Michael Ovitz, the former Walt Disney president, on Wednesday told a Delaware courtroom that he remains at a loss to explain why his relationship with chief executive Michael Eisner soured so quickly.
Ovitz was testifying in a trial brought by shareholders in Disney angered by the $140-million severance package he banked when ousted from the business in 1996 after just 14 months.
The former Hollywood power broker said: ”It all went downhill and I don’t understand how and I never will.” Ovitz said the two men had been close friends for more than two decades before he joined Disney and that he now has a ”25-year hole” in his life after learning that Eisner had described him as a liar and a psychopath in memos.
During a second day of testimony, he said he had fought and begged to keep his job: ”I wasn’t going to leave there as a loser but I was being left out of meetings. Nobody was talking to me. I was cut out like cancer. I guess you could say I got pushed out the sixth floor window,” he said, referring to the executive suite at Disney’s Burbank headquarters.
The trial is throwing a light on one of the most controversial periods in Disney and Hollywood history. Ovitz, who founded the Creative Artists Agency, was hired in 1995 beginning an infamously fractious period at the company. He had testified this week that Eisner had repeatedly undermined him. He also detailed a feud with Disney’s chief of corporate operations who, he said, did everything he could to make him look stupid and followed him around with a ”knife”.
After a disastrous 14 months, Ovitz left with a no-fault termination and one of the biggest payouts in history. Investors are complaining that Ovitz should never have been hired in the first place and should have been fired without compensation. In the lawsuit, which has been dragging on for seven years, they hope to recoup $200-million, the severance package plus interest.
Ovitz on Wednesday tried to defend the size of his compensation. He said he had needed some form of protection because he was giving up ownership of Creative Artists Agency. He was hired on a package of $1-million in annual salary, 5-million stock options worth $107-million and an estimated annual bonus of $7,5-million. ”To me this wasn’t about the money, it was about the success of making it work,” he said.
Ovitz strenuously denied accusations that he had abused company funds on personal luxuries and gifts. He said he had turned over every present except one, an early Sony handheld organiser, which he claims to have kept only to study. He also said he had nothing to do with the $2-million renovation of his office. ”I never approved the budget, I didn’t ask for this office and I had no idea what it cost.”
He has remained calm in the witness box, only becoming testy when questioned about a story in the New York Post. He described the newspaper as a gossip sheet which printed stories about ”two-headed babies and double-arsed goats”.
On Tuesday, Eisner had told how his former friendship with Eisner quickly deteriorated after he took the job. He said Eisner had failed to back him up during disagreements with other executives, leading him to beg for support. Eisner had given him one word of praise for every 100 pieces of criticism, he said.
Despite that, Ovitz said he was still ”flabbergasted” when an executive walked into his office in the autumn of 1996 and told him that Eisner wanted him out.
”If Michael Eisner wants to terminate my services, he ought to come in here and do it to my face,” he claims to have said. – Guardian Unlimited Â