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The Business

James Andrew Miller on 'Powerhouse,' an oral history of CAA

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6676 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

James Andrew Miller has worked on in-depth oral histories of Saturday Night Live and ESPN. His newest book Powerhouse, traces the history of CAA, the dominant, but secretive Hollywood talent agency. He tells us how he got notoriously press-shy agents, including Michael Ovitz, to go on the record. 

Transcript

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0:00.0

L.A. has the largest jail system in the country.

0:05.3

You got people that been in jail just like one time and their life can't get nothing because of whatever mistake they made.

0:10.8

I stole some ground turkey because I wanted to feed my family. We was hungry.

0:15.5

Off the Block. Stories tracing the path from city block to cell block and back.

0:21.0

Find it now at kCRW.com or subscribe on iTunes.

0:31.0

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.

0:37.8

I think it's even beyond resentment.

0:40.1

I think it's 360 degrees of the human experience that he found with Ron.

0:44.9

I mean, it's all there.

0:48.2

It's very complex.

0:49.5

In his new book, Powerhouse, The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency,

0:55.4

James Andrew Miller did what others thought could not be done. He got press-shy former agent Michael Ovitz to talk about

1:00.6

a lot of things, including his former partner at CIA, Ron Meyer. Miller got Ovitz Meyer and

1:06.9

many others to open up about the notoriously secretive talent agency.

1:11.7

But first on the news banter, Netflix is a big Emmy contender,

1:15.2

and the streaming service is starting to make Hollywood nervous.

1:18.9

Stay tuned. It's the business from KCRW.

1:26.6

I'm joined by my colleague in banter, Matt Bellany, of the Hollywood Reporter.

1:30.8

Hello, Matt.

1:31.3

Hi there.

1:32.2

So we're cruising into Emmy's weekend, and the lead in terms of nominations, once again, is HBO, followed by FX, which both of them have a lot of brilliant programming.

1:44.7

But the newcomer, the relative newcomer, Netflix, has 54 nominations.

...

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