IDEOLOGICAL ODD COUPLE: BANNON & KWATINETZ

How’s this for an ironic intersection? Steve Bannon, the ultra-right-wing rabble-rouser who was recently named Trump’s campaign manager, once worked in the entertainment biz.

After becoming wealthy from the sale of his Bannon & Co. in 1998, Bannon executive-produced Anthony Hopkins’ 1999 Oscar-nominated Titus, Bloomberg reported. Soon thereafter, Bannon met Jeff Kwatinetz, a prominent Democratic supporter, just as he was launching The Firm.

Strange as it seems in retrospect, Kwatinetz made Bannon a partner in The Firm, giving him the CFO title, and the latter played a role in its acquisition of onetime Disney ruler Michael Ovitz’s cash-strapped Artists Management Group. In fact, according to a Vanity Fair story, it was Bannon who went to Ovitz’s Beverly Hills mansion to offer the beleaguered mogul a paltry $5m for the company, into which he had poured $100m.

This chapter in Bannon’s zigzagging career immediately preceded his political awakening, while Kwatinetz went on to launch a successful TV company. But for a time, the Jewish liberal and the neo-con anti-Semite were in bed together.