Ovitz Says Eisner and Disney Let Him Down

GEORGETOWN, Del., Oct. 27 -- Michael Ovitz testified Wednesday that he begged to stay on as president of the Walt Disney Co. and described his departure from the media firm as an emotionally wrenching experience that destroyed his 25-year friendship with Disney chief executive Michael D. Eisner, wrecked his career and made the last several years the worst of his life.

"I went into a partnership with a man I was a life partner with, in a strange way, as a friend, and expected it to be a home run, and it was a nine-inning ballgame that was over in three innings," Ovitz said during his second day of testimony in a shareholder lawsuit over his $140 million severance package from Disney.

The result was "seven or eight of the worst years I've had in business or personally," Ovitz said. In addition, he said, the loss of the friendship left a "hole in my life."

Ovitz also accused Sanford Litvack, who was Disney's chief operations officer, of trying to sabotage his efforts at every turn. Litvack has criticized Ovitz's tenure at Disney, which lasted from October 1995 to December 1996, saying he had to follow the Disney president around "with a shovel."

"He did walk behind me," Ovitz testified Wednesday before Delaware Chancery Court Judge William B. Chandler III. "But it wasn't a shovel he was carrying -- it was a knife."

Shareholders filed the suit seven years ago, after Ovitz left Disney with a severance package valued at around $140 million. They are demanding that Ovitz, Eisner and other Disney directors, including actor Sidney Poitier and former senator George J. Mitchell, repay the company treasury for the severance package plus about $60 million in interest.

Ovitz also said he was devastated by Disney memos filed as evidence in the case in which Eisner referred to Ovitz as a "psychopath" and habitual liar.

"I don't understand and I will never understand how a guy could be with me so much . . . and then write in a memo that he never sent me that I'm a liar, that I have a veracity issue, that I'm a psychopath," Ovitz said. "I can't figure it out."

Ovitz said when he took the job as president in 1995, he told Eisner, " 'Just train me, and I'll cover your back. All you've got to do is watch mine.' It never happened."

It was the most emotionally charged testimony of the trial so far, offering a powerful, if one-sided, glimpse of the birth and rapid implosion of a partnership between two of the most powerful and vivid personalities in the media industry.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the suit began their cross-examination of Ovitz on Wednesday afternoon by trying to point out inconsistencies in his testimony and suggesting that he was not qualified for the Disney job.

The cross-examination will continue on Thursday. The trial, which began last Wednesday, is expected to last a month but lawyers in the case say they are already running behind schedule.