Read the original article here.
By Malina Saval
Entertainment attorney Craig Emanuel, Variety’s 2023 Power of Law honoree, remembers the day he got a phone call asking if he would be interested in meeting with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.
“I knew that they were meeting with a lot of lawyers around town, and I really didn’t think we were going to get selected,” says Emanuel. “A lot of the other law firms were boutique entertainment firms that had huge client lists.”
“Months went by, and I thought, you know, nothing’s happening,” Emanuel continues. “And then Richard Lovett, president of CAA, who reps Tom and Rita, called me one evening on the phone. I was at dinner with my partners, and Richard said, ‘I’ve got some good news, you have a new client.’”
Now sitting in the brightly lit expanse of Paul Hastings’ soaring Century City offices, where Emanuel heads up the renowned global law firm’s entertainment and media division, it’s clear he’s being humble, underselling his reputation as top-tier Hollywood counsel. In addition to Hanks and his production shingle Playtone, Emanuel, who recently marked his fifth year as partner at Paul Hastings, boasts a heady clientele: super-showrunner Ryan Murphy, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, MSG Entertainment, writer-producer Tony Gilroy, Mandalay Pictures, Cirque du Soleil and fellow Aussie Paul Hogan — to name just a few.
“I think sometimes attorneys go in and pitch themselves — not about what they do, but what their competitors don’t do. I think that’s a mistake,” notes Emanuel. “I think you have to lead from strength as to who you are.”
An unassailable sense of self has long shaped Emanuel’s professional and personal sojourn, starting with his first day of school in America.
It was September 1972 and the Australian 13-year-old, fresh off his bar mitzvah that June, had moved with his family from Melbourne to Rumson, N.J., where his father, a corporate transactional attorney, was launching an international real estate and investment company.
“I rode my bicycle to school, and I had a bike that was made by an Australian company called Moulton,” remembers Emanuel of that inaugural eighth grade day. “And there’s this star on the front of the bike. And I pull into the school and one of the school kids came up to me and said, ‘You’re riding a Jew bike.’ And we got into a fight. My initial response was to try and be clever. I pointed out that there’s a difference between a five-pointed star and six-pointed star. He didn’t find that particularly funny. And he came up and he hit me. And I hit him back. He hit me in the mouth, and I slugged him in the nose. I ended up getting a root canal on my front tooth. And that was my very first day of school in America.”
While Emanuel’s parents were, he recalls, “alarmed,” the remainder of that school year passed largely without incident. Reflecting upon the event decades later, Emanuel recalls Rumson as having had “a fairly decent Jewish community.” But the attack stuck with him.
oday, Emanuel remains, in his own words, “reasonably outspoken and honest about my views — politically, religiously and otherwise.” In addition to his bustling legal career, he is a strident human rights activist, devoting ample time to such philanthropic endeavors as the Black Jewish Entertainment Alliance, the March on Washington Film Festival and the Faith and Politics Institute, a nonprofit that was led for more than 20 years by the late congressman John Lewis. Emanuel also serves as legal counsel to the Sundance Institute and volunteers with Chrysalis, a charity providing jobs and clothing.
Rodriguez, Emanuel’s client for some three decades, notes that outside of business matters, the attorney is “always thoughtful enough to just check in on you as a friend.”
“Craig works hard and gets results, but he’s also kind, decent, fair and a joy to work with — even for those on the other side of the table,” continues Rodriguez. “I think that’s key to representation. You really want someone that shares your work ethic and ideals, and Craig truly represents you.”
From “Glee” to “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” Murphy is a series creator jugger-naut, but the multihyphenate was just starting out when Emanuel inked him as a client.
“One of my most indelible moments with Craig was my very first — when he signed on as my lawyer before I had even sold my first script, ‘Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn?’ to Steven Spielberg,” says Murphy. “He was one of the very first, if not the first, people to believe I could be something. His belief in me and what I could accomplish has always been very moving and important.”
However, Emanuel’s professional trajectory was a circuitous one. In 1975, after a two-year stretch in the States, Emanuel’s family returned to Australia, where he was faced with a choice: What career path did he wish to pursue?
“I never really ever wanted to be a lawyer,” Emanuel admits. “But, you know, you’re 16 and you’ve got to make a decision. In Australia, in those days, you go straight from high school to whatever it is that you’re going to do, and I didn’t want to be a doctor, and I didn’t want to be a scientist. Law was a five-year program. And I thought, well, having a law degree is not a bad thing.”
And so, “very, very early” in life Emanuel enrolled at Melbourne’s Monash University. When he was 19, his father, at just 44, died of brain cancer. Halfway through getting his degree, Emanuel decided to take a couple of months off to travel — and so the young law student embarked on a backpacking excursion through Europe. “I ended up living in Ibiza for a period in the late ’70s and early ’80s, which was a lot of fun,” he says.
Emanuel returned to law school and, in his final year, penned a thesis exploring taxation on investment in the Australian film industry, a research paper that helped introduce landmark legislation to create tax incentives for the country’s film industry. “I became somewhat of an authority in that space, participating in conversations with government representatives,” says Emanuel. “I watched the legislation go from being a draft bill to being introduced.”
But in 1985, the itch to explore the world again — and the entertainment industry — embedded itself in Emanuel. This time, he headed for Los Angeles.
“My thought process was that I was going to learn something about the industry, take it back to Australia and apply that knowledge and do something in the film space there,” says Emanuel. “I arrived in Los Angeles in February 1985. I really don’t know a lot of people. I wasn’t licensed to practice law. I didn’t have a visa to work. I had no plan at all.”
Screen International editor Elspeth Tavares, who gave Emanuel a job as an executive assistant in the magazine’s LA office during his brief California foray in 1980, helped secure Emanuel a place to stay.
“I worked as a waiter in a restaurant. I drove a graveyard shift as a limo driver. I played piano three nights a week at Chaya Brasserie,” says Emanuel, who, following in his father’s footsteps, studied classical music from age 4.
At one point during that youthful period in Hollywood, Emanuel landed work on a Roger Corman film, making $20 a day to complete tasks ranging from script rewrites to casting. “I don’t remember the exact name of the film, but there was a widow and a priest character,” says Emanuel. “The script was about a bunch of kids who went to Mexico on vacation, got kidnapped and put to work on a pot farm. Then two of their friends dress up as a nun and a priest and drive down on motorcycles to rescue them.”
Emanuel’s mother was “incredibly supportive,” but Emanuel began to doubt what exactly he was doing with his life. “I struggled,” he says. “I thought, this is great, but this is not what I came to do. And, in those days, there’s no email, no internet, no cell phones. You would write letters and patiently wait for the phone to ring or for someone to reply. The highlight of my day was watching ‘Perry Mason’ and ‘Mission: Impossible.’ I started to think, ‘Have I made the wrong decision? Should I go back to Australia?’”
At 25, rootless and with “no obligations to anybody,” Emanuel realized that what he needed to succeed was “an entirely different attitude.” So he shifted tactics. “I made it a point that anytime I would meet someone, I wouldn’t leave the meeting without getting a referral to somebody else,” he says. “I started to build a network. And I was writing to a bunch of law firms saying, ‘Look, here are my qualifications — give me a job.’”
Nobody responded except for one attorney: Edward Rubin, then-partner at formidable entertainment firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp. Rubin didn’t have a job to offer Emanuel, but what he did have was connections.
“I go down to [Rubin’s] office, and he says, ‘I’m going to give you the names of 10 lawyers, and you should write to them and say I’ve suggested that you reach out,’” recalls Emanuel of that fortuitous meeting. “In his office, there were pictures of Nixon and, I think, Kennedy. I think he may have even driven across the country with Nixon. It was an incredible act of kindness.”
Eventually, one of the contacts to whom Emanuel wrote connected him with Scottish entertainment attorney-turned-producing mogul Nigel Sinclair. Sinclair had just moved from London to Los Angeles, where he was opening the West Coast office of his firm, Sinclair Tenenbaum.
“I called [Nigel] that night and I said, ‘Give me a job, pay me anything, and I’ll make it worth your while,’” says Emanuel. “And he said, ‘Do you have a suit?’”
Emanuel did not have a suit, but he ran out and bought one, got a haircut and met Sinclair at his office the next day. Sinclair offered Emanuel a position — “the equivalent of being a paralegal,” he explains — sponsored him for a visa and paid for him to study for the California State Bar, which Emanuel passed on the first try.
Emanuel soon established himself as one of the industry’s preeminent entertainment attorneys, focusing on everything from cutting production deals to securing intellectual property for clients. In 1985, well before he was a known commodity outside of Australia, Hogan retained Emanuel and Sinclair to negotiate the U.S. distribution deal of “Crocodile Dundee.” After Sinclair dissolved his practice to produce films full time, Emanuel spent the next 20 years as partner at multiservice firm Loeb & Loeb.
Over the past four decades, Emanuel has represented high-profile talent ranging from Julie Delpy and Jennifer Beals to music mogul Clive Davis and Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulman (“Crash”). He also reps a slate of celebrated international filmmakers, including Israeli writer-director Samuel Maoz, who helmed the critically acclaimed 2017 drama “Foxtrot,” and Palestinian filmmaker Hany Aby-Assad, who directed the 2006 Academy Award-nominated drama “Paradise Now.”
A firm believer in the power of international discourse, Emanuel, an advisory board member of Creative Community for Peace, a nonprofit that promotes artists as a pathway to peace, reps rising and established filmmakers from all over the world, including Egyptian, Israeli, Palestinian and Iranian artists.
“We are fortunate to have Craig’s insight, guidance and support in our critical work of countering the rising tide of antisemitism and anti-Israel activism,” says Ari Ingel, director of Creative Community for Peace.
Several years back, recognizing an oppor-tunity to meet “leaders from the Arab film community,” Emanuel accepted an invite to teach a master class at the Beirut International Film Festival. The festival coincided with Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Emanuel found a way to observe the high holiday while in Lebanon — not the easiest thing to do since an estimated 30 Jews live in Lebanon and there are no public services held at the capital city’s one remaining synagogue. But bridging
cultural divides has always been one of Emanuel’s key passions.
“To be able to engage in a conversation about how we can use media and entertainment as a means of finding commonality, I’ll have that conversation anywhere,” says Emanuel. “It was an amazing experience.”
Emanuel, who makes his home in Los Angeles with his wife, producer Deborah Zipser — he has two grown children from a previous marriage — is not only a powerhouse in the legal field, but, perhaps even more importantly, is known for being one of the industry’s most likable and trustworthy individuals.
“A constant over the 30 years working with Craig has been that whenever I’m about to do a deal and inform someone he is my attorney, it’s always met with a ‘Oh, I love Craig! We can figure this out!’” says Rodriguez.
But as dedicated as he is to his career, wanderlust has never fully left Emanuel. There was a moment six or seven years ago when the seasoned attorney pondered departing the legal arena “for something else.” Then Paul Hastings came along. And it was, as they say, an “attractive” offer Emanuel could not refuse. Among those perks was getting to work with attorneys Mickey Mayerson and Susan Williams, Emanuel’s co-chairs at Paul Hastings’ entertainment and media division.
“The truth of the matter is, at the end of the day, you want to be around the people that you enjoy working with, and I couldn’t imagine not working with those people,” says Emanuel. “And sometimes, when the train starts to leave the station, it’s not easy to get off the platform. But, as it turned out, my business has thrived at Paul Hastings. I spend time doing what I love — which is finding business and doing deals.”
Read the original article here.
Ticketmaster is starting to come under further criticism after the company seemingly ignored requests to deplatform tickets for Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan’s February 26 speech.
Ticketmaster is starting to come under further criticism after the company seemingly ignored requests to deplatform tickets for Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan’s February 26 speech.
Farrakhan gave the keynote address to the NOI’s Saviours’ Day conference in Chicago; prior to the event, Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) had sent a letter to Ticketmaster CEO Michael Rapino urging Ticketmaster to reconsider allowing tickets to be sold for the event. The letter was signed by more than 120 entertainment industry leaders including Haim Saban and Sherry Lansing but did not receive a reply from the company.
Farrakhan’s speech, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), was “a relentless stream of antisemitic commentary accusing Jews of controlling world governments, the media, and financial institutions,” according to the ADL. Farrakhan also seemed to suggest that the Jews were going to face another Holocaust. “A Jewish man said to me, ‘You know, we say never again. Never again will we be in the oven. Never again,’” Farrakhan said, per the ADL. “I said, ‘Hold it.’ You can say that to men, but you can’t say that to God. Because the Bible says, behold the day cometh that shall burn — as a what? —as an oven. And those who do wickedly, He will slay them and leave them neither root nor branch…The War of Armageddon is to decide who will live on this earth.”
Additionally, Farrakhan defended rapper Kanye West as “a very great brother” and “young God.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported on March 2 that while most members of Congress have been silent on Ticketmaster allowing its platform to be used for the Farrakhan, they did find a couple willing to speak out. “It is extremely concerning that Ticketmaster is choosing to use its platform to elevate and promote a well-known antisemite,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told the conservative news site. “The targeting of the Jewish people has gone on far too long and must stop.”
“Antisemitism has no place in America,” Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) also told the Free Beacon. “Ticketmaster should be completely transparent on why it chose to profit off of Farrakhan’s abhorrent history of hatred and violent threats of genocide against the Jewish people.”
Jewish groups also criticized Ticketmaster, per The Algemeiner.
“Four decades of non-stop vicious Jew-hatred from Louis Farrakhan has born poison fruit in the mainstream of our society,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda Rabbi Abraham Cooper said in a March 1 statement. “Words lead to action and his toxic hatred has been absorbed by many including Kanye West. We urge all our neighbors to reject his hate and we must commit to strengthen our relationships for the betterment of all Americans whatever their color creed or orientation.”
He added: “We have tracked and denounced Farrakhan and his trail of Jew-hatred and anti-Semitic incitement for four decades. Yet, the godfather of hate has rarely been publicly criticized. Indeed, access to this year’s speech was handled by Ticketmaster, at a time when American Jewry is reeling from violent anti-Semitic hate crimes. Farrakhan has rarely been held accountable for his serial Jew-hatred and in 2023, Ticketmaster and others have monetized his hate and expanded the reach of his hatred.”
CCFP tweeted on February 28, “@Ticketmaster would rightly refuse to sell tickets to a KKK rally, but to our deep disappointment, they knowingly enabled Farrakhan’s dangerous #antisemitic hate.”
Stop Antisemitism said in a statement to the Journal, “Ticketmaster has completely lost its moral compass by profiting off the hate of someone like Louis Farrakhan.”
ADL Midwest Regional Director David Goldenberg told the Journal that they haven’t been focusing on Ticketmaster; their focus has been on the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA). The MPEA has a public-private partnership with Wintrust Arena, where the Farrakhan event was held. On February 13, the ADL Midwest had sent a letter to the MPEA in conjunction with the Chicago Jewish Community Relations Council and the LGTBQ+ advocacy organization Equality Illinois expressing concern over Farrakhan’s rhetoric; since the event took place, ADL Midwest has been urging the MPEA to condemn Farrakhan’s speech.
“We recognize that there may be contractual obligations, but we also felt that they have the right––a protected right––to speak out against that type of hate speech when it occurs underneath their roof,” Goldenberg said. “We have since shared excerpts from his remarks. We’ve engaged with board members and other public officials about this to express concern that… anything that has some type of public entity gave Farrakhan such a platform to espouse hate and bigotry and antisemitism.”
Ticketmaster did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment.
Read the original article here.
Creative Community for Peace Letter Signed by More than 120 Entertainment Industry Heavyweights
The leading ticketing platform in sports and entertainment doesn’t seem to have a problem with Louis Farrakahn’s long history of anti-Semitism, according to a letter sent by entertainment industry heavyweights to Ticketmaster this week.
Creative Community for Peace, a leading entertainment industry trade group that promotes tolerance through the arts, sent a letter to Ticketmaster CEO Michael Rapino, expressing great concern about Ticketmaster selling tickets to Louis Farrakhan’s upcoming Saviours’ Day event on February 26h at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.
The letter, which was signed by entertainment executives Haim Saban, Sherry Lansing, singer/songwriter Diane Warren, and more than 120 other entertainment industry leaders, highlights a list of antisemitic and homophobic statements from Louis Farrakhan at past Saviours’ Day events. It urges the company to reconsider selling tickets to the event and to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, a guideline to help identify and combat anti-Jewish hate, such as that often espoused by Farrakhan.
“Mr. Farrakhan has labeled Judaism a “gutter religion;” stated that Jewish religious writings are responsible for “pedophilia, homosexuality, and sex trafficking” in America; regularly praises Hitler, calling him “a very great man;” the letter stated. “[Farrakhan] refers to Jews as insects; and falsely and outrageously claims that Jews orchestrated and dominated the African slave trade.”
Mr. Farrakhan has repeatedly invoked “Satan” when referring to the Jewish people. In his 2017 speech at Saviors’ Day, he said “Those who call themselves ‘Jews,’ who are not really Jews, but are in fact, Satan. You should learn to call them by their real name: ‘Satan.’ You are coming face-to-face with Satan, the Arch Deceiver, the enemy of God and the enemy of the Righteous.” And in 2020, he promoted violence by stating, “”Those of you who say that you are Jews, I will not even give you the honor of calling yourself Jews. You are not a Jew. You are so-called. You are Satan. It is my job now to pull the cover off of Satan. So when every Muslim sees Satan, pick up a stone.”
The letter includes additional incendiary quotes from Mr. Farrakhan over the years, highlighting his pattern of sharing antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories with his audience. It also notes the fact that there are more hate crimes per capita against Jews than any other minority and that “, providing support of any kind to this sort of hatred is not just unacceptable, but dangerous.”
CCFP Director Ari Ingel added, “Louis Farrakhan is one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in America, as noted by the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center. His views are incredibly dangerous and we’re disappointed to see Ticketmaster enable his promulgation of hatred. We hope Mr. Rapino reconsiders, especially at a time when antisemitism continues to become more and more normalized.”
At the time of this writing, Ticketmaster CEO Michael Rapino has yet to respond to CCFP’s request.
