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VIACOM CHAIRMAN BACKS PARAMOUNT CHIEF Monday, April 17 2006 
Viacom
Chairman
Sumner
Redstone
has
expressed
his
"unequivocal
faith
in
the
integrity"
of
embattled
Paramount
Chairman
Brad
Grey,
whose
past
association
with
private
detective
Anthony
Pellicano
continues
to
draw
widespread
attention
by
the
news
media.
In
an
interview
with
Newsweek
magazine,
Redstone
remarked,
"When
Brad
came
aboard,
he
told
us
everything
there
was
to
tell
us
about
what
was
going
on
with
Pellicano
...
I
would
be
shocked,
truly,
if
Brad
engaged
in
any
--
(more)HOW CLOSE WERE GREY, OVITZ TO PELLICANO? Friday, April 14 2006 
In
a
front-page
article,
the
New
York
Times
reported
today
(Friday)
that
contacts
between
private
detective
Anthony
Pellicano
on
the
one
hand
and
Paramount
chief
Brad
Grey
and
former
superagent
Michael
Ovitz
on
the
other
were
more
extensive
than
they
had
previously
acknowledged.
The
newspaper,
citing
raw
FBI
records,
indicated
that
Grey,
who
previously
had
said
that
he
was
only
"casually
acquainted"
with
Pellicano,
had
numerous
meetings
with
him,
including
several
about
a
projected
TV
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The head of Hollywood's leading talent agency has condemned Viacom chief Sumner Redstone's castigating comments about Tom Cruise and has suggested that the agency may now refuse to do business with Viacom's Paramount studios. In an interview with today's (Thursday) Wall Street Journal, Richard Lovett, president of Creative Artists Agency, which represents Cruise, said, "Paramount has no credibility right now. ... It is not clear who is running the studio and who is making the decisions." Cruise's partner, Paula Wagner, is a onetime CAA agent and is married to Cruise's current representative at CAA, Rick Nicita. On Tuesday Redstone told the newspaper that Paramount was cutting its ties with Cruise's production company because the actor's behavior over the past year was "not acceptable to Paramount." As the newspaper pointed out, under ordinary circumstances such an announcement would have come from Paramount Chairman Brad Grey or Viacom CEO Tom Freston. "For such talk to come out of the blue, from Mr. Redstone himself, and then be followed by two days of silence from both Mr. Grey and Mr. Freston, stunned Hollywood's power elite," the Journal observed. For his part, Redstone told today's Los Angeles Times: "Tom Freston should have made the announcement, but it was apparent to me he didn't want to, and I understand why: Because he's in the talent business." Redstone, in his interview with the Wall Street Journal, also said that he had received "congratulatory calls" from DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen -- who reportedly engineered the sale of the studio to Paramount -- and Imagine Entertainment founder Brian Grazer. "It is about time that the industry started dealing with these stars in a different manner and let them know that they are not going to get big money and act in a way that is inappropriate and embarrasses the studios," Redstone said.
