In 1996 Letter, Eisner Confronts Ovitz: 'You
It wasn't a secret that the relationship between Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz ended badly. But it wasn't until Wednesday that some of the painful details came spilling out.
The difficulties between the entertainment titans were highlighted in a confidential, seven-page letter unsealed by a judge overseeing a shareholder lawsuit challenging Ovitz's severance package when he was fired from his job as president of Walt Disney Co.
Eisner, Disney's chairman, cut the former powerhouse agent loose -- in the November 1996 missive -- slightly more than a year after hiring him.
The letter emerged as investor advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co., recommended against Eisner's reelection as chairman during next week's Disney annual meeting. Among the issues cited by Glass Lewis: Eisner's hiring and firing of Ovitz.
In the letter, Eisner acknowledges that he had problems with Ovitz's tenure "right from the beginning," and bluntly confronts his former friend with a laundry list of his supposed shortcomings. Neither Ovitz nor a spokesman for Eisner responded to requests for comment.
Some excerpts from the letter:
Irreconcilable differences: "I believe you should resign (this is not a legal suggestion but a cosmetic one), and we should put the best possible face on it. When we talked last Friday I told you again that my biggest problem was that you played the angles too much, exaggerated the truth too far, manipulated me and others too much. I told you 98% of the problem was that I did not know when you were telling the truth, about big things, about small things. And while you were telling me those dishonest days were over, you were deceiving me."
Lavish perks: "Michael, mostly a leader of a public company has to lead by example. It is in the little things. Your number of secretaries, the out of control renovation of your office, your attitude to costs. What do you think our executives think when you object to paying all the costs for [your daughter's] bat mitzvah at the House of Blues, an operation owned partly by Disney? You were told you had to pay for their Saturday night lost profits. I have never checked. I hope you did."
Communications breakdown: "I tried to talk to you but never could get connected. Even on the phone, I could not get your attention. The phone was the most important thing in your life
