The Hollywood Ten-Step

Paula Wagner, Tom Cruise's Partner in Cruise/Wagner Productions

1. At the tender age of 12, was answering the phones at her dad's office-supply company outside of Youngstown, Ohio, but ended up going the fine arts route, getting a B.F.A. in drama from Carnegie Mellon and going on to acting gigs on the New York stage and at Yale Repertory in the early 1970s (she once stood in for Meryl Streep).

2. Became an agent at the suggestion of her own agent, joining Susan Smith and Associates in Los Angeles in 1978.

3. Moved over to CAA in 1981 and developed a reputation for being smart--she's credited with seeing Tom Cruise for what he would become when he walked into her office--and showing fierce commitment to her clients. ("There's a reason why her clients always stayed with her--and they did. She's more intelligent than most agents and she doesn't suffer fools gladly," surmises one Industry insider.)

4. Signed other "unknowns" who she nurtured into substantial careers--Kevin Bacon, Aidan Quinn, Emilio Estevez. Signed Demi Moore during the Brat Pack days of About Last Night and guided her through ups and downs to superstardom of Ghost, A Few Good Men and Indecent Proposal as well as the record breaking paychecks that followed.

5. Continued signing impressive talents like Liam Neeson, Oliver Stone and Robert Towne, and was so dedicated to them she took only two weeks off to have her son (with fellow CAA agent and husband Rick Nicita).

("I'll never be the kind of mom who bakes bread," Wagner has said, "but I'll always be there to shoot hoops or talk about art.")

6. As Tom Cruise's agent during the '80s and early '90s, aided him in achieving one of the most remarkably successful careers in Hollywood by putting him in Risky Business (his breakthrough role, it made him into an overnight superstar), Top Gu_n (made him one of the highest-paid actors in town), _The Color of Money (gave him serious dramatic credentials), Rain Man (which attracted four Academy Awards), Born on the Fourth of July (brought him his first Oscar nomination), and A Few Good Men (held his own against an iconic Jack Nicholson).

7. Left CAA in 1992 to form Cruise/Wagner Productions with the superstar (leaving the agenting of Cruise to husband Rick Nicita). Over the next few years acquired and developed a rich slate of projects for Cruise to star in and/or produce, solidifying relationships with some of the most gifted writers in the industry (i.e., Robert Towne, Cameron Crowe).

8. With Cruise, developed and produced the 1996 blockbuster Mission: Impossible, the first film Cruise produced, which grossed over $450 million worldwide.

9. With Cruise, produced the notably non-Tom Cruise-starring film Without Limits, written and directed by Robert Towne.

10. Cruise/Wagner Productions currently has over a dozen high-profile movies in development or production, including the second installment of Mission: Impossible (to be directed by Oliver Stone), the John Woo picture Devil's Soldier and the remake of I Married a Witch, a vehicle designed for Cruise and his wife Nicole Kidman.

Amy Pascal, President, Columbia Pictures

1. Following graduation from UCLA with a B.A. in political science, lasted three weeks as a secretary at CAA before becoming an assistant to producer Tony Garnett, who had a deal with Warner Bros.

2. During six years with Garnett, became his partner (using UCLA interns to be her secretaries), and with him produced Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird (1985) and Earth Girls Are Easy (1989).

3. Became a production VP at Fox in 1986 ("I had no idea what I was doing--none--and I was very bad at it"), and working under Scott Rudin, developed Cameron Crowe's Say Anything....

4. Hired away from Fox to become production VP at Columbia in 1987 under then-president Dawn Steel ("She was fantastic. She had all this big hair, and she had this big fancy house, and she looked great in jeans, and she had a baby, and she had this big job and was really rich. It was like: I want to be her"). Promoted to executive VP in 1989, shepherding 1990's Awakenings through production and building a relationship with Penny Marshall in the process.

5. Under shifting studio leadership, oversaw what she termed "big movie-star pictures" that included Penny Marshall's 1992 hit A League of Their Own and the 1993 hit Groundhog Day, as well as such flops as 1994's Wolf and I'll Do Anything (both of which she helped to develop, gaining the loyalty of their directors, Mike Nichols and James L. Brooks).

6. Personally oversaw 1994's Little Women, a movie she'd struggled to make for years, hiring scriptwriter Robin Swicord, producer Denise Di Novi and director Gillian Armstrong.

7. Left Columbia in 1994 to become president of production at Turner Pictures Worldwide, where she promptly negotiated an exclusive deal with Di Novi.

8. Initiated an ambitious slate for Turner, consisting of 1996's Michael (building on close ties with Nora Ephron), 1998's Fallen (scripted by Robin Swicord's husband, Nicholas Kazan) and the upcoming City of Angels, starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.

9. Upon Turner Pictures being absorbed into the Time-Warner/Turner merger, returned to Columbia Pictures as president in 1996, becoming the first executive to be hired by John Calley, who had just left MGM to head Columbia.

10. Working under Calley and Lucy Fisher (whom Pascal has described as her mentor from their days at Warner Bros.), has put together a slate of pictures that includes 8mm, starring Nic Cage, and Houdini, which may star Tom Cruise.

Laura Ziskin, President, Fox 2000 Pictures

1. Raised the daughter of two psychologist parents, got her first showbiz gig writing scripts for The Dating Game after earning a B.A. from USC film school in 1973.

2. Got hired as an assistant to Barbra Streisand and hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters, which led to her assistant duties on 1976's A Star Is Born. (Has recounted the first occasion on which legendary screamer Peters vented at her as follows: "I said, 'God, you're so terribly tense. You must be under so much pressure.' I said, 'Sit down,' and I gave him a back rub. It wasn't sexual. I know it sounds like it was, but it wasn't. It totally defused what was going on. He never yelled at me again.")

3. Joined Kaleidoscope Films in 1980 as a partner, which would lead eventually to 1988's D.O.A. and Everybody's All-American, which had been so "developed" from its original, highly touted form that it bombed.

4. In 1984, joined up with Sally Field to form Fogwood Films and produced 1985's Murphy's Romance, which won an Oscar nomination for James Garner.

5. Produced the out-of-nowhere 1987 big hit No Way Out, in which she cast the little known Kevin Costner and turned him into an instant star.

6. Was asked in 1987 by director Garry Marshall to executive-produce the film that would become--and she's the one credited by insiders with pushing it in a commercial direction--1990's blockbuster Pretty Woman. (When she confided to friend/screenwriter Anna Hamilton Phelan that she was afraid the movie glorified prostitution, Phelan comforted her by saying, "Laura, just make the movie. This will not be the movie that will get you into heaven, but it's OK.")

7. Produced 1991's The Doctor, director Randa Haines's long-awaited follow-up to Children of a Lesser God.

8. Produced 1991's What About Bob?, a project she "coconceived" with the screenwriter Alvin Sargent, the estimable scripter of such films as Ordinary People and Julia, who also happened to be her companion. (Her later description of a contretemps in which Bill Murray grabbed her glasses off her face and broke them in a fit of anger revealed her pragmatic approach to Hollywood temperament: "When I saw him the next day ... I remember thinking that the only way I can go on and continue to work with him was to do what I did, which was to say to him, 'That must have really been hard for you. That must have really been painful.' And it was amazing, it just defused everything. He goes, 'Yeah, I hate it when I get like that.' It was a humanizing moment.")

9. Under a production deal at Sony, produced 1992's unsuccessful Stephen Frears social comedy Hero (which she'd coconceived with Sargent while watching the 1988 presidential election), and 1995's critically successful Gus Van Sant satire To Die For, and bought the screenplay As Good As It Gets, which she later executive-produced.

10. Named president of Fox 2000 Pictures in 1994 (a job she took in part because her 10-year-old daughter had burst into tears when she went off to Canada for five months to make To Die For), and has overseen Courage Under Fire, Inventing The Abbotts, Soul Food and the upcoming The Thin Red Line (notable for being Terrence Malick's return to filmmaking). An aggressive buyer of literary properties, spent upwards of $10 million during a few notable weeks, and has taken knocks on some of her purchases--like One Fine Day and Volcano.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5