Creative Artists Agency
| CAA logo | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Talent and Literary Agencies |
| Founded | Beverly Hills, California, USA (1975) |
| Founder | Michael Ovitz  |
| Headquarters | Century City, Los Angeles, California (USA) |
Key people | Richard Lovett, President Kevin Huvane, Managing Partner |
| Website | Official Website |
Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is an entertainment and sports agency which represents a vast array of actors, musicians, writers, directors, and athletes, as well as a variety of companies.
History
CAA was founded in 1975 by five dissident talent agents employed by the William Morris Agency. Michael Ovitz, Ron Meyer, William Haber, Michael Rosenfeld, and Rowland Perkins met over dinner one night after they discovered that they all had in mind creating an agency of their own. As Ovitz reminisced in a 1985 New York Times article, 'We all sang the same tune, and we came out of that dinner with a clear understanding of how we were going to do it.' However, before they could obtain adequate financing for their new venture, they were fired.
By early 1975, Creative Artists Agency was in business, with a $35,000.00 line of credit and a $21,000.00 bank loan, in a small rented office outfitted with card tables and folding chairs. The five agents had only two cars among them, and their wives took turns as agency receptionist. Within about a week, according to one industry insider, they had sold their first three packages, a game show called 'Rhyme and Reason,' the 'Rich Little Show,' and the 'Jackson Five Show.'
At first, CAA's founders planned to form a medium-sized, full-service agency--one that was as unlike Morris as possible in approach and feel. Ovitz, who shortly assumed de facto leadership of the agency, described the company's corporate culture as a blend of Eastern philosophy and team sports. 'I liken myself to the guy running down the court with four other players and throwing the ball to the open guy,' he once said. Theirs was a relaxed partnership based on teamwork, with proceeds shared equally. Clients enjoyed the services of a number of agents because at CAA information was pooled. There were no nameplates on doors, no formal titles, no individual agent client lists. Work practices followed the company's two 'commandments': Be a team player and return phone calls promptly. There was an endless stream of meetings and talk. Because of this, others sometimes referred to CAA agents as the "Moonies" of the business, famous for 'walking in lock-step,' according to the authors of Hit and Run[1], the bestseller Hollywood insider account by Griffin and Masters.
Beverly Hills Building
By the mid 1980s, CAA had outgrown its leased office space and moved into their own, I.M. Pei designed building at the intersection of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards in Beverly Hills in 1989. The building was Pei's first work in the Los Angeles area and is considered one of his best buildings.[2]
Like most of I. M. Pei's work, the 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m2), 3 story building is a series of geometric forms: consisting of two curved wings, one mainly of glass and one mainly of masonry, set around a central atrium with a skylight that rises to become a low, conical glass tower.[2] The vast 57-foot (17 m) high atrium was designed as an art-filled formal reception hall with a 100-seat screening room and gourmet kitchen and displays a 27-foot (8.2 m) by 18-foot (5.5 m) mural by Roy Lichtenstein, "Bauhaus Stairway: The Large Version". The mural was created specifically for the building and is too large to move.[3] Ovitz was enamored of Asian culture, and incorporated feng shui design practices to allow chi, or positive energy, to flow smoothly through the building.[4]
The building became an icon in the entertainment industry because of its location in Beverly Hills and symbolized the power and influence CAA. Ovitz still owns the building along with three of his former CAA colleagues — Universal Studios President Ron Meyer, producer Bill Haber and former Chief Financial Officer Robert Goldman.[4]
Expansion
With its stable full of actors and about $90 million in annual bookings in the late 1980s, the agency, led by Ovitz, decided to get into movies. Its timing again was propitious, and its approach to the business inventive: CAA used its growing leverage to apply packaging to the movies. CAA's use of packaging changed the face of movie-making, making CAA increasingly powerful in the process.
Many studio heads, who did not like the way CAA made deals, insisting that along with desirable projects, studios also had to take 'the dogs.' Instead of the ten percent agents typically made on a contract, CAA insisted upon on a share in the product. Some, including former William Morris Agency agent David Geffen, blamed CAA in the press for throwing Hollywood's economy out of whack. Representing much of the major talent in the industry, CAA reputedly drove up salaries, and thus, the cost of making movies.
By the mid-1990s, CAA divided its agents into two camps: traditional agents, who oversaw the careers of CAA's 1,000 stars, and specialists, whose expertise in investment banking, consulting, and advertising made CAA into a one-stop shop for digital media. When Ron Meyer and Michael Ovitz left in 1995 for MCA and Disney respectively, the entertainment community watched to see if CAA would fall from the top.
New management
The new team headed by Richard Lovett, devised a four-point strategy for keeping competitors at bay during its transitional year: Make sure the 100-plus agents remain committed to the new CAA; re-sign longtime clients whose primary reltionship was with Ovitz or Meyer; sign up new clients; and put together new movies.
Ovitz, Meyer, and Haber's departure led inevitably to an exodus of some of CAA's top-marquee names, but CAA recovered and continues to be a leader in the entertainment industry. Recently, CAA decided to expand into sports. Athletes such as Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, and David Beckham and many agents from IMG have joined CAA to utilize their network in the advertising world.
After years in Beverly Hills, in January 2007 CAA moved to a new building in Century City, a district in Los Angeles. The new headquarters are sometimes referred to by those outside of CAA as "The Death Star"[5].
CAA is a private company, with annual revenues estimated to be between $250 and $300 million. CAA has offices in Los Angeles, CA; New York City, NY; Nashville, TN; London, England; Beijing, China; St. Louis, MO; Calgary, Alberta; and Stockholm, Sweden.
Notable people represented by CAA
Notes and references
- ^ Griffin N, Masters K (1996) Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood. (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-684-83266-6)
- ^ a b Goldberger, Paul (December 17, 1989), "Architecture View; Refined Modernism Makes A Splash In The Land Of Glitz", New York Times
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ "Creative Artists Agency". Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners website. Retrieved 2008-06-05.
- ^ a b Hoffman, Claire (May 30, 2006), "Temple of Talent Casts for a Tenant" (PDF), Los Angeles Times
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Evil Architectural Digest: 'W' Magazine Given Exclusive Photo-Tour Of The CAA Death Star