The Ovitz Touch in Studio Shuffles : Movies: The chairman of Creative Artists Agency has a long reach when it comes to brokering deals for top executive jobs in Hollywood.

His name is always there, buried paragraphs below the headlines and after the listing of key executives involved in the latest Paramount shuffle--but noticeable nonetheless.

Ah, yes, there it is: Mike Ovitz--brokering another deal.

At Paramount alone, Ovitz was credited in recent news reports with smoothing the exit of Frank Mancuso as the studio’s chairman in March, 1991, and replacing him with Brandon Tartikoff--then 15 months later brokering the exit of Tartikoff and entrance of Sherry Lansing.

“If I needed someone to represent me, I’d go right to him--that’s how much I respect him,” said Martin S. Davis, chairman of Paramount Communications Inc.

Not so obvious during the same two-week period was his hand in securing a very sweet deal for 20th Century Fox Film chairman Joe Roth, who’s heading across town to the Walt Disney Studios.

For someone who’s never worked at Paramount--or any other Hollywood studio, for that matter--Ovitz’s long arm as chairman of Creative Artists Agency influencing who goes in and out of the studio’s ornate iron gates is notable.

And not just at Paramount. Many say if there’s an executive search going on in town--no matter where--odds are Ovitz is in the mix.

“There’s no rule he has to be involved,” said a close associate of Ovitz’s who asked anonymity. “I guess the question is, when isn’t he?”

Perhaps what is less apparent is Ovitz, whose high-profile Beverly Hills talent agency CAA boasts a client list of top-billed directors, stars and pop icons (including Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford and Madonna), acts as adviser and confidant to these executives gratis-- free.

In the course of his day, the agency co-founder makes and receives countless phone calls trying to place CAA clients in film projects at studios and production companies throughout the industry. By virtue of this kind of constant contact, Ovitz--as characterized by one Paramount producer--has taken on the mantle of “amicus curiae” (friend of court) when these individuals are negotiating their next deal.

The rationale, insiders say, is if Ovitz or CAA don’t earn fees now on this behind-the-scenes dealmaking, they’ll surely profit down the road when it comes to getting projects set up for their clients in the future.

But as seen another way by a studio executive who’s watched Ovitz in action: “Don’t think for a minute this is charity work.”

CAA can make as much as 10% of the gross salaries paid to its clients or more if it is successful (which it usually is) in “packaging” several of its clients together on a given picture or a deal. An obvious example is “Indecent Proposal,” one of Paramount’s upcoming prestige projects, which is directed by Adrian Lyne and stars Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson--all CAA clients.

At the same time all the executive musical chairs was going on at Paramount, Ovitz also got an exclusive three-year deal for star-client Tom Cruise and his former CAA agent and now producing partner Paula Wagner signed at the studio.

Ovitz was not available to comment.

In stories, he might be credited with someone’s newly announced contract, as he was on the Lansing story--” . . . Lansing’s deal was negotiated by Creative Artists Agency Chairman Michael Ovitz” (L.A. Times, Nov. 5, 1992)--or referred to obliquely in such lines as the oft-used “ . . . CAA influenced” or “ . . . brokered by CAA.”

His involvement leads back to longtime associations fostered when Lansing and Stanley R. Jaffe, now Paramount Communications Inc. president, were film producers (“Fatal Attraction,” “The Accused”) and clients of CAA. Tartikoff, the NBC “golden boy” hired last year to run Paramount Pictures, has been friends with Ovitz going back 15 years, when he was a programming whiz at the network.

But Ovitz’s involvement in all the top-level hiring decisions at Paramount Pictures was roundly discounted by attorney Bertram Fields, who negotiated with Ovitz (though he was paid) on Lansing’s deal.

“There’s no pattern to these things,” he said. “His knowledge and wisdom with reference to the entertainment business would lead a number of rational people to call on him for advice--for him to counsel them,” he said.

Sources say that’s what characterizes Ovitz’s relationship with Joe Roth when, over a year ago, the 20th Century Fox Film chairman sought the advice of the CAA honcho on what his options were if he were to leave Fox once his contract ran out in July.

With Ovitz as his point man, Roth signed a $1-million-per-picture deal on his five-year/five-films-a-year contract with Disney--not including profit participation in his company, which could amount to $25-million cash compensation.

Ovitz’s dealings at Disney is viewed as ironic, considering the rancor Walt Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg had expressed in private and on the record over what he sees as CAA’s strong-arm tactics.

Roth, who also was represented by CAA in his pre-studio executive days as a producer and director, also would not comment.

Others say that Ovitz’s leverage in getting his “friends” fat contracts--the kind that make non-Hollywood-types heads’ spin--accounts for much of the indebtedness owed him.

One wry observer said, “More power to him.”