STUDIO CHIEF SURVIVING CHANGES AT FOX--SO FAR

When it comes time to consider Marvin Davis’ brief but turbulent Hollywood career, the Denver wildcatter may be remembered most for casting one of the industry’s unlikeliest reunions.

It was Davis who selected producer Larry Gordon as president of the beleaguered 20th Century Fox Film Corp. in the summer of 1984, and it was Davis who one month later recruited Barry Diller to come in over Gordon as chairman of Fox.

There was never any love lost between Gordon and Diller. In 1983, when Diller headed Paramount, and Gordon was a producer (“48 HRS.”) there, Gordon’s office was padlocked and he was thrown off the lot when creative differences reached the boiling point. When Diller moved to Fox, industry observers expected Gordon to be gone in a matter of days.

However, Gordon survived. Now, a little more than a year later, the man who jokingly refers to himself as “the other guy at Fox” is still on the lot. He has quietly assembled his own team and has greenlighted six new films for production this year. But with the announcement Monday that Murdoch has signed an agreement to buy Davis’ half-interest in Fox, becoming the sole private owner of the studio, rumors of Gordon’s imminent departure are swirling again.

By now, though, Gordon has adjusted. “I’ll stay as long as I want to stay or until they throw me out--whichever comes sooner,” he says. “And I have a contract.” (And a lucrative one at that: Gordon has a three-year contract that could land him as much as $3.75 million before bonuses.)

It would be hard to imagine two executives more different in personal style and creative taste than Gordon and Diller. “It was like Hollywood meets ’48 HRS.’ for real,” says one rival studio head in describing the initial Gordon-Diller reunion. “These two guys were on opposite sides of the law. One’s entire career was made out of being an inside executive and the other was a Frito Bandito. Diller defines corporate responsibility and Gordon has made a career out of thumbing his nose at it.”

At 49, Gordon, a native of Yazoo City, Miss., is Hollywood’s street-fighting man. He is described by friends and foes as gruff, irascible and impatient with a hot temper and a contagious wit.

One former employee described him as “verbally abusive, but a great producer.” A fellow producer describes his working style as “flamboyantly vulgar, his approach is to deprecate.”

Over a 16-year career, Gordon has proven to be a proficient producer in both television (the successful “Matt Houston” series with Aaron Spelling for whom he started as a gofer) and features like “Hooper,” “The Warriors” and “Streets of Fire.” He has made his share of bombs, including “Xanadu,” “Paternity “ and “Jekyll and Hyde Together Again.” As a feature-film maker, Gordon developed a reputation as a producer’s producer, a hard driver who never took no for an answer and who successfully and religiously knocked heads with the studio brass. When Marvin Davis called Gordon into his office in the summer of 1984 and the studio was reeling from one box-office disaster after another, Gordon says Davis asked him just one question: “We keep getting pregnant on these pictures so fast, we’re in so deep before we even know what hit us. What are you going to do about that?”

Replied Gordon: “Marvin, in the last 15 years (as a producer) I’ve learned a lot about getting guys like you pregnant, so when I go on the other side of the desk I’ll go on the pill.” Davis roared with laughter and Gordon landed the job.

So far, Gordon has put a broad range of drama and comedy into the Fox production line. The mix includes everything from the sequel to 1979’s “Alien” called “Aliens” (written and directed by James Cameron, who wrote and directed “The Terminator”) to “Knock Knock” a comedy-thriller starring comedienne Whoopi Goldberg.

Also on the slate: a remake of the 1958 Vincent Price horror classic “The Fly” with David Cronenberg directing and “Commando,” an action-adventure starring Arnold Schwarzenegger aimed at the “Rambo” crowd.

Fox also will make “Big Trouble in Little China” described in a press release as a “contemporary action/adventure/fantasy” to be directed by John Carpenter (“Halloween”) and starring Kurt Russell.

In January, Fox will start shooting “Project X” an adventure-drama that will focus on the relationship between a young Air Force pilot (Matthew Broderick) and a brilliant chimp being trained as a fighter pilot.

Finally, Gordon has approved a Bob Rafelson (“The Postman Always Rings Twice”) thriller called “Black Widow,” which focuses on a wealthy woman who keeps killing off her husbands.

It is an eclectic mix to be sure, and one that surprised industry observers. The Fox lineup skews heavily toward Gordon’s taste as opposed to Diller’s. It is hard to imagine Diller, who is credited with backing such high-brow fare as “Reds,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Ordinary People” okaying “Commando.”

“The strange thing about that slate of films is it really reflects the Larry Gordon style of film making more than Barry Diller’s taste,” says one producer. “Barry has obviously decided to let Larry run with the ball and see what happens when some of these movies open.”

Observers say that Diller has been consumed lately with Fox’s $1.5-billion buyout of six Metromedia TV stations and has taken a less active role in the movie-making process than he had at Paramount. That situation could change quickly now though since the TV deal has been virtually settled and Davis is out. “I don’t think Diller has gone into action yet,” says one well-known producer. “He probably has some major overall plan we have not even begun to see yet.”

For Gordon, the last year has been a difficult one. When Gordon took over as president, Fox was a battered studio and a last stop for film makers. In recent years the studio had been hard hit by a series of failures culminating in the big-budget bomb “Rhinestone.”

“The prior regime was much more pick-up oriented (distributing movies made by others), says Gordon. “We are making movies, not just buying movies already made. We had to prove to everyone that we were serious about making movies again.”

Meanwhile, Gordon continues in his decidedly unorthodox working style. “I don’t get up early in the morning, I don’t make 4,000 phone calls a day and I don’t read 27 scripts on the weekend,” he says.

Gordon hardly fits the mold of Tinseltown’s corporate man. He promotes an image of himself as a fiercely independent, short-fused idea man. So why did he cross the desk last year to become a buyer? “Simple, I had an ego attack,” Gordon explains. “For years I sat across that desk thinking I could do that better, so when the opportunity came along I figured why not?”

How long will he last? Gordon is the first to admit that he and Diller don’t always get along, but history seems to indicate that Diller never gets too close to his subordinates. “I’m a fighter, I like to get what I want,” says Gordon. “So if Barry Diller stands in my way, I’m going to fight him. You got two bulls going at each other every day about a million things. I don’t have any more difficulty with Barry than I would with anyone that carried the title of boss.”