How to Be Pushed, Gracefully

By KIM MASTERS

The ability to make a graceful exit is part of a film star's repertoire--but it's rare among Hollywood executives, who tend to get fired with a blunt heave-ho, usually preceded by weeks of whispering. Last week, however, Arnold Rifkin managed it. Rifkin was the co-head of the William Morris Agency, and one of the industry's more colorful individuals. He's still colorful. But Jim Wiatt, the longtime co-chief of rival International Creative Management, is becoming president and co-chief executive of William Morris. Among the clients joining him there are Eddie Murphy, Sylvester Stallone and Tim Allen.

The 52-year-old Rifkin is getting the gate after a 25-year career fighting for the opportunity to take calls at midnight from anxious, obnoxious or overmedicated stars. "I've been retired as an agent," he says. "I'm no longer part of those wars." Lean and taut, Rifkin always stood out among his peers, which is saying something. Always in immaculate suits, he had waiters at the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel restaurant bring him a special black napkin because he didn't want to get white lint on his clothes.

At the office, he was known for slogans such as, "Commit and execute." Concluding that the company's conference room had too much "negativity," he personally oversaw a redecoration, covering the chairs in Ralph Lauren sheets. About a year ago, he dyed his close-cropped brown hair platinum blond to make good on a bet. "Arnold," says DreamWorks principal Jeffrey Katzenberg, "is an original."

Rifkin, forever known as a former fur salesman, was left to dangle as the industry buzzed for weeks that Wiatt would soon be occupying his office. On the Wednesday before the ax fell, Rifkin was dining at the industry cantina known as the Grill. A few tables away sat Wiatt and a client, director Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea). Rifkin leaned toward his lunch companion and asked, "You don't think they're still talking to Wiatt, do you?"

That Sunday, Rifkin got his answer--Wiatt was in and he was out. Rifkin is taking his ouster philosophically, and he's committing Hollywood heresy by being gentlemanly about it. He blames himself, in part, for losing the trust of William Morris management, including CEO Walter Zifkin, after his failed negotiation to run Columbia Pictures in 1996. He says he feels "no humiliation [and] no rancor." He's proud of bolstering William Morris' presence in independent films, building its London office and, yes, redecorating the conference room. "With all the jokes about my sheets, it's a beautiful room," he says. He also contends that the decoration was a success. "We created something that I believe Jimmy will inherit, and that's a very communicative environment," he says. "I don't believe Jimmy's culture necessarily promotes that, but he'll inherit that." The oblique allusion to ICM's reputation for disunity is Rifkin's only shot at his successor.

Last week Rifkin and Wiatt were back at the Grill, this time dining together as Rifkin publicly handed over the reins. Rifkin says he chose the most visible spot he could find to show how he feels. "This is not about Jimmy and me," he says. "This is about change. I've already moved on."