BEWARE the shark that offers a fin in greeting. “Is that rain or sweat?” asks
Jim Wiatt, grasping my hand. His smile is cheery but the shiny teeth behind
do look a little threatening.
Admire him while you can — Hollywood super-agents don’t often come up for air.
Wiatt, chief executive of the William Morris Agency (WMA), America’s oldest
and biggest talent-representation business, usually operates well below the
media radar.
He’ll be taking his seat at the Oscar awards ceremony tonight, hoping his
client Forest Whitaker pulls off that best actor award. But don’t expect the
camera to catch him, because good agents, like PR men, never come between
their clients and the limelight.
And few come any bigger than Los Ange-les-born Wiatt, whose agency jostles
with a clutch of others — CAA, Endeavor, ICM and UTA — to represent
Hollywood’s best-known writers, directors and stars. To describe Wiatt as
well connected would be somewhat understating things.
“Jim’s tough, but he never loses his sense of humour,” says Jeffrey
Katzenberg, the American boss of Dreamworks and producer of Shrek. Bob Iger,
chief executive of Walt Disney, describes him as “a student of the business,
who always behaves well”. They both called me last week from Hollywood to
tell me so — at Wiatt’s request.
When we met, on a rainy afternoon in London’s Soho, Wiatt was passing through
to attend our Bafta awards. “More fun than the Oscars. Much looser,” he says
graciously.
In fact, despite the stories about the cutthroat nature of Hollwood agents —
just watch the hit American television series Entourage, about an
up-and-coming actor and his ruthless representative — thrice-married Wiatt
is a charmer to meet.
Tanned and trim, wearing an immaculate dark suit, red tie and white shirt, he
also looks considerably younger than his 60 years. He could be the actor
Robert Lind-say’s tighter-skinned kid brother.
He’s here to talk because WMA wants to handle more than just “talent” now.
Under Wiatt, it has started a drive to sign up major corporations as clients
— it has already got 33, including General Motors (GM), Anheuser-Busch,
Starbucks and MySpace. In London, where it runs an office representing the
European interests of its American clients and the American interests of
European clients, it has signed up Chelsea Football Club. It is keen for
more.
Wiatt’s pitch is this: as media converge, the talent agencies are well
positioned to broker the new opportunities beckoning. Hollywood remains the
hub for the global entertainment business. It means that WMA, 109 years old,
can now put together deals, bring money into productions, advise on rights,
and fix agreements at many different levels.
Wiatt says he sees the company “mor-phing into more of an entertainment
business”, and becoming “a gatekeeper of intellectual property”. For his
corporate clients, that can mean an introduction to the Hollywood elite and
“early access” to a raft of projects that they can back, or tie their
products into.
“The world is changing so fast,” says Wiatt. “This is not celebrity-driven,
this is idea-driven. It’s about how to have a greater impact, to be more
involved with intellectual property. You can see that already a lot of
corporations are doing that. There are so many opportunities . . .”
But doesn’t advising “big corporates” bring WMA into competition with the
vastly bigger marketing groups that already service the sector? Wiatt grins.
Not competition, he says — partnership.
“Any idea of us being in the branding business, how to market things and make
them more powerful — yeah, it’s certainly something we are suited to do,” he
says. “But I’d rather do it with groups like WPP than without them. We don’t
need to be adversarial.”
Groups like WPP are already on the case. WPP chief executive Sir Martin
Sorrell says he has just done a deal with WMA’s rival Endeavor and others to
buy the rights to Sasha Baron Cohen’s next movie, Bruno, and sell them on to
Universal Studios. Sorrell says he can see why Wiatt wants to diversify this
way.
“Jim’s personable and aggressive and works very hard for his clients,” says
Sorrell. “But the issue with the agency business is: how do you scale it?”
WMA is privately owned — Wiatt is its biggest shareholder — and doesn’t
release figures. It is thought to have revenues of about $240m (£122m).
Pushing up income by bringing together corporate cash and intellectual
property makes sense.
But won’t there be conflicts of interest? Wiatt cites GM’s backing of John
Travolta’s film Be Cool — in return the star posed in character for
automobile ads. What if clients wonder whose interests come first?
Wiatt shrugs. Deals can work well for all parties. “We just join the dots.”
But might corporate clients not be put off by the reputation of Hollywood
agents? It’s a rough world; client-poaching and backstab-bing are
commonplace. When a star can make $20m a movie and an agent takes 10%,
tempers often get frayed. It’s a long way from the tweedy world of agents in
Britain.
Yeah, Hollywood can be rough, he concedes. Anything is negotiable. But clients
can behave just as ruthlessly. Wiatt, who used to work at ICM, still
personally handles actor Tommy Lee Jones, director Ridley Scott and musician
Willie Nelson, but WMA was dropped by actress Halle Berry two years ago
after details of her financial demands were revealed in a press interview.
Wiatt pulls a face. “Sometimes the client doesn’t even ring you. They get a
lawyer to send a letter. It hurts.”
Bossing other agents can be even rougher. Wiatt has a reputation as a stickler
for detail. He also has his quirks. He recently outlawed dress-down chic for
WMA staff, and he hates beards and designer stubble.
But he likes to be liked — which is smart, when at any moment key earners
could walk out the door, taking clients with them. The results can be
severe. In an episode of Entourage, pushy agent Ari is caught plotting a
breakaway from his agency and immediately locked out of his office, his
mobile phone cut off, his car impounded.
Does that really happen? Wiatt gives me a cool look. Ari was based on
real-life agent Ari Emanuel, who did just such a flit from Wiatt at ICM in
1995 to set up Endeavor. This being Hollywood, the series Entourage was put
together by Emanuel and his client, actor Mark Wahlberg.
“It doesn’t happen with offices being locked and phones switched off,” says
Wiatt tersely. “It happens with people leaving in the middle of the night
taking belongings that are company property, and being caught by security
guards, so stories can get a little bit reversed. But I don’t watch
Entourage — I suspect it’s more of a cartoon version of what goes on.”
It’s all a long way from his original ambition to work in politics. Born in
Los Angeles to liberal activist parents who ran a garment business, Wiatt
volunteered for Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1968 after
college. He was in the Los Angeles hotel where Kennedy was shot — the
subject of a recent film, Bobby, handled by WMA.
He later worked for Senator John Tunney, before quitting politics
disillusioned by Watergate. After a year off “trying to figure out what to
do”, he took a job at a small talent agency representing television writers,
and found he loved it. By 1980 he was working in ICM’s movie division.
Is he an agent who wishes he was an actor? “No,” he says. “I just like the
business side of it.”
On the way up, he says, he witnessed all the things sharp-toothed agents are
reputed to do: targeting insecure stars, whispering in their ears, telling
them their current representation is lousy, promising them an Oscar.
“Yeah, everything. It’s the yin and yang of this job. It’s the least tasteful
part of it.”
He left ICM in 1999 to head WMA “because it was an extraordinary opportunity”.
WMA was the oldest but stodgiest of the big talent agencies, sitting on
valuable real estate in Beverly Hills, but needing a kick-start to rebuild
its business. Wiatt has provided it, widening its interests, and
capitalising on its strengths abroad.
In London, where its European arm is now run by Caroline Michel, formerly at
Harper-Collins, it will shortly move into refurbished offices in the
Centrepoint building, with a newly expanded music division. It also has an
office in Shanghai. The glamorous Michel points out that it is the only
agency to offer clients a global reach across so many different fields.
In Hollywood, Wiatt keeps a tight grip on his ties to the top. He was
instrumental in negotiating the exit of Miramax founders Bob and Harvey
Weinstein from Walt Disney two years ago. He is respected for his pragmatic
touch. “Jim’s easy to reach, he’s easy to reason with as well,” says
Disney’s Iger pointedly.
But if WMA wants to expand, why not just buy another of the Big Five agencies?
Wiatt shakes his head. “We have fought hard to have a collaborative culture
that works well. To buy somebody else, they would have to have the same
culture, and that’s difficult. In future we are likely to do it just by
hiring new people.”
Anyway, time’s up, he’s got another meeting. He helps me on with my raincoat
and jokes that if he doesn’t like the photos we take of him, he’ll give my
proprietor a ring. Yeah, yeah, point taken. He knows everyone. Come to think
of it, he’s just the man to negotiate my next contract — fins and all.
JIM WIATT’S WORKING DAY
THE William Morris Agency chief executive wakes at 4.30am at his home in
Pacific Palisades and works out in his home gym, watching the television
news. Jim Wiatt then drives his daughters to school and is in his office in
Beverly Hills by 9am. “We have meetings every morning, different divisions,
it’s the best way to learn what’s happening.” Wiatt is continually pushing
his agents to communicate between disciplines, launching clients into new
fields. He always goes out to lunch and often dinner, too. “When I’m in
London I dine at The Ivy and there are equivalents in LA. You put on your
happy face.”
VITAL STATISTICS
Born: October 18, 1946
Marital status: married three times, two children
School: Beverly Hills High School
University: Southern California
First job: Senator’s aide
Salary package: undisclosed, estimated at $4m-plus
Home: Los Angeles
Car: black GM Saturn hybrid
Favourite book: Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow
Favourite music: Willie Nelson
Favourite film: ‘I’m too close to it to choose a favourite’
Favourite gadget: Blackberry
Last holiday: Barbados
DOWNTIME
JIM WIATT’s favourite hobby is playing paddle tennis — the outdoor beach game
played on concrete courts with soft balls. He will often play twice a
weekend. He also spends time overseeing the building of his new home in
Pacific Palisades, and a new eco-friendly HQ for William Morris Agency. His
wife, Elizabeth, 40, is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council,
the powerful eco-lobbying group. “Otherwise it’s just work, work, work,” he
says, although he does like going out to see movies. He doesn’t have a
screening room at home. “There’s something to be said for going with real
people. I like seeing the environment.”
Regarding JIM WIATT, yeah, well....so what is the story!!!!!
George, Helsinik, Finland