell me that, with all its supposed power and influence, CAA couldn't convince anyone to let it keep its "310" area code? Who's gonna remember "424"? Turns out (310)288-2000 is a fax line somewhere. But fear not: for at least a while, CAA is still answering the phone at its old (310)288-4545 number. So stop screaming at your assistant.

caa-bldg.jpgAlso, CAA will still be stuck paying rent to Mike Ovitz/Ron Meyer/Bill Haber on its old I.M Pei digs for some time to come. I hear Ovitz really, really, wants to eventually move back into the building that was his architectural pride and joy in his heyday. But what in the world would he do with all that space? Besides, I doubt his ex-partners would let him have it. After all, they hate him. By the way, you may not recall that, when the CAA former headquarters was being constructed, recording everything with a 16mm movie camera was a film school student hired specifically for the occasion. That raw footage, according to Ovitz’s direction, was to be mixed with the sequences from a time-lapse camera which CAA had mounted in the parking lot of Budget-Rent-a-Car directly across the street from the building site. The plan was to monitor, using time-lapse photography, the step-by-step progress of the CAA headquarters and make a movie of the building’s birth. One of CAA’s directors, Joel Schumacher, even agreed to direct with famed Billy Weber to edit and no less than John Williams to score. When news of the film project swept through the entertainment community shortly before CAA was to move into the building that July 1989, the jokes came fast and furious. So did the jibes, the most brutal of which was that, by building Ovitz’s monument to power, I.M. Pei had unwittingly become “the Albert Speer of Hollywood.” The movie idea was dropped.

Also, the date of ICM's move to Century City is set for February 20th.

Pellicano Scandal: Anita Busch Sues Ovitz

I heard about this around 5 pm today, then tried to find out details why threatened ex-journalist Anita Busch (and her lawyers) decided to include the ex-CAA chairman and ex-Disney president in her civil lawsuit against Anthony Pellicano and others for directing, organizing, commanding, employing and/or hiring individuals to engage in what is only generally described as "unlawful and tortious conduct". When no details were forthcoming, I waited to post because I think news like this needs details. But the Los Angeles Times, without getting any details either, put the news on its website tonight. So there you have it. There isn't really much more to say now (though I have a myriad thoughts about this, obviously). In the meantime, for background on Busch, and what happened to her, here's my LA Weekly column from June 23, 2005, headlined Requiem For Anita Busch. 

Burkle vs Ovitz: Together Again In Court

Billionaire Ronald W. Burkle is scheduled to answer questions today regarding the strength of his multi-million dollar lawsuit against Michael Ovitz, according to the City News Service. The lawsuit, filed in February 2005, alleges Ovitz breached an oral agreement to share investment opportunities they were supposed to make jointly. Attorneys for Ovitz last week won an order from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Soussan G. Brugera allowing them to question the former supermarket magnate in a deposition. The order was opposed by Burkle's lawyer, who said she still needed access to investment and funding documents she requested from Ovitz' lawyers so her client can look at them before he is deposed. Brugera granted part of this request for documents, but said the time had come for Burkle to sit down with Ovitz' lawyers. Brugera also said she wants a face-to-face meeting between Burkle and Ovitz to take place in her courtroom, probably in the jury room. A date for the meeting is scheduled to be set Nov. 30.

Bernie Pisses On Pellicano Et Al

Bernie Weinraub, one of Pellicano's victims, rants wryly on The Huffington Post today about Ken Aulleta's New Yorker article about the P.I., Fields and Ovitz. (That story is not online. See my New Yorker's Auletta On Pellicano Probe: Interviews Bert Fields & Mike Ovitz.) "The article is really funny," Weinraub gripes. "Fields and Ovitz are such pussycats here. They are shocked, shocked, that their friend Anthony would have done all those terrible things that the prosecutors said he did ... And we are supposed to believe this bullshit?" Since Sunday, I've been hearing from Hollywood types who were very disappointed by Auletta's tepid piece. They expected him to advance the Pellicano probe; he didn't at all. They were especially shocked that he let Ovitz off the hook. 

New Yorker's Auletta On Pellicano Probe: Interviews Bert Fields & Mike Ovitz

It's not online, but The New Yorker's Ken Auletta looks at the Pellicano probe with a long 12-page story featuring interviews with Bert Fields and Michael Ovitz. But do they really say anything? No. (Hey, they can't, given the circumstances.) This is mostly written as a primer for people who don't know a pelican from a Pellicano. So there's not much juice for Hollywood folk who've been keeping up with the scandal. I'd say the most surprising bit is that Fields now gets $900-an-hour. (His pals have pointed out to me that Bert went on his annual summer vacation to his French chateau. Him worry? Nah!) Plus, more confirmation that Ovitz is going through a dressing-down, long-hair, phase. And he plays the victim yet again, though it's strange that Auletta didn't press Ovitz about hiring Pellicano to investigate a long list of Nixonian "enemies." Key parts:

BertF.jpgFIELDS

..."When I suggested to Fields that even his friends were puzzled by his association with the detective (I used the word 'thug'), Fields replied slowly, saying, “I never knew him as a thug. I never saw an instance of Anthony hurting anybody or really threatening anybody.” It is also known that no oneused Pellicano more frequently thanFields and his law firm, and that puzzles even friends and former clients, like Jeffrey Katzenberg, who told me, “I cannot reconcile the Bert I know having anything to do with Pellicano.”

..."[Fields] didn’t recall ever seeing a bill from Pellicano or asking for an explanation of his charges. He explained that Pellicano probably called his assistant and 'told her to send the bill to the client.' Of all the investigators he retained, Fields added, Pellicano was the best. 'He came up with stuff that other people didn’t. He did that over and over again. He was just better. . . . I don’t know how he did it. It certainly wasn’t wiretapping.' Fields’ law partner Bonnie E. Eskenazi says that Pellicano did not tell her and Fields how he retrieved his often 'fantastic' information. 'And I didn’t tell him how I practice law.'"

..."Fields has been under intense scrutiny in the three years since Pellicano’s conviction on the weapons charge; he was interviewed by F.B.I. agents in the spring of 2003. Yet Fields’s life—outwardly, at least—doesn’t seem to have changed much. His only child, James, a New York investment banker, says, 'He’s not going to let what’s going on affect him.' Yet even some of Fields’s friends believe that he either knew the private detective’s methods or deliberately avoided knowing. Fields used to say of Pellicano, 'I got my guy on it,' one prominent friend recalls, adding, 'It appeals to those in show business to talk about Pellicano as if he had ‘connections’ or extra special power.' A grand jury has been impanelled since February, 2005, but Fields has never been summoned to testify, which could suggest that the prosecution case is weak—or that the prosecutor and the grand jury are just accumulating evidence."

..."When asked if it frustrates him to be silenced, [Fields] says, without hesitation, 'Oh, yeah. If it were a case that I was trying, I’d be all over the press, all over everything. That’s my style. But I have very good counsel in this case, and I’m going to follow him.' As for the specifics of the case, Fields won’t go beyond his public comment, which is that he had 'no knowledge' of wiretapping and would never condone it. There is a five-year statute of limitations for wiretapping crimes, and for some of the cases in which Fields may be implicated the limit was due to expire in March. At the request of the U.S. Attorney, he has three times consented to extend the deadline. For a prosecutor, it means more time to gather evidence; for a potential target who wants to avoid the ruinous spectre of an indictment, it shows a willingness to cooperate. In early May, Fields believed that the case would either collapse or lead to formal charges by the end of that month. In mid-July, though, he said that he still wasn’t sure of his status; his lawyer, John Keker, who had been talking regularly with prosecutors, had not heard from the government since May 3rd. 'The first time the F.B.I. came to my office was three years ago,' Fields told me. 'I talked to the agents voluntarily. I had nothing to hide. For the succeeding three years, I’ve been a subject of their inquiry.'"

..."It’s very hard on my wife. When the United States government says to you, ‘We think we may have evidence to put your husband in jail for a long, long time,’ to a woman who loves her husband that’s a frightening, horrible concept. How would she not be tortured by that? ... I don’t pretend it’s easy,” he said, “but when you saw this lovely woman you’ve been married to for twenty-seven years'—his voice broke [Fields is talking about his first wife]— 'slowly die of cancer, nothing after that is hard. This is easy compared to that.' His eyes filled with tears."

..."When I asked Fields if he had learned anything from this ordeal, his reply seemed somewhat labored. ' I have to go back in time to answer that question,” he said. “When I was in the service, I prosecuted high-profile military cases. I had the attitude of a prosecutor: I wanted to get these people and convict them because I was convinced that they had betrayed their ;trust as officers or airmen. I felt imbued with a spirit of defending the country. So I understand what the mentality must be of a young prosecutor, having been one myself. But having now seen what it’s like to be on the other end of that huge force that is the United States government when one is not guilty, it brings a kind of sense of completion to my understanding of the criminal process. By that I mean I saw what it was like to want to convict as a prosecutor, and I see what it is like to myself and my family and my partners to be accused of something I didn’t do, and to have to fight the power of the United States government.'”

..."Even if Fields is not indicted, people who have followed the case and his career  will undoubtedly continue to ask what he knew about Pellicano’s services and what he should have known, and how, as one prominent Hollywood lawyer said to me, “smart people could be so stupid.” One Fields client, insisting on anonymity, suggested that Fields’s competitiveness is at the root of his legal problems."

..."Finally, I asked Fields if he was angry at Pellicano. 'Sure, I’m pissed off at him,' he said, and then his tone shifted: 'I know the pressures he had. He would call me and say, ‘Can’t you get me any work?’ His expenses were enormous. It’s inexcusable. But I can’t be too hard on Anthony Pellicano. This is a guy who did good work for us.'”

OvitzCA.JPGOVITZ

..."Ovitz works in a one-story concrete building—a former film-production studio— that sits like a bunker on a quiet Santa Monica street. Exposed pipes traverse the high ceiling; a collection of contemporary German art fills the walls. When he worked in Beverly Hills, at the I. M. Pei-designed C.A.A. headquarters that he commissioned, he wore charcoal suits, white shirts, and Hermès ties. One day in May, he greeted me wearing a black Nike T-shirt, jeans, and gray sneakers without socks; his chestnut hair nearly touched his shoulders. Ovitz, who refuses to discuss his current activities in any detail, has about fifteen employees, who manage his art, his business ventures in real estate and finance, and a Japanese restaurant he owns, Hamasaku, in West L.A. He plans to open another restaurant later this year."

..."'I don’t think anybody knew what this guy was doing, because this guy traded in information,' Ovitz said of Pellicano, picking up a basketball and pacing slowly. 'That’s what he did. I used to watch Perry Mason reruns all the time. There was this guy who’s a private detective, Paul, and he always came in at the last minute and slipped a note to Perry Mason in court at the most critical time. So now I say to myself, ‘Let’s see here, did Perry Mason ask Paul how he got that information?’ Don’t think so. ‘Did Paul get it all legally?’ Don’t know. ‘Was it just a blank slip of paper?’ Probably. That’s more than I ever got. But, whichever it was, it sure seemed to save the day for poor Perry.” Ovitz said that he couldn’t speak for others, but that Pellicano 'didn’t produce anything for us to even ask about. The lawyers hired him. We got nothing, zippo.' Ellis and Ovitz declined to say what they wanted to learn from Pellicano, or whether Ovitz had hired Pellicano to pursue Anita Busch. “To me—this is going to sound really stupid—but the couple of times I met him he seemed really out of shape. He was just a regular-looking middle aged man. He didn’t look like those imposing guys on ‘The Sopranos’ or in ‘The Godfather.’ ”

..."Press accounts have suggested that Ovitz is being investigated in the wiretap scandal. Ovitz says that the stories about him 'are basically not accurate. The one 'article that surprised me was the Ron Meyer article,' he said, a reference to a New York that Meyer had visited Pellicano in  prison and 'urged Mr. Pellicano to ‘drop a dime on’ Mr. Ovitz.' Nothing, he believes, could have justified his former partner in urging Pellicano to claim that he had done something criminal."

..."Ovitz and his lawyers are aware that he still has enemies in Hollywood. 'I think that what I’ve learned at this stage of my life is that if I could do it again I’d absolutely do it differently,' Ovitz says. 'But being in the agency business and starting a business at age twenty-six and building everything from scratch, I was as tough as I felt I needed to be, and probably tougher than I should have been.' Hatred of Ovitz seems undiminished by time. One major Hollywood figure says, 'If Ovitz gets indicted, there will be parties. It will be the end of a Shakespearean tale.'"

Camp Allen Photo Album: #3

Photo"Ron Meyer was here a whole eight hours, and he didn't kiss my ring?" 

 

Terry Semel, CEO and chairman of Yahoo!, Inc., heads toward a morning session, Thursday.

 

Photo"I'm ignoring you, Mike. I'm not looking at you, Mike. Move along, Mike."

Harvey Weinstein, left, of The Weinstein Company, walks with Michael Ovitz as they head to a morning session, Thursday.

 

Photo"My main qualification to run Sony? They're short like you and I can squash them all like bugs." 

Martin Sorrell, left, group chief executive of WPP Group, walks with Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony Corp., on the way to a morning session, Thursday. 

 

Photo"Yes, it's true: I'm that cheap." 

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., leaves with computer equipment given away at the morning session, Wednesday. 

 

Photo"Now that I'm the part-owner of Univision, I'm dressing like Erik Estrada." 

 

Haim Saban, left, chairman and CEO of Saban Capital Group, Inc., arrives with wife Cheryl, Wednesday. 

 

Photo"So, Sydney, how gay is Tom Cruise anyway?" 

 

Jack Valenti, left, former chairman and CEO of the Motional Picture Association of America, Inc., arrives with producer/director Sydney Pollack, Wednesday. 

 

Camp Allen Photo Album: #1

Photo"Brad, I'll vouch that you never knew Pellicano. Hell, I'll vouch that you never knew Brillstein..."

 

Jim Wiatt, left, CEO of William Morris Agency Inc, hugs Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount, Friday.

Photo"Is there anything in my teeth? I just ate my young."

 

Richard Lovett, president of Creative Artists Agency, arrives, Friday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo"Herbert requested I leave the leather chaps back in my room."

 

Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of InterActive Corp., returns by bicycle after changing into shorts, Friday. Photo

"I may be retired, but at exactly 3 p.m. today, I'm gonna fire Mike Ovitz all over again -- just for the hell of it."

 

Michael Eisner, left, former chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Co., checks his watch as he heads to a morning session with wife Jane, Friday.

Photo"See, I am qualified to run Disney. I've got Keira Knightley as the screensaver on my cell phone."

 

Bob Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Co., gives a wave as he arrives, Friday.

 

Photo"Jeffrey, I can't sell Paramount for you. You don't own it. It owns you."

 

Herbert Allen, of Allen & Co., left, walks with Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation, Friday.

 

EXCLUSIVE: LA Times Deliberately Ignored Key Facts in Meyer/Garvey Story

 
The Los Angeles Times deliberately withheld key facts from last Saturday's incendiary article, FBI Hears Pellicano Threat, based on a 1988 Malibu sheriff's report filed about an altercation between Hollywood mogul Ron Meyer and his long-ago girlfriend Cyndy Garvey. As a result, the paper wrote a biased and inaccurate account of what happened between them. I have asked editor Dean Baquet for comment.

Specifically, I have discovered that the newspaper chose not to publish that Garvey has accused four ex-boyfriends of domestic violence against her. In each case, her allegations of domestic violence took place after the men had broken off their romantic relationships with her; her charges were dismissed or recanted or not pursued by her or authorities. (Also during this time, Garvey dated CNN talk show host Larry King, but she ended the relationship. She never publicly accused him of inappropriate behavior towards her.) In one situation, after Santa Monica restaurateur Hans Rockenwagner ended a romance with her, Garvey instigated a six-month police probe into his activities only to admit she had lied to authorities. In 1996, the Santa Monica district attorney wound up charging Garvey with five counts of filing false police reports. Even her own lawyer said she had "lost her mind." Admitting she was suffering from depression and abusing prescription drugs to the point where she threatened suicide, Garvey sought mental health treatment. Later, Rockenwagner sued her for stalking and harassing him and won his case. Another ex-flame, LAPD officer Kelly Chrisman, ended a romance with Garvey only to find himself accused of assaulting her as well as facing an LAPD investigation into Garvey's claims that he had illegally used police computers to look up confidential law enforcement data on scores of celebrities. Chrisman ended up suing Garvey (who by then had gone back to using her maiden name Truhan) for defamation and invasion of privacy; the case was settled shortly before it was set to go to trial. In a strange twist, that 2003 settlement was announced to the press by Garvey's then fiance, the prominent and wealthy Los Angeles businessman Robert Lorsch. But after Lorsch broke off his engagement to her, Garvey this year filed a lawsuit against him asking for a temporary restraining order because of alleged domestic violence. The TRO was quickly dismissed. (She sued under the name "Cynthia Truhan.")

Some of the above has been published in the pages of the LA Times over the years, so I was shocked that Saturday's article did not even mention in passing any of these pertinent facts. Instead, Garvey was allowed to describe unchallenged her version of events surrounding a struggle that took place outside Meyer's Malibu home in 1988. In light of Garvey's legal and emotional problems, her claims against Meyer should have been examined with a great deal of skepticism, if published at all. Not only did the LA Times have three reporters on the Meyer-Garvey story, including Pulitzer prizewinner Chuck Philips, but also its investigative editor Vernon Loeb. But sources tell me that Loeb and reporter Kim Christensen arrogantly explained to a spokesperson at Universal Studios, where Meyer has been president and COO since 1995, that they knew some of this backstory about Garvey but deliberately decided not to publish it. "Words like 'not important' or 'not relevant' or 'not germaine' all were used," a studio insider told me. "I was shocked." The reporter and editor also said they would only include the Garvey backstory if Meyer gave them an on-the-record statement, which he refused to do, I'm told. Yet, a reporter for a different media outlet simultaneously received the same 1988 Malibu Sheriff's report and did cast doubt on Garvey's truthfulness in his online story, Hollywood Scandal: Was Studio Exec's History an Issue?, a day earlier. "But Garvey is not a reliable witness: she's been involved in several domestic abuse claims over the last 20 years, some resulting in litigation," wrote Fox 411 entertainment writer Roger Friedman last Friday. "She's also been the subject of two damaging magazine articles that outline her odd behavior. A Los Angeles magazine story called 'Look Who's Stalking' detailed her contentious relationship with a Los Angeles restaurateur. She wound up paying him $25,000 when he sued her for harassment."

In actuality, the 1988 Malibu sheriff's report about the Meyer/Garvey altercation was not secret. Its details were printed in March 1992 by Spy magazine. By then, the original police report had mysteriously disappeared from the department files, but I know that Garvey gave a copy to her then boyfriend, who worked at a rival Hollywood talent agency and who leaked the report to Spy in hopes of embarrassing CAA, where Meyer at the time was president, partner and co-founder. For this sheriff's report to come out now, 18 years later, is suspect at best. I'm told that the Malibu sheriff's report was sent to both the LA Times and Friedman, who both got in touch with Garvey. I can only surmise it was with the intent of embarrassing Meyer by trying to draw a connection between that 1988 incident and the reason for his friendship and jail visits with Anthony Pellicano, the disgraced P.I. who is at the center of that widening federal wiretap scandal.

I can personally attest that Garvey has now changed some of her version of the Meyer altercation and its aftermath because I interviewed her extensively about it in the early 1990s. Some background: This is far from a new story to me. Actually, I investigated the heck out of it for an ill-fated book I was writing and interviewed Garvey, Meyer, her attorney at the time Mark Gottesman, his attorney at the time Howard Weitzman, and even the assistant district attorney. Over the years, I met both Rockenwagner and Chrisman in Garvey's home when they were romantically involved with her. It was therefore with immense surprise that I heard and read about what subsequently transpired between her and those boyfriends.

Cyndy Garvey, for those who don’t know her, was the ex-wife of famous Dodger first baseman Steve Garvey. The quintessential American blonde, she came into the public eye through a then famous Sports Illustrated magazine article that presented the golden couple's marriage as tarnished. After she left the ballplayer, she began a TV career, eventually landing a co-anchor job opposite Regis Pilbin on WABC’s Good Morning, New York. Almost overnight, she became a New York celebrity and a fixture on the social circuit with boyfriend Marvin Hamlish, the composer. But by the mid-1980s she was out of a job, and moved back to Los Angeles with her two daughters. In 1986, she began dating Meyer. I was told the two fell head over heels for one another, and Garvey became part of the agent’s tightknit circle of friends and family. Even though they did not live together, they both lived in Malibu and their lives intertwined. She accompanied the agent to premieres and agency events, she entertained clients with him, and she traveled extensively with him, just like one of “the wives.” Some friends thought they would marry; others did not because they told me Meyer was increasingly upset by Garvey's frequent temper tantrums.

There would be two versions of what happened in the early morning hours of October 27, 1988. According to Garvey, she and Meyer were still dating when she drove her Mercedes out to his Malibu Cove home about 1 a.m. because she suspected he was cheating on her. Meyer maintained he had already broken off the relationship with Garvey but she couldn't accept it. He claimed she was stalking him that evening he spent with a woman friend before he left for a scheduled business trip to New York. (They both agree on the woman's identity: Stephanie Haymes, then the maitre d’ at Le Dome and the daughter of crooner Dick Haymes.) An altercation ensued. Each later accused the other of starting the fight. Garvey said Meyer was furious and shouted, “This relationship’s over when I say it’s over!” Meyer said a jealous Garvey became hysterical and began flailing at him. According to Garvey, Meyer threw her against the side of her car, grabbed her around the throat and hit her several times, causing her to lose consciousness "for a while.” Meyer insists that Garvey was beating on him with her fists and became injured when he tried to restrain her and inadvertently slapped her on the side of the head. Both agree there were three witnesses to the scene: Haymes and two security guards assigned to Meyer’s neighbor, businessman Bilal Baroody. (Yes, this is the same Baroody who had asked for and received a $300,000 loan from Meyer a year earlier. Later, Meyer retained Pellicano to collect the unpaid debt.) Garvey described feeling dazed. Meyer recalled she was hysterical still. It was decided that Baroody’s guard would drive Garvey home in Baroody’s limo, and Meyer would follow in Garvey’s Mercedes and then return back to his house in the limo. Garvey told the LA Times she'd been "knocked out" and "when she came to, she had been driven back to her home in Baroody's limousine." But Garvey told me that she was conscious before, during and after the limo ride to her home. 

That morning, Garvey filed a complaint for “spousal assault” with the LA County Sheriff’s department in Malibu. The time of the Malibu sheriff’s complaint was recorded as 03:28 a.m., October 27, 1988. In it, the sergeant noted “that the victim’s left eye was swollen and bruised. The left side of her jaw and cheek was (sic) swollen and she appeared to be having trouble talking. Her neck and throat was (sic) red and swollen. I also saw a bruise on her right arm on the triceps area. The victim also complained of pain in her upper and lower back, her neck, ringing in her left ear, and a severe headache." Whether the fight took place exactly as Garvey described it, or exactly as Meyer described it, was not determined in the report because the officers never spoke to Meyer. But Meyer to this day maintains that all three witnesses supported his account of what took place.

The next day, before flying to New York, Meyer phoned his partner Michael Ovitz to say what had happened. Garvey told me that Ovitz subsequently called her and said, “It would be in the best interest of everyone involved if you did not talk about this.” However, according to the LA Times, "the day after the attack, she said, she was awakened early in the morning by an anonymous caller whose voice she did not recognize. 'If you pursue this, it would not be good for you.'" But not once did Garvey ever tell me about receiving this or any anonymous phone call. Only Ovitz's. Meyer, meanwhile, maintains that Ovitz never phoned Garvey but says Garvey phoned Ovitz in the middle of the night. Garvey told me she called Mark Gottesman, a criminal attorney in Santa Monica, about what had happened. With Garvey’s permission, I spoke to Gottesman years ago who told me “she felt intimidated" so he advised her not to take any more calls from Ovitz. Meyer and Garvey spoke briefly about the incident as well; Meyer maintains he told her he couldn't believe what had happened outside his home. She says she hung up on him.

Gottesman told me he phoned Mike Ovitz who said his partner never assaulted Cyndy, the whole incident was made up, and “Cyndy is a sick person.” But neither Meyer nor Ovitz knew Garvey had filed a police report. “I didn’t know I was in trouble," Meyer told me years before. "Mike called me to say a sheriff had come to the office. He said to me, ‘I’ve hired Howard Weitzman.'” At the time, Weitzman knew Ovitz well because the lawyer had helped numerous CAA clients get out of scrapes with the law. By his own account to me, Weitzman played hardball with Garvey's attorney. At the time, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case, Jay Lipman, had still not decided whether to file official charges against the agent. Weitzman lobbied Lipman heavily not to file. What Weitzman was using for ammunition were statements from the three witnesses which he said corroborated Meyer's account of that night. Meyer told me that only recently did he find out from Weitzman that the lawyer had hired Pellicano to interview those witnesses.

Weitzman told Gottesman what a “troubled, troubled lady” Garvey was, that he thought her injuries appeared self-inflicted, and that he believed Garvey was looking to be bought off. Gottesman told me he denied to Weitzman that money was ever an issue. But both Gottesman and Weitzman understood that if Garvey pressed criminal charges, in the end it would be her, and not Meyer, who would be on trial. Garvey told me she still had hopes of restarting her entertainment career so she decided to back off. “Our deal was I would drop charges if they agreed never to slander me.” she told me. Meyer said he was told only that Lipman saw the reports from the three witnesses and declined to file charges. But once Garvey wouldn't pursue her criminal complaint against Meyer, the deputy D.A. didn't file charges. The incident was dropped as if it had never happened.

 

 

NYT on Ron Meyer/Pellicano Friendship

So tomorrow The New York Times' Pellicano probers focus on Universal Studios prez/COO Ron Meyer in their latest article. Not any wrongdoing by him, mind you, just his friendship and visits in prison with Anthony Pellicano. I'm not sure if the paper is trying to infer guilt by association, or to imply Meyer has something to hide, or to merely write something about the Pellicano case even if this angle hardly warrants a story worthy of the front page of the Business section. The only juicy stuff is about Ovitz, Pellicano and Meyer, but to be interested in that you'd have to know (and care) about the background of Meyer's and Ovitz's ruptured friendship. In any case, it's an awfully long article for mostly old news (some of which was already reported by the Los Angeles Times. Yes, the LAT!). I'm told the NYT only did the piece after last week's release of the Vanity Fair article and my posting here that Meyer was the unnamed "studio president" who donated to Pellicano's kids when almost everyone else in Hollywood backed away from the fund-raising effort after allegations about the P.I.'s wiretapping hit the headlines. ("Studio Prez" Unnamed by VF/Pellicano Is Ron Meyer). I've learned Meyer was pissed that the paper was writing about him. That's also clear from Ron's angry quotes. "Meyer bridled at being asked by reporters about his relationship with Pellicano. 'I'm offended that my friendship would be questioned,' he said on Saturday." Meyer also wouldn't apologize. "Asked by reporters to explain his repeat visits to Pellicano behind bars, Meyer said: 'I visited him because he's my friend, and I don't have anything to hide. And when he's able to have visitors, I'll go visit him again."

So what's old news and new news?

1. It's old news that Meyer saw the P.I. in prison, once at the San Bernadino County Jail, and twice making the 120-mile trek from Malibu to the Taft, Ca., minimum-security federal prison where Pellicano was jailed on weapons charges. "When the FBI agents asked Meyer why 'a man such as himself' would drive so far to see Pellicano, Meyer said it was to keep a promise." The NYT noted high up that, "Nowhere has Meyer's name been associated with even a whiff of impropriety." Yet the paper seems to slam Meyer for his loyalty. "The relationship between the detective and the studio chief holds a lesson about doing business in Hollywood, where loyalty holds an exalted value, and where an executive who expects to survive at the top must be able to open a window on the industry's seamy underworld without tumbling through." Huh? Does anyone else find that sentence, and its oblique Alice in Wonderland reference, incredibly confusing?

2. It's old news that Meyer was called in to talk to the FBI and a grand jury about Pellicano and Ovitz, Meyer's partner at CAA. But the NYT does have "evidence and interviews with agents" with new info showing that the feds were eavesdropping on a conversation Meyer had with the imprisoned Pellicano urging the P.I. to "drop a dime on" Ovitz. That's certainly titillating to Hollywood insiders, considering the bitter breakup between Ovitz and Meyer, once lifelong pals and partners. "Meyer was asked about that remark before the grand jury, where a tape of the conversation was played. Meyer, the person said, testified that he told the detective that Ovitz would not have hesitated to turn on Pellicano if the roles were reversed." But it's old news that Pellicano asked Meyer's permission to take on Ovitz as a client. Without naming Meyer, I reported a similar account in my LA Weekly March 15 column (Two Tonys Is One Too Many for Mogul). The NYT has Meyer's account to the FBI. "Pellicano asked Meyer in early 2002 whether taking Ovitz as a client would affect his relationship with Meyer. Meyer said Pellicano was free to work for Ovitz, but assailed Ovitz's integrity, saying that 'Ovitz was capable of anything.'" In my story, Ovitz was a "scumbag."

3. It's old news that Meyer met Pellicano through his wife Kelly who briefly worked as a typist in the detective's office in the late 1980s. It's new that Meyer acknowledged to the FBI that he had once retained Pellicano to collect a $300,000 debt from a neighbor, and that Pellicano later asked Meyer for a personal loan of $100,000, which Ron gave him.

4. It's old news now, as even the NYT admits, that in early 2003 Meyer was asked by Bert Fields to give money to a trust for Pellicano's family. Meyer agreed to help, and "offered to call potential donors, with the idea of raising $100,000 to $120,000, he told the agents. Meyer told the FBI that he contacted several people suggested by Pellicano, but the effort -- a version of which is reported in the June issue of Vanity Fair -- collapsed when only one other man made a donation." As I reported last week, that other donor was Madonna's former manager, Freddie DeMann. About the only thing new added by the NYT is that Pellicano insisted that the money be returned.

VF: Ovitz Was Pellicano's Most VIP Client

A former Pelican employee tells Vanity Fair that Pellicano had done personal work for Ovitz since at least 1996. “When Ovitz was leaving Disney,” this employee says, “he became Anthony’s biggest interest, meaning most important client. They were good friends and would speak to each other on a daily basis. Ovitz would often come to the office, and Anthony helped him set up his office. It went on for months, with Anthony going out to Ovitz’s almost daily. Anthony helped install the security and phone systems at Ovitz’s office.”

NYT's New Pellicano Blockbuster Exposes Brad Grey and Mike Ovitz

In a blockbuster story for Friday's edition, The New York Times accesses "government evidence" and "FBI files" that Brad Grey and Mike Ovitz "had far more direct dealings than they have publicly acknowledged" with Pellicano. The story drags the current chairman of Paramount Pictures (Grey) and the ex-Most Powerful Man in Hollywood (Ovitz) further into the Pellicano case with way more detail about what both men have reportedly told the FBI. The paper reports that Grey changed his account of events from one July 2003 interview with the FBI to another January 2004 FBI interview. It says Ovitz admitted to the FBI "he asked Pellicano for embarrassing information about 15 to 20 people who were affecting his plans to sell the business," including Ron Meyer, David Geffen, Bernie Weinraub, and Anita Busch. The paper also says authorities are "circling" Bert Fields and the wiretapping scandal is "rapidly expanding."

This article by David M. Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner will send shockwaves through Hollywood.

Back on March 15th, in my LA Weekly column, I raised the issue of whether Grey and Ovitz were suffering from what I called "Pellicano amnesia" because I knew of direct contact between them and the thug detective. Now the NYT gets down to it. The NYT reports tomorrow that "Grey told the FBI he spoke with Anthony Pellicano about two lawsuits in which Pellicano, a private detective, was working on Grey's behalf, and that he learned information about his legal opponents directly from Pellicano." The paper identified those legal opponents as Garry Shandling and Bo Zenga. From the FBI interviews described by the NYT, Grey claims it was Fields who hired Pellicano to investigate a rumor that ex-client Garry Shandling had a drug dependency as well as look into a media leak of legal documents to a magazine. All this took place while Fields was defending Grey in that Shandling lawsuit against him. The paper further states that Grey told the FBI that "Fields and Pellicano shared a 'key relationship' ... and that Mr. Pellicano was 'part of Fields' team.'"

The NYT goes on to report that a former employee of Pellicano's "separately told the FBI that Grey had met with the detective at least five times." Of course, "publicly," the paper points out, "Grey has said he was only 'casually acquainted' with Pellicano and that his lawyers were responsible for hiring and overseeing the detective." Ovitz, too, has publicly pinned contact with Pellicano on lawyers. But the NYT says Ovitz has "acknowledged to the FBI that he paid Pellicano in April or May of 2002 to obtain information on 15 to 20 people who were saying negative things about him. They included former business associates and Bernard Weinraub, then a reporter for The New York Times who was reporting on the demise of a management company Ovitz had put together after he left Disney, and Anita Busch, a freelance reporter who wrote with Weinraub." Also on the list were Ovitz's perceived nemeses Ron Meyer, Ovitz's former CAA partner and now president/COO of Universal Studios, and Geffen, a partner in Dreamworks.

It's important to note, as the paper does, that both men say they are witnesses in the probe, not targets, and they have not admitted to knowing about Pellicano's wiretapping. Ovitz's lawyer denied to the NYT that the CAA co-founder and ex-Disney president "had given Pellicano a list of anyone to investigate other than people who had sued him." But neither Weinraub, Busch, Meyer or Geffen had ever sued Ovitz. If Pellicano "went out and used illegal means to get information that he thought would impress Mr. Ovitz, that was not done with Mr. Ovitz's knowledge and consent," the lawyer told the NYT, adding that Ovitz "had consistently 'maintained he did not authorize Pellicano to wiretap anyone.'"

There's much more, but these are the pertinent details. Stay tuned.

Hollywood Art: Rodriguez Paints Hayek

TerraNostra_rev02_edited.jpgI'm told that not even Robert Rodriguez's ICM agent Robert Newman knew the film director was "working like a madman until the wee hours" on a series of giant paintings of actress Salma Hayek (see left) with muralist George Yepes. Because the multitalented Rodriguez is so quiet about all the projects he's involved in, Newman was amazed to read about the joint exhibition "Solamente Salma" unveiling tomorrow at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center in San Antonio, Texas. According to the article by Hector Saldana in the San Antonio Express-News, Rodriguez recently started production in Austin on his latest movie, the horror flick he's making with Quentin Tarantino called Grind House (supposedly a double feature), and found slapping paint on canvas was "relaxing." Yepes taught Rodriguez how to paint.

In an email interview, Rodriguez told the newspaper that painting is a lot like moviemaking in that "you're telling a story visually. I had always loved [George Yepes painting] so much that Sony Pictures gave me a cerograph after I did Desperado. I hung that on my wall at home. That was the only art that I owned that I displayed and really liked." So six years ago, Rodriguez sought him out. "It was actually George's idea to use Salma because he had done a couple of paintings of her for my movies and he thought that would be a good connection since I've worked with her five or six times already ... Because she is sort of an iconic image of a Mexican woman and a strong independent successful professional and an artist in her own right ... She heard about it and was very thrilled that we'd do this and that proceeds could go to her favorite charity." 

Also, Part 2 of the Ovitz Family Foundation's exhibition opens April 11 at the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. This sequel features photography by Gregory Crewdson and Candida Hofer. The gallery notes say that while Crewdson stages elaborate, Hollywood-scale environments that are captured in individual images, Hofer by contrast isolates aspects of existing environments, exposing their enigmatic qualities. Before you go, read my November 17, 2005, column about how Ovitz helped change the art world for the worse with the same ruthless tactics he’d used to rule Hollywood. 

Remember, the ACE Gallery/Los Angeles still has on view that first comprehensive installation of actor-director Dennis Hopper's L.A.-inspired paintings and photographs through July 1 before it moves to Paris.

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