Hollywood’s Mr. Fix-It at Work

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Just hours after a raft of articles suggesting the impending collapse of his business hit the papers on April 11, 2002, Michael S. Ovitz did what Hollywood moguls had done for a generation: He called Anthony Pellicano, the New York Times reports.


“I need to see you,” Mr. Ovitz said, asking for a private meeting at an out-of-the-way spot. “This is the single most complex situation imaginable.”


They all went to Mr. Pellicano when their situations seemed too complex, or the stakes too high, to leave anything to chance: executives and actors, studio bosses and their jilted spouses, the hottest and the has-been. In nearly 20 years in Los Angeles, he had made himself into the rightful owner of that breathless title, “Detective to the Stars,” the one man who would, and seemingly could, do anything to clean up any mess.


So when federal agents raided Mr. Pellicano’s office in November 2002, his case became a local obsession: who would be fingered next, people wondered anxiously, as investigators gathered evidence and listened to Mr. Pellicano’s wiretap tapes.


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