If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Ari Emanuel has spent more than three decades making deals, building companies and occasionally screaming his way through Hollywood. Now, the superagent-turned-media mogul is telling his own story.
In a new memoir “Roll the Calls,” released Sept. 22, Emanuel chronicles his rise from the CAA mailroom to one of the most powerful positions in entertainment and sports. The 432-page book was written alongside J.R. Moehringer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who collaborated with Prince Harry on “Spare” and Andre Agassi on “Open.
As its title suggests, “Roll the Calls” takes its name from the old-school agency practice of having an assistant line up one phone conversation after another — a routine that defined Emanuel’s famously relentless work style. The book moves through his early days at CAA and ICM, the 1995 founding of Endeavor and its eventual merger with the William Morris Agency, as well as the acquisitions of IMG and UFC and the creation of TKO Group Holdings, which brought UFC and WWE under the same corporate umbrella. Emanuel now serves as executive chair and CEO of TKO and executive chairman of WME Group.
But the memoir is as much an account of Emanuel’s temperament as his dealmaking. Emanuel writes candidly about his lifelong struggles with dyslexia, growing up in Chicago alongside his high-achieving brothers Rahm and Zeke Emanuel and developing the combative personality he would become notorious for in Hollywood. That reputation famously provided some of the inspiration for Jeremy Piven’s foul-mouthed agent Ari Gold on HBO’s “Entourage.” Rage, competition and an almost compulsive need to keep moving recur throughout the book.
Emanuel recounts fights, grudges and professional feuds alongside major career victories, while also reflecting on anxiety, therapy, family and the fleeting satisfaction of success. Despite his ascent from mailroom employee to billionaire entertainment executive, Emanuel writes that the rush of achievement rarely lasts. The book is also packed with Hollywood names.
Emanuel recalls signing Oprah Winfrey, clashing with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Harvey Weinstein, dealing with Michael Ovitz and navigating the careers and projects of longtime clients including Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg. He also discusses dropping Donald Trump as a client after Trump entered the White House and recounts interactions with figures ranging from Barack Obama to Elon Musk. Some of the more colorful anecdotes extend beyond the boardroom.
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