Today's LAT takes a look at the seemingly inevitable, unholy marriage of two or more of the Big Five talent agencies, which may be forced to combine evil forces to adapt to the needs of a rapidly consolidating studio marketplace. Picking through some of the quiet personal relationships that may lube the painful path to a merger, they tell behind-the-scenes tales of secret tennis partners, former keg-tapping college buddies, and buried hatchets. Of course, official Agent Dance mascot and merger rumor-magnet Ari Emanuel of Endeavor must figure prominently in any discussion. Reports the LAT:

Sensing an opportunity to linger in the fleeting spotlight of a cameo in yesterday's Page Six item about CAA agent Kevin Huvane saving actress Ellen Barkin from a pre-Oscar choking death, former action star Sylvester Stallone today set the record straight on his non-intervention in the esophageal blockage:

If the death that soon followed CAA bigshot Bryan Lourd's pre-Oscar party last year didn't prove that socializing with agents the night before the ceremony is a potentially fatal undertaking, this item from today's Page Six should serve to remind us of the spectre of imminent doom that accompanies each encounter with the ten-percent class:

In response to our earlier post about Ben Affleck's movie premiere no-show, a reader noted that tragically misidentified director Mike Binder might have some trouble getting superagent Ari Emanuel on the phone, as he'd be earning his ten percent on the course of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. This delightful tip had us scouring the PGA Tour web site for scores, which seem to reveal that Emanuel has missed the cut based on last year's results*, he might be available for his more traditional agenting duties sooner than expected.

James Frey bashing has quickly evolved into America's favorite new pastime, with millions gathering around the bean dip to catch its Super Bowl equivalent: a 60-minute Oprah inculpation so grisly, it might as well have been dubbed The Passion of the Frey. But once your tall-tale substance abuse memoir has been likened to Holocaust denial on national television, as America's Opinion Maker Oprah Winfrey nods her large, regal head in accord, is there really anywhere else this sport can go? Of course there is! Frey could be dropped by his "people" namely, his Brillstein-Grey literary manager Kassie Evashevski, who explained her logic to Publisher's Weekly:

On Thursday, it seemed like everyone in town was hearing that ICM had a deal in place to acquire Endeavor. Since then, though, things have been quieter than the moment between someone at an agency staff meeting declaring, "You know who I think is finally going to be a big, big star? Paul Walker!" and the ensuing waves of laughter breaking the uncomfortable silence once everyone realizes they have a first-rate jokester in their midst. We've still seen or heard no official shooting-down of the rumored deal, but this interoffice denial from ICM chairman Jeff Berg seems to have "leaked" from within the agency's walls and into a number of industry inboxes:

Chatter that suddenly cash-rich agency ICM has bought/is about to buy Official Agent Dance Mascot Ari Emanuel and all of his pals at Endeavor seems to be reaching a pitch that could shatter the office watercooler. We've heard that it's a done deal, that the deal is "practically" done, that it's "imminent," that assistants at agencies are already panicking about layoffs, and that Emanuel has locked his office door so that he can light a pile of hundred dollar bills on fire just to to see if he can hear Ben Franklin scream. (Perhaps our speculation about the possibility of an acquisition descended into fantasy at the end there, but you get the point. People are talking.)

Endeavor agent/HuffPo blogging superstar Ari Emanuel finally devotes some post inches (grudgingly, after some bit referencing Bill Clinton's blowjob habit) to the entertainment industry, sharing his latest, awards season inspired frustration with the world:

After a nearly 15-year union, it seems that Coke is taking steps to phase out its relationship with CAA. Brandweek reports on the beverage empire's diminishing love for the agency:

· As chattered about yesterday, UTA agent Marty Bowen leaves the agency for a producing deal at New Line (with Davis Entertainment president Wyck Godfrey). Kudos to Var for apparently digging up Bowen's Godfrey's high school yearbook photo (at left—update: we obviously had no idea what either of them look like) to illustrate their story. Update: A more recent picture of Godfrey is here. [Variety]
· Steven Spielberg will executive produce another Sci Fi Channel miniseries, this time about grieving people who find a way to reconnect with their departed loved ones via near-death experiences, Nine Lives. We still prefer to commune with the dead through Jennifer Love Hewitt's rack. [THR]
· Midseason Series DeathWatch: ABC will yank Emily's Reasons Why Not and Jake in Progress after just one airing to re-run the Bachelor season premiere on Monday, but the shows are "scheduled" to return on Jan. 23rd. You know, unless more compelling opportunities to replace Monday Night Football with reality show repeats present themselves. [Variety]
· West Coast exec VP Marc Graboff is promoted to West Coast president of NBC Universal TV. In related news, NBC president Kevin Reilly still has his job, for now. [THR]
· Like the desperate guy who starts calling a girl who just gave up the digits before she's even left the bar, Showtime sends out its Emmy screeners an unprecedented five months early. [Variety]
· In the New Line romantic comedy Bridge and Tunnel, Jennifer Lopez will star as a stock trader HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No, really! J Lo as a stock trader! Sorry, did we just lose our shit a little? Yes, we did. [Variety]

The watercooler chatter indicating that bigtime UTA lit agent Marty Bowen is ditching the agency for a producing deal at New Line has reached deafening levels. We're sure we don't need to tell you that Charlie Kaufman immortalized Bowen in Adaptation, who was hilariously depicted with sodomy-craving relish ("See her? I fucked her up the ass.") by Ron Livingston. Pavlovian salivation over Bowen's client list, which (according to the Studio System database) includes the aforementioned Kaufman, the Broken Lizard guys, and James Gandolfini has already commenced, and a poach-happy rampage should soon ensue over those UTA (reportedly busy soiling its Armani pants over the loss) can't convince to stay in the fold. CAA is probably already planning a showy baby-eating exhibition by the side of Wilshire Boulevard to impress any waffling talent with their bloodthirsty commitment to their clients.

· Jossip interviews the guy who set up DirtyColin.com for the people who are trying to sell the Colin Farrell sex tape on the internet, who reveals that he expects the site to be back online in the next day or two, despite rumored legal threats and court injunctions.
· This is not the most flattering comparison we've ever seen. We'll just leave it at that.
· Thank you, Ari Emanuel, HuffPo blogger and official Agent Dance mascot, for giving us the pleasant image of the president suckling a teat. If he had a little more blogging experience, he would've Photoshopped up something nasty to go with it.
· Pierce Brosnan is relieved to be free from the typecasting, the arched-eyebrow dialogue, and the $20 million paychecks that come with being James Bond.

This week's NY Observer takes a look at the Hollywood subspecies of "manager," the industry creatures who brave the constant fear of being fired by treacherous clients for the crime of finding them work for the opportunity to attach themselves to the same clients' projects as producers. But besides the legal differences between managers and their percentage-taking cousins, agents, the two types of reps seem to be made of different stuff:

Former AK-wielding rapper and currently cuddly Are We There Yet? star Ice Cube jettisoned CAA almost a year ago, ostensibly spending the intervening agentless months adrift in a sea of infinite career possibilities. But according to Variety, the siren song of the William Morris Agency has lured Cube's rudderless rowboat ashore, no doubt with lilted promises that they will make sure the Ice Cube space stays meaningful for years to come. Showing their dedication to nurturing the entire Cube industry, WMA will also take on responsibility for his recording and touring careers, which should provide import revenue streams should they resist the impulse to sign their new client up for career-stunting, abandoned Vin Diesel franchises.

• Timesman James Risen, who broke the domestic-spying story, is humble, modest, and likes to eat at Subway. Also, he ain't looking to move to the L.A. Times. [MW]
• How will Jann Wenner celebrate his 60th birthday? By having 142 of his best pals for dinner at Le Bernardin, where they'll be entertained by Bruce Springsteen. They best part, though: The party is being hosted by his wife, Jane Wenner, and his boyfriend, Matt Nye. [WWD]
• Prof thinks pundits' accuracy should be tracked. Perhaps in a handy-dandy "Pundit Scorecard." Why hasn't anyone thought of that before? [WSJ]
• There's a new literary superagency on the block: Folio. We sort of hope superagents dress in capes and codpieces, because that would be fun. [GalleyCat]

Flush with new capital (which, apparently, they didn't spend on Christmas gifts this year, according to a reader: "ICM got 100 million dollars and all we got was this lousy keychain," pictured above), a suddenly bold ICM might be bobbing for agents in CAA's shark tank. Says Page Six:

If there is a job in Hollywood that sounds less appealing that being the erstwhile Most Powerful Man in Hollywood's (current title: Man in Hollywood) nanny, we've yet to hear of it. (Actually, probably any job in "excitable" producer Joel Silver's office that involves daily exposure to blunt projectiles whizzing by one's head is no picnic, but we digress.) A former Michael Ovitz nanny has written the inevitable tell-all about her experience in the Other House That Ovitz Built, You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again, in which she accuses him of threatening her with the dreaded "nanny blacklist" and the following litany of sins, as catalogued by Rush & Molloy:

Not all of the agencies are having fun snickering over the havoc their holiday gifts are wreaking among the assistant class. (We hear that the winner of UTA's $5,000 Golden Ticket, an assistant to the EVP of MTV Films, has already been kidnapped by an Argentine gang subcontracted by disgruntled Sony call-rollers.) A spy reports on some chilling news from the normally sleepy William Morris Agency:

Reports from UTA's holiday sweepstakes, in which the agency divided the town's assistants into Golden Ticket winners, bitter, chocolate-eating losers, and a third, progressively more bitter faction of those snubbed entirely, have been trickling in all day. Suffice it to say that those who found themselves with $100 to $5,000 of unexpected cash are pretty delighted with the results (our new thousandaire pals at SorryIGotDrunk are already wasted and busy with lapdances, we think), but the others, well, we haven't heard of any candy-related assistant-on-assistant violence yet, but this review of the gift sums it up:

A delighted recipient of CAA's assistant gift, the semifunctioning CamCorder that will no doubt precipitate scores of defections from studio desk duties to promising filmmaker careers, sent in this camphone pic of the high-tech gizmo's artfully written packaging. Indeed, the agency Santa Claus haggling down the Chinatown stall vendor to $20 per box of 300 showed the "nobellest" of taste in his gift selection.