Early Life
Ovitz was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a liquor wholesaler. Raised in Encino, California, he attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, a classmate of Sally Field. While a premed student at UCLA, he began his entertainment career as a part-time tour guide at Universal Studios. Upon graduation from UCLA in 1968 with a degree in theater, film, and television, he secured a job in the mail room at the William Morris Agency. Within a year he was promoted, becoming a highly successful television agent. Six years later he and four other young colleagues left William Morris to found Creative Artists Agency.
Read more about this topic: Michael Ovitz
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I have always had something to live besides a personal life. And I suspected very early that to live merely in an experience of, in an expression of, in a positive delight in the human cliches could be no business of mine.”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)
“Helpless, unknown, and unremembered, most human beings, however sensitive, idealistic, intelligent, go through life as passengers rather than chauffeurs. Although we may pretend that it is the chauffeur who is the social inferior ... most of us, like Toad of Toad Hall, would not mind a turn at the wheel ourselves.”
—Ralph Harper (b. 1915)