Billionaire Arnon Milchan, who produced the $500 million blockbuster Mr. and Mrs. Smith, is such good friends with Brad Pitt that Pitt stayed at Milchan 19s Malibu home following his split with Jennifer Aniston. In fact, Milchan, who helped cast Pitt alongside Angelina Jolie, surely played a role setting up the tabloid relationship now known as Brangelina.Milchan's own background is the stuff of movies. A former biochemistry student and soccer player, Milchan successfully transformed his family's fledgling fertilizer company into a $125 million chemicals business. Parlayed that into a role procuring arms for Israel, which he coyly discussed in a 60 Minutes interview in 2000. (Milchan denies he was an arms dealer but admits to acting as an intermediary between the country and defense contractors like Raytheon.) Later began bankrolling films for directors Sergio Leone and Martin Scorsese in the early 1980s, before going on to produce such movies as The War of the Roses, JFK and Fight Club. Massive art collections decorate his seven homes, including works by Basquiat, Picasso and Monet, but the most coveted space goes to paintings by his daughter, artist Elinor Milchan.
Arnon Milchan

