Rowland Perkins

CAA Partner to Become Adviser: The move for Rowland Perkins, who helped start the powerful Creative Artists Agency in 1975, will take effect Jan. 1. Perkins, who will continue to work on some individual projects and other matters with the agency, said he wanted to spend more time on other things both inside and outside entertainment. Perkins has been co-head of CAA's television packaging department.

Martin Baum, an old-time New York theatrical talent agent who became a veteran voice of experience for the upstart Creative Artists Agency in the late 1970s and who brought to the firm such established star clients as Sidney Poitier and Peter Sellers, has died. He was 86. Baum died Friday at his home in Beverly Hills, the agency announced. The cause was not given. "To those of us in his CAA family, Marty was a hero," the agency's partners said in a statement. "He was not only a brilliant agent, but a generous mentor to so many.

As a regular reader of David Lazarus' column, this one struck home. ("Cost is the real drug threat," Consumer Confidential, March 5.) My wife and I take several medications daily. While we mostly purchase here, we also have purchased a couple of the more expensive drugs from Canada, and the savings are worth forgoing the insurance. I can appreciate the incredible pressure that this can put on people and appreciate your making it a point of discussion. Rowland Perkins Beverly Hills -- Lazarus says the FDA "should be authorized to certify leading Canadian pharmacies as reliable suppliers of medications."

As a regular reader of David Lazarus' column, this one struck home. ("Cost is the real drug threat," Consumer Confidential, March 5.) My wife and I take several medications daily. While we mostly purchase here, we also have purchased a couple of the more expensive drugs from Canada, and the savings are worth forgoing the insurance. I can appreciate the incredible pressure that this can put on people and appreciate your making it a point of discussion. Rowland Perkins Beverly Hills -- Lazarus says the FDA "should be authorized to certify leading Canadian pharmacies as reliable suppliers of medications."

Martin Baum, an old-time New York theatrical talent agent who became a veteran voice of experience for the upstart Creative Artists Agency in the late 1970s and who brought to the firm such established star clients as Sidney Poitier and Peter Sellers, has died. He was 86. Baum died Friday at his home in Beverly Hills, the agency announced. The cause was not given. "To those of us in his CAA family, Marty was a hero," the agency's partners said in a statement. "He was not only a brilliant agent, but a generous mentor to so many.

Matted hair falls in clumps over his eyes. His bark is loud but not fierce, and he turns cautious and shy as he is released from his pen at the Orange County Animal Shelter. Gently he moves toward Sallie Perkins and licks her face. He was found four days earlier roaming the streets, wearing no identification. No one came to claim him, and Perkins knows how that must feel. As a child, she was a victim of abuse: tied to a tree and horsewhipped, raped, locked in her room for weeks at a time.

Ray Kurtzman, 79, an entertainment lawyer who was one of the original 20 employees when Creative Artists Agency was launched in the 1970s, died Monday at his Beverly Hills home of complications from Alzheimer's disease, the agency announced. Michael Ovitz hired Kurtzman from the William Morris Agency in 1978, three years after founding CAA with Morris dissidents Ron Meyer, Bill Haber, Mike Rosenfeld and Rowland Perkins.

Interviews don't come easy to Michael Ovitz. Even in his private sanctum, flanked by a pair of colleagues, safe beneath the dual gaze of Buddha and Marilyn Monroe--totemic bits of art on a movie maker's wall--the sandy-haired president of Creative Artists Agency is wary and tense and never stops wishing the limelight would go away. "This is not a comfortable experience for any of us," he says, his hoarse voice so low a reporter's recorder barely registers. "We really function behind the scenes.

A communications graduate student who is also a priest was presented with the first $2,500 Lila Garrett Peace Award at Loyola Marymount College on Wednesday, given for motion picture and television scripts written by students there "which best promote peace through non-violence." Seamus McLaughlin OSM won for "Only Our Rivers Run Free," a film script about a Protestant girl, a Catholic boy, their families and "the tragic futility of the continuing Irish revolution," according to Donald J.

Former professional football player Willie Gault spent his NFL career evading opponents' defenses. Now he's facing the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gault and five other men, including Rowland Perkins, a co-founder of Creative Artists Agency, were accused by the SEC of fraudulently inflating the stock of a Studio City medical products company. The company, Heart Tronics, claimed to have received millions of dollars in orders for its Fidelity 100 heart-monitoring device but had no actual customers, according to the SEC. In its complaint filed Tuesday, the agency said Heart Tronics was secretly controlled by Mitchell J. Stein, an attorney from Hidden Hills who went to great lengths to tout the stock.

Matted hair falls in clumps over his eyes. His bark is loud but not fierce, and he turns cautious and shy as he is released from his pen at the Orange County Animal Shelter. Gently he moves toward Sallie Perkins and licks her face. He was found four days earlier roaming the streets, wearing no identification. No one came to claim him, and Perkins knows how that must feel. As a child, she was a victim of abuse: tied to a tree and horsewhipped, raped, locked in her room for weeks at a time.

CAA Partner to Become Adviser: The move for Rowland Perkins, who helped start the powerful Creative Artists Agency in 1975, will take effect Jan. 1. Perkins, who will continue to work on some individual projects and other matters with the agency, said he wanted to spend more time on other things both inside and outside entertainment. Perkins has been co-head of CAA's television packaging department.

The Scene: It's been held only once before, but, hey, no problem. L'Orangerie's second annual champagne-drenched pre-Oscar fete on Friday night was proclaimed by all a "tradition." In any case, it may be the only party held during Oscar-countdown week where there were no speeches, awards or honorees. Once again, Harry Winston jewelers and Relais & Chateaux, the international restaurant and hotel directory, underwrote the evening.

Michael S. Rosenfeld, a talent agent and producer who was one of the founding partners of Creative Artists Agency, has died. He was 75. Rosenfeld died Thursday of respiratory failure at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center after a long illness, the agency announced. "He enjoyed an exemplary career as a talent agent," the agency said in a statement. "He played an important role in the growth and success of CAA, and prided himself on starting the agency's literary department." In 1975, Rosenfeld and four other successful middle-management executives with the William Morris Agency left to form Creative Artists Agency, which would become a talent agency powerhouse.