Intelligencer

Agent Endeavors to Lure Back Liam

Neeson courted at Upper West Side restaurant.

By Beth Landman
Published Apr 27, 2008

(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

As the Hollywood talent-agency wars rage, ICM agent Eddy Yablans wined and dined his former client Liam Neeson, who jumped to CAA last year, at Café Luxembourg the other night. Sounding like a spurned Ari Gold, Yablans waxed nostalgic. “We had more than a business relationship, didn’t we?” the agent reminisced. “We were friends!” The two warmly recalled Friday-night phone conversations and time spent together with their kids, and eventually Yablans asked Neeson to come back. The actor was warm—they were friends, he said, and he missed the Friday-night calls, too—but he wouldn’t commit to a switch. At one point, Yablans, who recently lured Chris Rock back from Endeavor, told Neeson that a beautiful client would be joining them. Moments later Leslie Bibb arrived at the table. As Neeson got up to leave, she delivered her lines on cue: “You got rid of Eddy? Are you crazy?”