Eisner With Charm?

He’s the rare Hollywood executive who’s as comfortable with a balance sheet as giving notes on a script. Private, even shy, he confides mainly in one person -- his wife. He can appear ruthless, showing little emotion when firing a friend.

If you guessed Michael Eisner, guess again. But you wouldn’t be the first to spot a resemblance between Walt Disney Co.’s top executive and Peter Chernin, the president of News Corp.

“Peter has that rare quality of having both left-brain and right-brain strength,” said Jeff Shell, who has worked at both Disney and News Corp. and is now chief executive of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. “One of the only other people I’ve met like that is Michael Eisner.”

As the Disney board searches for a new CEO -- a process it plans to complete by June -- Chernin’s name is high on the short list of contenders. Though the 53-year-old executive embodies some of Eisner’s best qualities, he is free of other traits that have made the Disney chief vulnerable to criticism.

Eisner can be cold, thin-skinned and autocratic. He’s been accused of chasing off some of Disney’s best executives.

Chernin, on the other hand, is so disarmingly charming that even some people he’s ousted don’t hold a grudge. Not for nothing have some within News Corp. called him the “smiling cobra.”

In July, when Chernin signed up for five more years at News Corp., Wall Street analysts predicted he was staying put. With an annual compensation package of at least $20 million, Chernin could pull down more than his strong-willed boss, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch. Eisner made only $7.25 million last year.

Still, people close to Chernin say he’d jump at the chance to step out of Murdoch’s shadow and into Eisner’s shoes, even if it meant a pay cut.

At News Corp., Chernin has hit a ceiling. The 73-year-old Murdoch is grooming his children, now in their 30s, to take the helm of the family-controlled company. Knowing this, Chernin made sure he could accept a better offer if it came along: His employment contract lacks the standard non-compete clause that would prevent him from jumping to a rival.

Both Chernin and Murdoch declined to comment for this article.

Many Hollywood insiders say Chernin is just what Disney needs: creative, cool in a crisis and inspirational. After 15 years at the fastest-growing and most daring of the major media conglomerates, he also has the know-how to invigorate Disney.

“Peter is a great listener; he gives guidance, but he lets people do their job,” said Tom Sherak, who worked under Chernin at News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox Film Corp. before becoming a partner at Revolution Studios.

Though News Corp. owns major media properties around the world, Chernin’s primary role is to oversee Fox Entertainment Group, the publicly traded U.S. subsidiary of Murdoch’s Australian-born company. It includes 20th Century Fox, the Fox broadcast network, a leading TV station group, a TV production arm and cable channels such as FX, Fox Sports Networks and Fox News Channel.

Since Chernin became News Corp.’s president and chief operating officer in 1996, his group’s revenue has doubled. Its profit has soared. Chernin has helped Fox become a major producer of prime-time television, a consistent winner at the box office and a big beneficiary of the DVD boom.

But some question whether, based on his track record at News Corp., he has the vision to lead Disney in two of its cornerstone operations: theme parks and animation.

News Corp. made an ill-fated venture into theme parks, opening Backlot in 1999 at its Fox Studios in Australia. The park, designed to showcase the company’s movie-making prowess, closed in 2001 because of poor attendance.

As for animation, film industry sources say Chernin was so nervous about the company’s continuing financial losses that he considered getting out of the business altogether. In fact, he tried to find a studio partner to shoulder the risk for the 2002 computer-animated comedy “Ice Age,” which cost an estimated $60 million. Fortunately, he couldn’t find one. The film was such a huge hit that Chernin reversed course and bought Blue Sky, the movie’s animation production house. Blue Sky’s next offering is “Robots,” due out in March.

Throughout his career, Chernin has kept his own counsel, with few close friends in the industry. His confidante is his wife, Megan, who once worked as a lawyer in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office; they have three children.

His professional loyalty is similarly focused. As he likes to tell subordinates, “I have a constituency of one” -- referring to Murdoch, whose distaste for the rituals of Hollywood is legendary.

Fox executives say no one has played Murdoch as masterfully as Chernin. In a heated rivalry to be Murdoch’s second-in-command in the mid-’90s, Chernin edged out Chase Carey, a deal maker and strategist who left Fox in 2002 and is now chairman of News Corp.’s satellite company, DirecTV Group Inc. As usual, Chernin’s ambition was masked by a veneer of elegant self-deprecation.

The staunchly Republican Murdoch has even found a use for Chernin’s status as a lifelong Democrat. When he needs support from Democrats on Capitol Hill, Murdoch dispatches Chernin, who donated $25,000 in June to the Democratic National Committee.

“You’ve got to hand it to Peter,” said one former Fox executive, who requested anonymity. “Fox is a culture where everybody’s dispensable. Rupert is quirky and eccentric. But who has lasted as long as Peter outside of Rupert’s Australian cronies?”

Many attribute Chernin’s ability to navigate Murdoch’s shifting creative impulses to his stable upbringing.

He comes from a family of number crunchers -- his father, brother and sister are all accountants.

Growing up in the suburbs north of New York City, he was a nerdy high schooler -- the kind who hung around the audiovisual department. When he came west to UC Berkeley, he majored in English literature.

After graduating in 1974, Chernin worked as a book publicist for St. Martin’s Press. He was recruited to Hollywood by David Gerber Productions Inc., where he produced hundreds of hours of television, including sitcoms and miniseries. Moving to Showtime as head of programming, Chernin created one of cable’s first original programs, the critically acclaimed “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.”

Later, as president of Lorimar Film Entertainment, he tried his hand at movies. One of his projects was the racy period drama “Dangerous Liaisons.”

With his star on the rise, he was hired in 1989 by the demanding Barry Diller, who was Murdoch’s entertainment chief at News Corp. Chernin was named president of prime time at the fledgling Fox network, which back then was airing shows only two nights a week. Chernin lured young viewers with edgy programs that included “The Simpsons,” “In Living Color” and “Beverly Hills 90210.”

Chernin learned well from Diller, a confrontational leader known for his bullying style. “Peter took the best stuff from Barry,” said television producer Sandy Grushow, who worked for Fox at the time. “He became more contrarian; he learned to challenge people’s thinking.”

Chernin caught Murdoch’s eye just weeks after he was hired by Diller.

“It was like love at first sight,” said former Fox executive Greg Nathanson, a Murdoch confidant. Nathanson said that at a Fox management retreat in Santa Barbara, Murdoch was so intrigued by the new recruit that he bummed a ride back with him to Los Angeles.

In 1992, Murdoch promoted the up-and-coming executive to head the film studio, where he went on to green-light “Independence Day,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Speed.” He rolled the dice with the expensive “Titanic,” the highest-grossing movie ever. Chernin also launched Fox Searchlight, the company’s art-house division, which corralled upstart talents with lower- budget films such as “The Full Monty.”

The key to Chernin’s success in more recent years, many agree, has been his dedication to executing Murdoch’s vision -- even when it has meant pushing out executives he supports and likes.

People close to Chernin say that one of the toughest periods in his career was when he repeatedly had to fend off Murdoch to protect then-studio chief Bill Mechanic. Chernin had hired him from Disney, and the two men were close.

But Murdoch disliked Mechanic and the movies he made. He thought “Fight Club,” for example, was sordid. After the animated “Titan A.E.” tanked, Chernin felt compelled to force out Mechanic.

“Bill had been his partner for 5 1/2 years,” said one executive familiar with Mechanic’s ouster, “but Peter didn’t want the argument with Murdoch anymore.”

Mechanic declined to comment.

Some insiders say Chernin’s instincts for self-preservation have limited his ability to manage News Corp. He leaves many division heads to their own devices, unwilling to “stir up a hornet’s nest with people who have a direct pipeline to Murdoch,” one former executive said.

Among those whom Chernin gives a long leash: Mitch Stern, who formerly ran the TV station group and is now president of DirecTV, and Fox News chief Roger Ailes.

Some News Corp. insiders also caution that Chernin shares Eisner’s penchant for immersing himself in the creative process. Former Fox executives say that Chernin’s insistence on screening TV pilots sometimes created a bottleneck.

“In staff meetings, Chernin was like a cat with a ball of yarn, picking, picking, picking,” said an ex-colleague. “He could unravel things late in the process.”

In the search for Disney’s next leader, Chernin’s is not the only name on the table. Terry Semel, the former Warner Bros. chief who has turned Yahoo Inc. into an Internet powerhouse, also is considered a strong candidate, if he could be persuaded to leave. And Eisner has endorsed Disney President Robert Iger for the job.

Yet Chernin supporters say that given the revolt in March by Disney shareholders unhappy with Eisner’s management and the company’s long-term performance, Chernin may be just what they’re looking for: an Eisner-like outsider who could offer a fresh start.

“He stands his ground and certainly has an ego,” said Grushow, who oversaw the Fox television network and its production arm before resigning this year. “But he’s able to subjugate it, as his years working for Murdoch demonstrate.”