Starring Role

Sony Corp., hoping to end years of instability and restore Hollywood’s shaken confidence in its studio operations, on Tuesday named John Calley, one of the industry’s best-liked executives, president and chief operating officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment as part of a new three-member team.

Calley, who most recently revived a dormant United Artists Pictures as president, will be joined by two New York-based Sony executives: Jeff Sagansky, named co-president, and Masayuki “Yuki” Nozoe, named executive vice president. Nozoe is the first Japanese executive Sony has placed inside the studio gates since buying into the entertainment business seven years ago. He and Sagansky will move to Los Angeles and report to Calley.

Calley said Nozoe’s appointment is designed to better integrate Sony entertainment with the company as a whole, but other Hollywood executives said the presence of a Japanese executive at the studio is a sign that Sony Corp. President Nobuyuki Idei will keep the ailing operation on a short leash.

Under previous regimes, the Japanese electronics giant was kept at arm’s length by its U.S. executives and functioned as an absentee owner. That happened even though Sony’s original rationale for buying a studio was to blend entertainment “software” with its successful hardware.

“There should be, and will be, more contact with Tokyo. I really want to bring them into the process. I’m not convinced they have been well-served in this area. I hope it’s a real assimilation on both sides,” Calley said in an interview.

He added that it was Sony’s global reach, which he believes has been under-exploited, that appealed to him.

“I felt Sony is astonishingly sophisticated in the international realm,” Calley said. “The true international sense of the company is what we have to apply to our business.”

As for whether Idei will be hands-on in overseeing the studios, Calley said: “I would doubt he would be discussing that [movies] with me. We do share a view that the business should be globalized.”

Executives believe Calley’s affable temperament and age--he is 66--will serve him well in dealing with his new bosses.

“John has terrific board management skills. He knows how to manage up as well as down, which will help him to be successful at least early on,” says Gary Klein, managing director of AT Kearney’s New York-based media and entertainment executive search group.

Klein added: “The Japanese by definition respect age. So their viewing him with a lot of respect will also help in the process.”

The announcement of Calley’s hiring follows a month of near-daily turmoil at Sony’s Culver City lot--home to its Columbia and TriStar pictures--as well as a near-clean sweep of its senior executive ranks. It also marks the completion of Idei’s shake-up of an operation that had become the company’s most visible blemish.

Last month, studio chief Mark Canton was fired following a string of big-ticket box-office duds, including “Multiplicity” and “The Fan.” Last week, his boss, Sony Pictures President Alan Levine, was forced out. Other recent departures include Columbia President Lisa Henson, TriStar President Marc Platt and marketing chief Sid Ganis.

Calley’s most immediate mandate will be to kick-start what has been a virtually paralyzed movie operation and convey to the Hollywood community that the studio is in business again. He said he is undaunted by the task, comparing the job ahead to the turnarounds he faced when he joined Warner Bros. in 1969 and UA in 1993.

Although the appointment of Calley, expected to take effect in a month, was applauded throughout Hollywood and boosted the morale of Sony employees, the murky structure of the three-member management committee raised questions.

Sony said Calley will oversee film and video, Sagansky television and the international business, and Nozoe technology issues, as well as functioning as the studio’s liaison with Tokyo.

It’s unclear, for example, which specific operations and executives will report to Sagansky and Nozoe.

“This is a strange structure. There isn’t any other one like it in the business,” said one veteran studio executive. “Collegiality is a really good idea, but it has to be clear inside and outside the company who the ultimate decision maker is or nothing will get done.”

The source added, “Government by committee is the way all places work and the way no place works,” meaning that no chief executive acts without consulting his or her peers, but ultimately there has to be someone pushing the button.

Calley said he will have the final say in movies and will defer to Sagansky on television matters. He dismissed widespread skepticism in Hollywood about Sony’s “management by committee.”

“This is a catchword people are jumping on to. All companies have structural descriptions. Almost all studios work the same way. Guys talk to each other, you reach a consensus and off you go,” Calley said.

Executives speculated that for Sagansky, 44, to take what amounts to a No. 2 job answering to Calley, he must believe he has the inside track on taking over when Calley eventually retires.

A former president of TriStar, Sagansky is best known for his four-year stint as president of CBS Entertainment, guiding the network to the top of the ratings.

For two years, Sagansky has worked as a Sony executive vice president, overseeing strategic planning and such operations as Sony Retail Entertainment, Sony New Technologies and SW Networks. Sagansky had been known to be frustrated with his vague duties and had been lobbying for a bigger role.

Calley’s career is one of the most unusual in Hollywood. As one of Warner Bros.’ top executives, he had reached the top of his profession by the late 1970s. He abruptly dropped out of the business, spurning a seven-year, $21-million contract. His self-imposed exile from Hollywood lasted 13 years.

Other than producing an occasional movie with his best friend, director Mike Nichols, Calley had little contact with the business. He returned to the executive ranks in 1993 to take over United Artists as part of an effort to revitalize parent Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Calley oversaw such hits as “GoldenEye,” “The Birdcage” and the critically acclaimed “Leaving Las Vegas,” as well as such flops as “Wild Bill.”

He said the Sony job is an opportunity to change career and life as he’s done in the past.

“In a weird way in terms of my life, I’ve sort of thrown everything out the window occasionally and zero-based myself, starting over again,” Calley said, adding, “I can’t run the 100-yard dash as fast as I used to, but I’m much more excited about this than I was about the Warner Bros. job in 1969, when I was scared.”

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New Blood at Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sony Corp.’s entertainment division has been plagued by management and financial chaos since the company acquired Columbia’s Pictures and TriStar Pictures in 1989. The problems resulted in a $3.2-billion loss in 1994. On Tuesday, the company announced a new management team it hopes will put an end to the troubles.

The Challenges

* Turn around the fortunes of the beleagued motion picture division with box- office hits. Flops such as “The Fan” and “Multiplicity” have hurt profit.

* Polish the company’s tarnished image in Hollywood so that agents and those in the creative community view Sony as a desirable place to make movies.

* Strike alliances with one or more major product suppliers, such as Castle Rock Entertainment, to ramp up the production operation.

* Create a workable management structure where decisions can be made quickly and cleanly without a lot of bureaucratic delays. Clearly define the relationship between the Hollywood studios and Sony management in Japan.

* Find ways to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire new businesses, such as cable networks and new- media ventures, that can make the company more competitive with Disney/ ABC, Time-Warner-Turner, Viacom/ Paramount, News Corp. / Fox and Seagram/ MCA.

The People

John Calley

Age: 66

Title: President and chief operating officer. Following a self-imposed exile from Hollywood that lasted more than a decade, Calley returned in 1993 to take over United Artists as part of an effort to revitalize parent Metro- Goldwyn- Mayer under chairman Frank Mancuso. At UA, Calley oversaw such hits as “GoldenEye”, “The Birdcage” and the critically acclaimed “Leaving Las Vegas,” as well as such flops as “Wild Bill.” Calley ws a top executive at Warner Bros. for 13 years. He produced such films as “Postcards from the Edge” and “Remains of the Day” with director and best friend Mike Nichols.

*

Jeff Sagansky

Age: 44

Title: Co-president, reporting to Calley. Sagansky, a Harvard Business School graduate, made his mark in television, first at NBC as a senior vice president and later as president of CBS Entertainment. He served as president of TriStar Pictures from 1989 to 1990. In September 1994,he joined Sony as an executive vice president, overseeing strategic planning, Sony Retail Entertainment, SW Networks and Sony Online Ventures. He reportedly had been unhappy wih his ill-defined role at Sony.

*

Masayuki (Yuki) Nozoe

Age: 47

Title: Executive vice president, reporting to Calley.

Nozoe, a 24- year Sony veteran, spent most of his career in marketing and planning. He had worked for Sony’s U.S. operations for 20 years and speaks fluent English. He was involved in helping launch Sony’s 8- millimeter camcorder, the compact disc player and the Playstation video game system and worked on the ill-fated Betamax. He moved to Sony Corp. of America in New York in February after working as senior vice president of marketing for Sony Electronic’s Consumer Products Group.

Researched by JAMES BATES and CLAUDIA ELLER