Word: paramountly
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...movies, an agent once said during the 1970s, are "a business run by 10 idiots and Bob Evans." Back then Evans headed Paramount, and he could do no wrong: he was responsible for Love Story and The Godfather, among other hits, and later made Chinatown under his own production deal with the studio. During the '70s, Evans was married to Ali MacGraw, his third wife, and that's the decade he became friends with Jack Nicholson and hung out with Henry Kissinger. But the '80s weren't nearly as much fun. Evans was busted for possession of cocaine...
...have to give Comcast credit," concurs an industry consultant. "When Barry was on the line for Paramount, Brian Roberts killed himself to support Barry. He worked the phones, he worked the press, he worked the investment community; he was an extremely loyal and effective ally in Barry's biggest battle. When a guy does that and the next thing you do is turn around and screw him, it seems to me he's entitled to better...
...Robertses' bid ruptured a partnership with Diller that began when Brian Roberts brought the former head of Paramount studios and Fox broadcasting to QVC in December 1992. "Brian was very taken with Barry," says a cable-TV executive, "because when Barry turns on the charm, he can be quite impressive and effective. You have this older guy and this younger kid, and what really must have hurt is when Barry did an about-face. If he had gone to the Robertses and made them feel a part of the CBS deal, this might not have happened...
...went into a conference room at the airport, and they told me what their intention was," said Diller, 52, who was still fresh from losing a six-month struggle to acquire Paramount Communications in February. "I gave them a big smile and said, 'It isn't a complete surprise. I'm surprised a bit at the lateness of it, but it doesn't come as a surprise, given our previous discussions.' I don't consider it as an act of evil of any kind...
...Diller tangled with Martin Davis, chairman of Gulf & Western, which owned Paramount, and left the studio to become chairman of Fox. (The same year, Eisner and Katzenberg went to Disney; Mancuso stayed to run Paramount.) Murdoch, who bought the studio a year later, gave Diller the mandate to create a fourth prime-time network. That he did, with his patented management style: creative listening. "What Barry does," says Garth Ancier, Fox's TV programming chief under Diller, "is assemble teams of people and then bring them into the room to debate different ideas. He obviously ran the whole thing...