UPI’s Latest Possible Savior Is Media Novice : Profile: The former show business attorney claims to have a group of well-heeled investors behind him.

Leon Charney, the New York real estate investor who is weighing a bid for the chronically ailing United Press International, is a former show business attorney with a flair for self-promotion.

Charney has no prior media experience, except as host of a weekly talk show on New York City public television called “The Leon Charney Report.” But he claims to be joined in his bid for UPI by a group of well-connected investors with broad business experience.

The group, Charney said, includes New York attorney Saul Rudis; Brian Anderson, a vice president at investment bank Kidder Peabody & Co.; Elliot Levgine, president of Perry Ellis Menswear; Ernst Strauss, a Zurich investor, and Michael Florsheim, president of ENC Trading Co., a Zurich commodities firm.

“It’s losing enormous amounts of money the way it is working now,” Charney said in a telephone interview Friday. “If we bought it, two things would have to happen. First, we would reposition UPI by bringing it into the 21st Century with new technology. And second would be to better utilize its assets, like the library and archives, which have terrific value.”

Charney, 53, put down $180,000 on Thursday to inspect UPI’s books and keep the news agency running for another nine days. The 85-year old company was expected to go out of business at midnight Friday, after religious broadcaster Pat Robertson backed out of a $6-million deal to take over the wire service.

The last-minute inquiry by the relatively unknown businessman surprised many media experts, who believe that the wire service, which has lost money for the past 30 years, is beyond salvation.

But Charney maintained that the group has sufficient capital to purchase UPI.

Charney’s holdings include majority stakes in two New York City 34-story office buildings. As a lawyer, he has represented such entertainers as Jackie Mason, Sammy Davis Jr. and the 1960s pop band Jay and the Americans.

But Charney is best known as a sometimes prominent figure in the American-Israeli lobby who boasts close relations with top Israeli politicians. He played an undefined role in the Carter Administration during the Camp David peace talks in the late 1970s, which he later recounted in a book titled “Special Envoy.”

One former Carter aide described Charney as “kind of a bit player who liked attention.”

But Robert Lipshutz, an Atlanta attorney who was counsel to President Carter, described Charney’s role as “a liaison which enabled the Israelis to get certain ideas to the President without going through official channels. . . . I think he was extremely effective, and so did the President.”

A key figure in deciding whether the group will make an offer for UPI is Donald W. Tanselle, former vice chairman of Merchants National Bank in Indianapolis, and a close financial adviser to Charney.

Said Lipshutz: “While Leon does have a flair for self-promotion, he is also a very conservative businessman who has survived very well during the fall of the New York real estate market.”