Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency

I'm an entertainment and pop culture junkie so this book was already right up my alley. I know about agencies and heard the names CAA and Endeavor and so forth but didn't have any idea what agencies were or what they did for people. The book is a history from the very beginning of CAA in the 70s right up to the present day. It includes interviews from all the principle founders of CAA, CAA agents, agents from other competitive agencies, executives and celebrities. It is organized in an oral history fashion which is a format that I happen to like. Each section has a narrative introduction but otherwise it is all an oral history. I've read other reviews that accuse the book of being biased towards CAA or sugarcoating the events but I didn't get that feeling as I was reading it. There are plenty of dissenting views and not very flattering descriptions from quite a few people directed at CAA. There are a few people that you can tell still work there and need to toe the company line and sound like an infomercial but they're pretty easy to identify. It is a long book but it kept my interest from beginning to end. It goes into some extreme detail that might be boring to some but which I found fascinating (especially the parts about sports representation).

The reason I chose to read this is due to having really enjoyed the books on ESPN and SNL. This one was definitely a dryer subject matter for me, and I can’t say that I enjoyed it as much as the other books. That is not to say that the book is not very well done, as it is of the same general quality of the other books. The advantage the other books had for me was being more familiar with the subject matter. I found the CAA story sometime hard to keep track of just who was who in the book, especially in the 2nd half. There were times where it really dragged for me. On a positive note, it was certainly an interesting look into a world totally alien to me. The bottom line for me is that I did enjoy reading it, but nearly as much as the two other books.

This book covers the period from the time that the some of the CAA founders worked at William Morris, how CAA was created, how it functioned in it's long heyday, and how it changed when the Young Turks took over after Ovitz left. If you've never seen the inside of the book or read any excerpts, it is not a narrative by the author; instead, it is a compilation of narratives by the founders of CAA, some of the agents, some actors, the Young Turks, and people on the periphery. If you don't know at least who these people are, this book may be very confusing to read. It does provide an interesting insight into the mindset of agents, how they function, what the job entails, and the "it's-good-to-be-King" philosophy of the major power brokers in Hollywood. Yes, they eat their young for breakfast in that town! Since the narratives are provided by the individuals themselves, I found that there was a lot of back-patting, and "he was so nice", "everybody loved him" etc. etc. etc. That was not genuine and clouded some of the book for me. Come on...this is Hollywood. If you're an agent, and a successful one, you would throw your mother off of a cliff or sell your firstborn to get the best client and/or deal. Having most of the people praise Ovitz when, in reality, he was to the right of Ghengis Khan, was feeble. But I suppose that most of the people in the book are still active in Hollywood so you never burn your bridges - especially in Tinseltown where the powers-that-be NEVER forget ANYTHING. Comments on the Kindle edition: BAD, BAD, BAD.....in what world do booksellers think they can just copy/paste a hardcover into a Kindle versionn?? It doesn't work. The formatting was terrible in many places; there were "bookmarks" already in the book - what's that about? and....there are photos but 99% of the photos are on one page and captions are either on the page before the photo or after the photo. So if you want to know who's-who in the photo to have to keep going back a page or forward to next page. Ugh!!! I find this is an issue with other Kindle versions of books and it astounds me that we can land a man on the moon but someone can't spend the time to format a hardcover book into a reader-version.

It's packed full of insider points of view. So it's very interesting in that respect. However, that positive comes at the cost of a rather odd style - the author has assembled quotes from those involved so that if a particular issue is covered one gets the POV of maybe 2-3-4 people involved in the event. And I assume these are pretty much verbatim quotes. Which is good if one is interested in hearing how the subjects talk, idioms, syntax, how they make a point - which is very useful -- but it's not literature, it's not a single voice narrative. So I found it a little emotionally rootless. It's more of a reporting style. There are so many contributors. Though the author would orient the reader to the players and their hierarchy I kept forgetting who had done what and said what which was important in reading the subtext of their commentary. I was familiar with a number of the names so had a vague notion of what was going on at the time, but I really could get lost if I left the book a few days or weeks and tried to come back to it. But all this said, it's a treasure trove of eye openers for anyone who has or aspires to have a big shot agent looking out for their career. It's about how the sausage is made.

I'm amazed at how thorough this inside look into the workings of CAA managed to be. To have 500+ people interviewed and give their versions of their time at the agency (or competing with the agency!), and then put the interviews together in such a way as to tell a complete story - amazing. I didn't want to put it down. Fascinating read for anyone who ever wonders about the inner workings of the entertainment world.

It's not quite the consistently back-patting puff piece that many people on here seem to think it is. It's an even-handed book which isn't afraid to incorporate quotes which suggest that there is a dark side or dubious element to Michael Ovitz and CAA in general.

Like Live From New York (SNL), and Those Guys Have All the Fun (ESPN), Power House is another fascinating and thoroughly addictive oral history from James Andrew Miller. All of the key players are interesting characters and excellent storytellers, and they deliver even the most boring details about the business with an infectious enthusiasm that never lets the narrative dip... UNTIL CAA gets into sports representation. To me there was a noticeable, even drastic, change in the book once things started to focus on that side. I have to assume that that part of the business is just as exciting as the entertainment side, but the people involved just come of as dull, dull, dull. You know when you watch a movie about an office and there are scenes which are meant to poke fun at the ridiculousness of corporate life, where characters speak in insufferable business speak, using meaningless jargon and new agey sounding business phrases? These are the guys those movies are making fun of. The book literally goes from people who speak passionately about their work to people who sound like empty husks of business drones. Thankfully, that only accounts for maybe 100 pages of the 700, but it comes right at the end, so it's a bit of a bummer to finish on. That said, the book is, on the whole, excellent and highly recommended.

Arrived on time and as described

You should read this book if you are considering working, or are working, in any entertainment industry. Not only does the book tell a story of building a successful entertainment services business, it also explains how the ‘new’ content business works, and how brands, creators, content and investment, work together to create today’s hot trends and global blockbusters. Highly recommended.