The CAA founder and longtime Universal exec talks to Richard Rushfield about his wild ride in showbiz: 'I wanted to be the guy in that fast car with beautiful women'
The CAA founder and longtime Universal exec tells Richard Rushfield about his wild showbiz ride: 'I wanted to be the guy in that fast car with beautiful women'
UNIVERSAL TRUTH “At the beginning, I was more over my head than I even thought I would be,” Meyer says of his early days running Universal in 1995. (Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
This is third in Richard Rushfield’s Hollywood Stories series about the '90s. Earlier podcasts include often hilarious, smart and very candid conversations with writers Adam Leff and Zak Pennabout Last Action Hero, and Winnie Holzman, the creator of My-So Called Life, the seminal TV show that preceded her work on Wicked.
From founding CAA to leading Universal Studios, Ron Meyer built one of the entertainment industry’s most storied careers. The high school dropout and former Marine talks with Richard Rushfield about his entire legendary run, especially the events surrounding the pivotal moment in 1995 when he successfully executed a maneuver that has stymied other sharks — leaving the talent ecosystem (and ending his partnership with CAA cofounder Mike Ovitz — "a marriage gone kind of sour”) to become a studio head. He also recalls what lured him to Hollywood (“I want to be the guy in that fast car with beautiful women”), the “ferocious” competition between his agency and William Morris, his “tug-of-war” with Barry Diller at Universal (where he lasted 25 years and survived six owners), the movies he’s proudest of and why he’s still an optimist about showbiz. “To the day I left Universal, I pinched myself,” he says of his Hollywood journey, which ended with his exit from the studio in 2020. “I always thought it was a miracle.”
L.A. STORY Meyer and Rushfield in The Ankler offices on Dec. 19. (Matthew Frank)
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