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Ari Gold (Born July 21, 1967) Age 43 Hollywood super-agent, and the former representative of Vincent Chase. Ari was also the co-owner of the Miller Gold Agency with his one time rival Barbara Miller, before he left the agency to live with his wife in Italy.

Biography[]

Ari Gold is Vincent Chase's neurotic movie agent. He is a product of the public school system. He was an undergrad at Harvard University before earning his J.D./M.B.A. at the University of Michigan. He was also a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.

Ari is Jewish and has one brother, Howard, and despite making multiple exaggerations of "a sister" of his that he has referred to as both crazy and a whore, Ari has stated that he has no sister. He was born in 1967, as stated in the episode "Tree Trippers".

Despite his position as one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood, Ari acquiesces to his wife at home (who has a large inheritance from her father), who is able to keep him in check. Despite frequent sexual innuendos, Ari has never cheated on his wife since they were married and "loves a liar, hates a cheater." However in the pilot episode, Ari tells character Eric Murphy during a power lunch that he is having sex with a swim suit model. Eric Murphy is lead character, Vincent Chase's manager.

Towards the end of Season 2, Ari gets into a rivalry with Terrence McQuewick, his partner, who happened to be the majority owner of the agency. Conflicts between the two became apparent when Terrence attempted to persuade Vincent Chase - Ari's star client - to work with him instead. When Ari attempted to break away from the agency along with eight other agents, he was ratted out by Adam Davies (a rival agent), and was forced out by Terrence, who attempted to have his employees sign letters of commitment to his company. Later in the episode, he appears to have a brief mental breakdown but recovers after Lloyd lectures him and encourages Ari to continue his attempt to open his own agency. At the end of season 2, Ari sets up a small boutique with five other agents working for him, until Terrance and Ari settle on $11 million in return for Ari not suing Terrance for wrongful termination. Later on, Ari intends to use the money to start up a much larger agency, but he is found out. Terrance makes it clear he will spend all of his money to ensure Ari never sees a dime of their agreed settlement. In the end Ari's former mentor and former boss before Terrance, Barbara "Babs" Miller makes a deal to partner with him to start a new agency. It ends up being called Miller Gold Agency. Ari comments that it sounds like the name of a beer company.

Ari and Eric Murphy are the primary influences in Vincent's life. Due to their lifelong friendship, Vince follows Eric's advice much more than he does Ari's. This makes for a tense relationship between Eric and Ari. While neither one particularly likes the other, they realize that they are in a marriage of necessity and grow to become close comrades. Their personal and professional relationship shatters at the end of the Season 3 Part 1 finale when Eric and Vince fire Ari due to his risky business move that ends up costing Vince the role of Joey Ramone in a biographical film documenting the story of legendary punk rock group The Ramones.

In the following episode, Ari had a friendly lunch with Vince and Eric, informing them that his dream project, Medellin (the story of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar), is now available, but Vince's new agent Amanda informs him that this is not the case. Later that night at Vince's birthday party, Ari and Amanda square off, but Ari backs off, knowing that he planted the seed of doubt in Vince's mind. Vince decides not to accept any new projects until he is certain that Medellin is off the table.

During the 17th episode of Season 3, "Return of the King," Ari informs Vince that Medellin has officially become available, and Ari tries his best to get the lead role for Vince, but because it is Yom Kippur, Ari has difficulty in doing so and the project is shut down. Vince, believing that Ari would've never let it happen, feels that Amanda let the deal fall through because of their relationship and that filming Medellin would keep him busy for six months. Either way, Amanda dropped Vince in every sense of the word. In the next episode The Resurrection, Vincent and Eric rehire Ari as their agent, since Ari got them the full rights to Medellin as they will be producing the project thus reviving the film.

During Season 4, Ari tries hard to get Vincent a job, but struggles to do so as everyone won't give him a job without validating Medellin first. Eventually, the trailer for Medellin is leaked, inducing a flood of offers. The film they decide upon comes from an adaptation of a book Eric gave to Ari some time ago. It is seen as a potential blockbuster for Vincent; Ari goes to Dana Gordon to acquire the role. However, the role is already filled, so Ari and Lloyd begin a game of sabotage to get Vincent the role, successfully after getting Heath Ledger to drop out. However, the intended director drops out as well. Ari, in a last-minute desperation, sells Dana Gordon the Dream Team: actor Vincent Chase, producer Eric Murphy, and director Billy Walsh. Billy gets commissioned to write the script, but deviates from the source material entirely. Ari then struggles to get the studio interested in the new Project "SILO" which, according to Vince, is a gold mine.

In the Season 4 season finale, Ari tries to sell Medellin before the screening, getting large offers, eventually the decision is made by the financier Nick Rubenstein, who has accepted an offer from Yair Marx (2nd of 3 people who wanted to finance the film - he did not finance it of course) to buy the film for $75 Million. After the screening the crowd at Cannes boos it, Marx drops his offer right then and there. Eventually Harvey Weingard, comes and buys the film for $1. Ari is confident that Harvey can fix the film.

In Season 5, after Alan Gray - the studio head of Warner Bros. - suffers a fatal heart attack, Ari is offered the chance to succeed him by the studio's chairman John Ellis for $10 million. Ari is not sure what to do: if he takes the job, he could give Vince any role he wanted with the studio but it would also mean that he couldn't be Vince's agent, which could also end their friendship. He decides to turn the job down, but then he learns that Amanda Daniels - who still holds a grudge against Vince and Ari - is next in line. Ari attempts to make peace with her, offering to put his full support behind her for the job as long as she agrees to add Vince as the second lead in Smoke Jumpers. Saying that Vince isn't good enough, she refuses the deal, adding that " Ari can kiss his relationship with the studio goodbye." Wanting to save his friend's career, Ari declares that he's taking the job to spite her, but instead convinces John Ellis to give the position to Dana Gordon. Not only does this guarantee Vince in Smoke Jumpers, but it also repairs his relationship with Dana.

After that was resolved, Ari meets with Andrew Klein, an old mentor and friend during Ari's day as an assistant to agents at Terrance and Jim Oliver's agency. Ari was ready to give up being an agent and go back to Chicago to become a lawyer, but it was his friend Andrew who convinced Ari to stay in Hollywood. When the partnership at the agency between Terrance and Oliver broke up, Ari went with Terrance but Andrew went with Oliver, who wound up ripping off his clients and employees. As a result Klein's status as a rising star was halted. Eventually, Ari convinces Klein to sell his profitable literary agency to Ari in return for Klein getting more responsibilities, more money, and a second chance at life as a big time agent like Ari. Unfortunately, Ari's partner, "Babs," disagrees with Ari's buyout plan, so Ari embarrasses Babs at a luncheon honoring her and powerful female agents. Ari proposes that the agency be split down the middle. Babs finally agrees to the purchase of Andrew Klein's agency, but tells Ari that any losses from the purchase will go on Ari's end of the books. However, Klein proves to be a profitable entity as he starts signing major writer/producer clients.

In Season 2 we found out that Ari was involved with Dana Gordon at some point before his marriage. In Season 5 Dana and Ari's relationship is confirmed to have occurred before he was dating his wife in the year 1990.

During season 6, Lloyd leaves Ari for a job as an agent at TMA which enrages Ari to no end and he promises to make Lloyd's life Hell. Terrance later on gives Ari an offer to buy his agency. After a great deal of arguing, Terrance and Ari make peace and the deal goes through. After completing the deal, Ari gets revenge on many of his enemies as he storms through TMA, paintballing all of the agents he's firing. After getting yelled at by Lloyd for taking advantage of him, Ari gives Lloyd an apology and offers him a job as an agent.

During season 7, Ari takes on his new company after acquiring TMA. He looks to acquire an NFL team, with the help of Lizzie Grant. After his wife discovers she is helping him, she asks Ari to fire her for what she did to Ari's former employee Andrew Klein. Additionally, Lizzie asks to be in charge of the Television division and Ari asserts that she isn't ready. Frustrated, Lizzie quits and teams to take down Ari after she is hired by Amanda Daniels, who hates Ari's existence.

News is leaked to the press on how Ari treats his employees, so he tries to patch them up with everyone, to no avail. His wife leaves him in the final episode, after he tries to throw her a surprise birthday party.

In season 8 Ari separated from Melissa, he visited Dana after an awkward date with a much younger woman. This led to Ari and Dana having sex. The morning after, Dana appeared happy and content, but was disheartened when Ari told her he had a marriage counseling session with Melissa that day. That night Ari took Dana out to dinner to Bobby Flay's restaurant (Flay was dating Melissa) in order to make Melissa jealous. Dana was furious at being used, and walked out on Ari

Ari realized he had made a mistake and tried to avoid Dana. However, this proved impossible as Dana had to go to Ari's office on business. While there, she met Ari's children, including his son Jonah, who asked her "are you the Dana our mom hates?" This caused Dana to break down, telling Ari that the situation was humiliating but that she "did nothing wrong." Ari told her that if he didn't have a family, things would not be complicated between Dana and him, but that he didn't know what to do. That night, Melissa told Ari she was filing for divorce. Later that night, Ari drunkenly called Dana, who offered to see him. Dana told Ari she was "lonely" and willing to take her chances on another relationship with Ari.

Ari visited Melissa to once again attempt to save their marriage, only to find Flay in his house. He told Melissa that clearly she had been dishonest about herself to him, and walked out.

By the penultimate episode of the series Ari was dating Dana Gordon. She was spending the night with Ari at his hotel, and appeared to be content. She fixed Ari's tie, offered to help him get backing for Drama's t.v. movie, and kissed Ari on his way to work, smiling at him as he left. Yet, Ari still was not over Melissa. Sensing this, Dana asked Ari if she was wasting her time because she didn't "have time to waste." This implied that Dana was eager to start a family with Ari. Ari had to be honest, and admitted that while he had a great feeling when he was with her, he still loved Melissa. This led Dana to realize that Ari would never be able to fully love her, and she told Ari to go back to Melissa. Dana admitted that Ari's confession made her sad, but she could not be mad at Ari, because he was being honest with her. Dana then kissed Ari one last time, and left, appearing to be slightly crying (appropriately, it was her last appearance on Entourage).

In the series finale, Ari decides to permanently leave his company to spend time with his wife vacationing around the world. During the closing credits of the final episode, the screen cuts to a shot of Ari and his wife vacationing. As his wife walks away, Ari receives a phone call from John Ellis asking Ari to replace him as chairman and CEO of Time Warner.

Personality[]

Ari is a complicated character whose personality is somewhere between charismatic and humorous, to profusely vulgar and overbearingly egocentric. His character is written as a satire for stereotypical overbearing corporate moguls in the entertainment industry who push stooges around. Ari is frequently depicted as a selfish man with a haughty, domineering attitude and a short, almost childish temper and sense of entitlement. As a man of wealth, he is a fervent capitalist and firmly believes that people should make their own way through life and not care about how the world treats them, and not to whine when they don't get what they want out of life either because they were too lazy or too stupid to make something of themselves.

He is openly sarcastic, insensitive, brutally blunt, snarky and unapologetic. He is usually arrogant, egotistical and selfish. He continuously displays narcissistic qualities through the series and his social and financial views place him within an almost elitist mindset. Despite his attitude, he is a devoted family man who often serves as a comic relief to the drama of the series while at the same time being a cause and catalyst of the drama. Sometimes he is a good agent and cares about Vince.

Inspiration[]

Ari's character is based in part on the real-life Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel who broke away from mega-agency ICM to form the Endeavor Talent Agency, which represents such stars as Vin Diesel and Larry David, both of whom are represented on the show by the fictional Ari Gold. Likewise, both Emanuel and Gold represent series producer, Mark Wahlberg, upon whose experiences in Hollywood the series is loosely based.

Ari Emanuel also once represented Jeremy Piven himself, and in an interview on the special features of the Season 3 Part 2 DVD, Entourage creator Doug Ellin says that the real life Ari Emanuel demanded the "Ari Gold" part be cast to Piven and wouldn't accept anyone else to play him. Ari Gold, in the Episode 'Playin with Fire' says director Peter Berg was his room mate in college. Jeremy Piven played the character (25 episodes) of a talkshow comedy writer "Jerry" on the Larry Sanders Show (1992-1998 HBO).

Ari Emanuel is the brother of Rahm Emanuel who was the former White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama and is the mayor of the City of Chicago, Illinois.

Notable Clients[]

List of Ari Gold's associates at MGA, the "Miller/Gold Agency" (officially opened in season 3, episode 8):

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