UPDATES Shame On Mike Ovitz…
This morning, Mike Ovitz tried to go through a NYC power publicist (Steven Rubenstein, who doesn’t rep him) to get back to me. But I needed to hear the words directly from MO’s mouth. So he just phoned me from a plane to explain why he was a no-show at Mike Rosenfeld Sr’s memorial service yesterday when the other CAA founding partners were in attendance:
“I’m calling you for a simple reason. I feel horrible. I swear to God I had no idea Mike passed away until someone read me your blog an hour ago. I had no idea. I’m mostly in New York. I don’t read the LA Times or the trades anymore. I only read your blog. (My hat’s off to you…).
“I know the guys [his 5 former CAA partners] have had issues with me. But between them and the current partners I didn’t hear one word, not even from their assistants. When Ray [Kurtzman] died, I wasn’t in the country. And when Mike died, I was in the Caribbean. But I was here in Los Angeles when the memorial took place and of course I would have gone. But no one had the courtesy to tell me about it. Nobody called me. Forget if they like me or don’t like me, it was common decency. This was a guy I spent 20 hours a day with. Call me, send me an email, I’m the most reachable guy on the planet.
“I swear to you no one invited me to something where hundreds of people went and I could have gone. It’s no secret they don’t like me. But I’m not going to die with a grudge or animus to my old partners. I’m happy for their success. But I care a lot about my children. And they hurt them. My son, the oldest one Christopher, called me about this.”
As you can see, some people never change.