Art Imitates Celluloid

Some movie buffs might say that Paramount Pictures has made an art of movie making. Well, now the movie studio is also making art work out of itself.

The 75-year-old movie company--which produced the 1988 box-office smash “Coming to America”--licensed the Santa Monica firm Mirage Editions to sell a poster of the studio. In turn, Mirage Editions hired artist Robert Hoppe to paint the studio portrait. Now, the public can purchase the lithographs from Mirage Editions for $450--or the poster version for $65.

The painting is an art deco-type rendering of the studio--complete with a full cast of dancers. As for the original painting, well, that’s already hanging in Paramount’s corporate offices.

Take Stock of 49ers

Want the stock market to have a good year? Then root for the San Francisco 49ers to win the Super Bowl.

According to San Francisco money manager Hugh Gee’s “nearly infallible” Super Bowl indicator, each time a team from the old pre-merger National Football League wins the big game, the stock market--as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index--scores an up year. But when a team from the old American Football League or current American Conference of the NFL emerges victorious, the market loses.

This indicator has worked in 20 of the 22 Super Bowls, fumbling only in 1970, when the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings, and in 1984, when the Los Angeles Raiders beat the Washington Redskins, Gee notes.

So if the 49ers (from the pre-merger NFL) win, look for a good year, he says. But if the Cincinnati Bengals win, look for a down year.

Seminar No Fire Sale

First the folks over at First Interstate Bank transformed a disaster into a public relations coup. Now they are going to make a bunch of money peddling the story of how they did it.

The disaster, of course, was the May 4 fire that extensively damaged the bank’s downtown headquarters and killed a worker. But the bank activated an emergency plan that kept essential functions operating, salvaged key records and put a positive spin on news coverage of the story.

On Feb. 13-14, the rest of corporate Los Angeles can learn how to do it. Key personnel who planned and executed the disaster response will share their secrets in a bank-run conference at Newport Beach. The cost is a mere $835 per person-- and 210 people had signed up by the end of last week.

Heads Roll to Cut Overhead

After six years of representing workers in wrongful dismissal cases, Los Angeles lawyer Leroy S. Walker found himself in an awkward spot: He had to lay off some of his own staff.

Walker blamed the layoffs, which included one part-time and two full-time lawyers, on last month’s decision by the California State Supreme Court that limited the damages workers can claim against their employers for wrongful cases.

As a result, Walker, whose firm represents employees in workplace disputes, expects business to decline as employees become more reluctant to sue for damages.

“While the dusts settles, we don’t want to have too much overhead,” said Walker, whose firm now has five lawyers. “It’s unfortunate, but what can you do?”

Proud of Their Fair Pork

The swine industry will be the focus of the 1989 Tulare County Fair in the San Joaquin Valley next September, but fair board members are reportedly undecided about whether to adopt “The Days of Swine and Roses” as the fair’s official theme. Fair board members found that the theme was catchy, but a close contender is said to be “Swine in ’89.”