COMPANY TOWN : Silver Is the Head That Wears the MCA Movie Crown

After weeks of speculation, MCA Inc. on Monday formally crowned Casey Silver as head of its movie division.

Silver, 40, had been doing the job on an interim basis for four months. His elevation to chairman of the MCA Motion Picture Group had been widely rumored and isn’t expected to dramatically alter what he’s been doing day to day.

Nonetheless, it puts the once-struggling screenwriter firmly in place in one of the movie industry’s more powerful and high-pressure jobs.

The appointment is also expected to be the last major division chief announcement for now under new MCA President Ron Meyer. Last Thursday, MCA ousted music chief Al Teller, replacing him with former Time Warner music executive Doug Morris. In October, Meyer named Fox television executive R. Gregory Meidel to run MCA’s television unit.

Silver and the other division chiefs are expected to be under the gun to boost MCA’s historically lackluster profit margins, especially in the movie division, which has suffered from low margins despite distributing such huge hit films as “Jurassic Park” and “Apollo 13.”

“I want to make money for the shareholders and want to be proud when I go home that the movies we are making stand up,” Silver said in an interview.

Silver’s position, which involves overseeing Universal Pictures, previously was held by Tom Pollock, who was named vice chairman of MCA shortly after beverage giant Seagram Co. bought 80% of MCA from Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp. last June for $5.7 billion. Silver was second-in-command under Pollock, and was elevated in 1994 to president of Universal Pictures in a move that gave him broader powers, including the ability to give the green light to movie projects.

Silver is well liked by filmmakers, and his appointment was greeted enthusiastically by ones he works with closely. “He’s not only supportive of filmmakers, he’s sensitive to them. He sees the big picture. He’s not petty,” said Brian Grazer, a partner in Imagine Entertainment, which produced “Apollo 13.”

Silver came to Hollywood in the 1970s, trying to break into the business of writing screenplays. After striking out at that, Silver got his break when he was hired as an assistant to director Adrian Lyne.

Silver later joining Simpson Bruckheimer Productions, and worked at TriStar Pictures as a production executive before joining MCA.

* MGM/UA marketing chief Gerry Rich, reaping the benefits of back-to-back studio hits with “Get Shorty” and this week’s top box-office film “GoldenEye,” was promoted Monday to president of worldwide marketing.

* Rick Jacobson has been named president and chief operating officer of Twentieth Television. Jacobson was president and chief executive of Tribune Entertainment.

As expected, MCA Records President Richard Palmese lost his job Monday--just four days after his boss Al Teller was ousted in a corporate shake-up at the Universal City-based MCA Inc. Sources speculated that Palmese is likely to resurface soon at Arista Records, where he worked before joining MCA in 1983.