Opening a New Chapter : Brillstein-Grey Hires a Book Agent and Hangs Out a Literary Shingle

Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, which represents such movie and television talent as Brad Pitt, Nick Cage, Garry Shandling, Robin Wright and Gary Sinise, is expanding its personal management roster to include literary figures.

Heading the company’s newly created literary division will be Michael Siegel, a widely respected book agent who’s brokered movie deals for such author and screenwriter clients as Elmore Leonard (“Get Shorty”); Rafe Yglesias (“Fearless”); Anne Tyler (“Accidental Tourist”); the estate of Roald Dahl (“Matilda,” “James and the Giant Peach”); and David Baldacci (“Absolute Power,” which opens next week). All of his major clients are following him to his new position.

The 36-year-old Siegel recently quit his post at Creative Artists Agency after a relatively short tenure, finding he didn’t fit in with the corporate culture of a large agency.

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For three years before joining CAA in April 1995, Siegel operated a successful boutique literary agency of his own. He shut down the shop when he was hired by CAA, bringing his clients into the agency’s fold. Only months after he joined the agency, its founders--Michael Ovitz, Ron Meyer and Bill Haber--shocked Hollywood when they walked out the door.

Siegel himself left CAA last month after only 22 months.

“I was looking to work on a smaller scale with a greater degree of independence,” said Siegel, who began his literary career as an agent at H.N. Swanson Inc., where he worked from 1987 to 1990.

Having worked on his own where the writer’s interest “was the sole agenda” and at a larger agency, where he benefited from the “interactive approach” of collaborating with other agents, Siegel says he can now “blend the best aspects of both approaches” in his new job.

Although Siegel will in some cases work closely with CAA and other agencies on movie deals, for the most part Brillstein-Grey will be the sole representative of the writers he is bringing over.

At Brillstein-Grey, Siegel will function as a literary manager, rather than an agent, which will give him the flexibility to partner with his clients as a producer of their movies if he so chooses. Besides personal management, Brillstein-Grey is a three-pronged business also involved in motion picture and TV production.

The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, the unions that regulate talent agencies, prohibit agents from acting as producers or employers of the talent they represent. Managers have no such restrictions. That’s because technically they’re employed to guide the careers of their clients rather than procure bookings in the way agents are licensed to do by the state.

The lines between agents and managers have been getting ever more blurry (managers, for example, can negotiate movie and TV deals). At the same time, agencies are now beginning to dabble in some creative businesses. For instance, William Morris Agency recently announced it is launching a record label--making it the first talent agency to do so--in a move that was sanctioned by AFTRA.

Siegel’s hiring at Brillstein-Grey is symptomatic of the changing times.

“There’s an interesting shift,” Siegel says. “Clients want to stay more involved in controlling their material [for movies and TV shows] and I want to be part of that.”

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While at CAA, Siegel was restricted from getting involved in production, though as a small independent agent, he didn’t have to follow Screen Actors Guild/AFTRA rules that apply to the big talent agencies. Therefore, on the rare occasion, he could participate in the development of a movie as he did with “Matilda” on behalf of the Dahl estate.

In his new job, Siegel says producing is not his priority.

“Producing may potentially be there down the line, but it’s not my focus, which is first and foremost to represent and protect the writers--that’s what I’m setting the division up to do.”

In a separate interview Monday, Brillstein-Grey chief Brad Grey said: “I’ve been looking to enter the literary area for quite a while. It’s clear that it is a very meaningful part of the entertainment industry and we haven’t focused on it at all.”

Grey said the primary motivation in hiring Siegel is more about “adding another area to our representation” and less about his writer clients forming potential synergies with the company’s production activities.

“If that happens, and these relationships beget meaningful motion pictures or TV shows, that’s a bonus,” said Grey, noting that the literary arena is “a natural step in the continued growth of our company and we will look to several other businesses in the near future, including music and interactive.”

Brillstein-Grey has a successful TV business, in which Universal Studios bought a 50% interest for $100 million last May. The company currently produces such programs as “The Larry Sanders Show” on HBO, NBC’s “NewsRadio,” “The Naked Truth,” “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” and the upcoming “Just Shoot Me,” plus “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher” on ABC and “The Steve Harvey Show” on the Warner Bros. Network.

The company’s less-active movie operation, which Grey says he is bent on building up, has produced such comedies as “The Cable Guy,” with Jim Carrey, “Tommy Boy” and “Wayne’s World,” and is currently working on “The Replacement Killers,” starring Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino, for Columbia Pictures. Later this year, it will commence production on “What Planet Are You From?” to star client Shandling.

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Siegel, a Stanford graduate with a masters degree in education, has already moved his base of operations to Brillstein-Grey’s Beverly Hills headquarters.

A native of Chicago, he is married to Kelly Bates, who works for Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization for Jewish and other humanitarian causes that is funded by profits from the director’s Oscar-winning movie, “Schindler’s List.”

Bates, by the way, is working on her first novel. When asked if he is representing his wife, Siegel quipped, “I’m managing her.”

MGM Rumblings: Rumor has it that MGM is in serious negotiations with Michael Nathanson to become the new president of the studio, replacing Mike Marcus, who left the post last week. Nathanson, a former longtime executive at Columbia Pictures, is currently the president of Arnon Milchan’s movie company, New Regency Productions at Warner Bros.