The Studio Shuffle : Frank Price

Then: Chairman of motion picture division, Columbia Pictures, 1979-1984; chairman of MCA Motion Picture group, 1984-1987; chairman of Columbia Pictures, 1990-1991.

Now: Chairman of Price Entertainment.

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Becoming a studio chief was the realization of a dream for Frank Price, whose boyhood was spent on the Warner Bros. lot where his mother worked in the commissary. Photographs of Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Olivia de Havilland and James Cagney--inscribed “To Frankie”--still decorate his walls.

“The idea that I had Harry Cohn’s job was a real kick,” says Price, 64, of the legendary Columbia Pictures mogul. “Though there was certainly some ego-stroking, the best part of the job was the ability to buy the best--directors, scripts, talent. The worst was spending your day saying ‘no’--telling people you don’t share their dreams. You’re making subjective decisions in a very amorphous realm . . . and have to wait 18 to 24 months before you know if you guessed right.”

After presiding over Universal’s TV division, which turned out 15 movies of the week plus 15 to 19 hours of programming each year, Price found the feature film world relatively manageable.

“It’s like playing poker,” he says. “When you like a job, they have to pry you away from the table--even if you don’t win every hand,” he says. “Whenever I felt overly stressed, I reminded myself that it’s easier than writing. It’s ‘let’s put on a show’ . . . and getting paid to do it. Unwilling to base my decisions on other people’s perceptions, I spent a lot of my time reading. From what I understand, however, that’s the exception rather than the rule.”

Price calls studio chief one of the world’s great jobs. “I’d like to know what the drawbacks are,” he says. “Anyone who complains about the stresses is a fool. The pay and the perks are good. You have fun lunches with Streisand and Redford. And it’s sort of like being head of a small country. Though I rarely used the plane, I was met at the airport and commanded a certain amount of deference. Things go your way--period.”

Price had 14 months of relative leisure between his 1987 departure from Universal and his production deal with Columbia/TriStar. During that time, he listened to Mozart and devoured books ranging from “Das Kapital” to Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations.” That was a luxury, he realized then. But his heart was with the action.

“It’s always better to have power than not,” Price says. “Still, once you occupy that office, you take some of that leverage and credibility with you. You can’t say ‘yes’ to $25-million pictures but, in some way, you’re still ‘Mr. President.’ Being a studio chief is a calling card and we all work with labels.

“I look upon that experience as gathering research for my novel--my version of ‘The Last Tycoon.’ ” Price concludes. “I know that world better than F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is a business like no other. Though there may not be any more politics and infighting in Hollywood than elsewhere, the stakes are so much higher. One bad casting decision can ruin a picture.”