BOOKMARK : Hollywood Agents as Latter-day Pirates : <i> Open conflicts in the late ‘80s gave a rare glimpse into the predatory world of talent agencies. An adaptation of “The Agency.” </i>

It was one of those interchangeable industry seminars at which a half-dozen agents, studio execs or producers, pontificate before a roomful of people who are desperate to break into the business, who care less about the knowledge these wise ones have to impart than about cornering them later and maybe walking away with a business card. A name! A phone number! A contact!

This particular seminar was organized for an audience of would-be filmmakers, few of whom could boast of agency representation. The topic was, “What does an Agent Really Do?” The question for most of those present was, How do I get one?

But, OK, what does an agent really do?

“In many ways, agenting is all about hype,” offered a young agent from Triad, one of the boutiques that had taken its place behind CAA (Creative Artists Agency), ICM (International Creative Management), and William Morris. There was discussion of packaging. One panelist said the term was too loaded; he preferred something like “accumulation of elements.” But Jeremy Zimmer was for calling a package a package. Zimmer was from ICM, the last remaining wolverine. “There is no such thing as bad packaging,” he stated. “Bad packaging is packaging that doesn’t get you financing.”

But what does an agent really do? Zimmer had an answer for that too. “The big agencies are all like animals, raping and pillaging one another day in and day out,” he declared, wallowing in his wolverineness. “We’re all out there doing business. It’s very competitive. And at the end of the day the question is always who’s doing what to whom, how much are they doing it for, and when are they going to do it to me.” Jaws dropped. Eyes widened. People took notes.

Rape and pillage: It was as succinct a summation of the agency situation as anyone had come up with. Maybe too succinct. After Zimmer’s comments were reported in Daily Variety, his boss, Jeff Berg, issued a formal repudiation. Not long afterward, Zimmer departed ICM to “pursue other career opportunities.”

Not that anyone seriously disputed Zimmer’s assessment. For weeks, Hollywood had been transfixed by the spectacle of Joe Eszterhas, the highest-paid screenwriter in town, taking on CAA founder Michael Ovitz over his decision to leave CAA for ICM. Berg had set the play into motion when he wooed Guy McElwaine--the onetime Columbia chief-- back to the agency business. McElwaine was a good friend of Eszterhas, who was pulling in $1.25 million a script on the strength of the disco musical “Flashdance” and the thriller “Jagged Edge.”

Naturally, Eszterhas wanted to join his buddy at ICM. But when he went to tell Ovitz--according to his account in a four-page letter that caused fax machines to overheat on both coasts--Ovitz went ballistic. “My foot soldiers who go up and down Wilshire Boulevard each day will blow your brains out,” the letter quoted Ovitz as saying. “If somebody came into the building and took my Lichtenstein off the wall, I’d go after them. I’m going after you the same way. You’re one of the agency’s biggest assets.”

Copyright 1995 by Frank Rose. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

* BOOK REVIEW. A review of “The Agency” appears on Page 3 of the Book Review section.