Ari Emanuel has soared to new prominence in the past few months since his talent agency, Endeavor, merged with William Morris. Now, he’s Hollywood’s “pre-eminent power player,” write Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes in the New York Times. But what drives him? Says a producer: “It’s about respect” for Emanuel, a onetime evictee who now calls a $10 million pad home.
And respect he gets: “Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of Ari Emanuel, especially now that his brother is running the White House,” says a TV exec. Emanuel has filled the shoes of “colorful moguls” from earlier generations, Cieply and Barnes note; now he “wants an empire," says an associate. But as the Prius-driving, solar-powered director of an environmental fund, he’s also driven “to make the world better,” as the third Emanuel brother puts it.
(More Ari Emanuel stories.)