Young Managers on the Move to Join Ovitz in New Talent Venture

Two top young talent managers, who between them represent such hot stars as Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Samuel L. Jackson and Steve Buscemi, have found themselves immersed in their own Hollywood soap opera as they seek to join former super-agent Michael Ovitz in a new business.

The ambitious, and some say risky, career move by Rick Yorn and sister-in-law Julie Silverman Yorn has thrust the thirtysomething managers into a world of high-stakes power plays in trying to extricate themselves from their employment contracts with Industry Entertainment.

The maneuvers and calculations surrounding their plans highlight the clash between personal loyalties and professional desires that often do battle in the entertainment business.

For Ovitz, the Yorns offer the cache of young Hollywood and the emerging power elite they represent.

Rick Yorn, 30, in particular has a client list that’s the envy of every manager and agent in town, with such stars as DiCaprio, Diaz, Claire Danes, Ed Burns and Marisa Tomei.

For the Yorns, Ovitz guarantees them ownership in a new multifaceted entertainment venture--something they’ve longed for, believed they’ve earned and have been deprived of in their current jobs.

Ovitz remains a lightening rod in Hollywood, where he made loyal friends as well as bitter enemies during two decades atop the industry’s most powerful talent agency. The Yorns have been urged by such power players as David Geffen not to go into business with Ovitz, who they believe has burned too many bridges to ever regain the kind of clout he once had.

But friends said the Yorns are resolute in their decision to join Ovitz, whose fans have said they’d be crazy not to seize the opportunity of working with someone with the success, smarts and contacts Ovitz has developed over so many years as a major power broker.

Neither the Yorns nor Ovitz would agree to be interviewed.

However, sources said that as soon as the Yorns can resolve their issues at Industry, they plan to sit down with Ovitz and hammer out the details of their partnership.

Just how much autonomy the Yorns will have remains to be seen. Some industry skeptics believe the Yorns are deluding themselves if they think Ovitz won’t be running the show.

The young managers are trying to obtain early release from their respective contracts, which expire next year on July 31. For the last two months, their lawyers and Industry’s counsel have been locked in contentious negotiations.

Settling contracts is often a thorny issue in Hollywood, but in the Yorns’ case, it’s been particularly intense and ticklish.

The loss of such A-list clients as DiCaprio and Diaz can mean millions of dollars a year in commissions to a management company, which typically collects 15% of every job compared with 10% for talent agents. Off the huge success of “Titanic,” DiCaprio now commands $20 million a picture. Diaz, very hot off “Something About Mary,” for which she received $3 million, is supposedly now getting close to $10 million.

The Yorns each have spent most of their successful young years in management at Industry under the tutelage of their manager-producer bosses Keith Addis and Nick Wechsler.

Their ordeal has pitted loyalties against ambitions and personal relationships against business interests. This is especially true for Rick Yorn, who considers Wechsler one of his best friends.

Addis and Wechsler--who themselves are considered two of the top talent vets in the business--declined to comment.

Silverman Yorn, 33--whose clients include Jackson, Buscemi, James Spader, Anna Paquin, Minnie Driver and Matt Dillon--has been at the company almost from its inception eight years ago when she was one of only six employees.

Wechsler and Addis have told friends and associates they are personally devastated by the defections, although many say they have only themselves to blame. The Yorns’ professional relationship with their bosses has never been the same since Addis and Wechsler sold 51% of their company to Interpublic Group in August 1997 and didn’t offer the Yorns an ownership position.

The Yorns have told friends they wouldn’t have considered leaving if their bosses “had only done the right thing.”

No matter that concurrent with the finalization of the sale last fall, the Yorns were promoted to co-presidents of the company. That had been in the works long before the acquisition. When their bosses ultimately offered the managers some kind of partnership, it was too little too late. The Yorns had already become a hot commodity.

Rick Yorn first met Ovitz in February at breakfast at the former agent’s Brentwood home. Yorn, Addis and Wechsler were there seeking Ovitz’s general advice on the business and feeling him out about his plans.

Sources said Ovitz and Yorn hit it off. Yorn enjoyed teasing Ovitz that he should get back into the talent business, even suggesting he consider doing something with Industry. Ovitz was intrigued by Yorn, said insiders, and began thinking seriously about starting his own management-production business with the young man’s help.

Ovitz has kidded to friends, “He signed me.”

Silverman Yorn first met Ovitz in May when she, Yorn and her 33-year-old husband, Kevin Yorn, Rick’s older entertainment attorney brother, were invited to Ovitz’s house for a social dinner. They too hit it off.

Friends said one thing that impressed Ovitz about the Yorns was how family-oriented they are. “They’re regular people, which is so rare in this business,” he would tell people.

Rick Yorn, whose father is a dentist and mother a former school teacher and real estate agent, grew up in Montville, N.J., the middle of three brothers. His younger brother, Peter, a struggling musician, lives with him in his Brentwood home.

Two months after joining Industry 5 1/2 years ago, Yorn introduced Silverman Yorn to his brother. New York-born Silverman Yorn, whose mother and stepfather are both anthropologists, first worked as an assistant at the William Morris Agency in New York before moving here in December 1989. She went to work as producer Chuck Gordon’s assistant at Daybreak Productions, then landed a job as a junior manager at Addis-Wechsler in fall 1990.

Rick Yorn’s professional path was a bit different. After graduating with a business degree from the University of Maryland in 1990, he worked at Shearson Lehman in New York, then transferred to the brokerage firm’s office in La Jolla, Calif. Hating the early morning hours, he left after a few months to work in the movie business. In early 1991, he took a job as an assistant at the talent-literary boutique Susan Smith & Associates.

Though Dorn only stayed a matter of months, Susan Smith recalled, “He’s the kind of person that I knew was going to own the world. I remember telling him, ‘I better be nice to you because I’ll be working for you some day.’ ”

Yorn then joined Carlyle Management, where he became a manager and stayed for two years until he accepted an offer at Addis-Wechsler in July 1993.

Yorn, whose clients also include Ted Demme, Gabriel Byrne and Benecio Del Toro, is well-liked by those who do business with him. He’s thought of as affable and honest, as well as someone with a great eye for spotting talent. He signed DiCaprio, Diaz and Danes before their careers took off. He didn’t collect commissions on DiCaprio until he left his agent. And he’s never poached a client from another manager--honoring the unwritten managers’ law that doesn’t exist among agents.

Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairman Bill Mechanic credits Yorn with being instrumental in helping difficult movies such as “Titanic,” “Something About Mary” and “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet” come together, saying, “He was a major factor in making those pictures happen.”

New Line production chief Mike De Luca, who’s also done business with Yorn, describes him as “very easy-going, a straight-shooter, a regular guy. He goes for interesting material for his clients. He’s not about going for the most money.”

Naturally, there are those in Hollywood who share a different view.

“He’s a little slick, a little superficial,” said one top Hollywood agent. “He plays the middle a lot and is without an opinion.”

Another agent, who admires Yorn, expressed concerned that “Even at 30, Rick is still a little naive. . . . He’s a guy who imagines there’s a quick way to become rich and powerful and Ovitz is leading him to the Holy Grail,” said the source.