The Lion and the Cobra

Ever since Kirk Kerkorian bought control of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., four years ago, the airline pilot-turned-Las Vegas financier has been ordering the liquidation of assets to help make ends meet. Last week Kerkorian lost what the money men would call a highly visible asset: James T. Aubrey Jr., MGM's $208,000-a-year president. Aubrey, 54, will be replaced as president by Frank E. Rosenfelt, 51, a longtime MGM executive, and as chief executive by Kerkorian himself, 55.

Handsome as an aging matinee idol, Aubrey was hired by Kerkorian in 1969 after four lean years as an independent Hollywood producer and five fat ones as president of the CBS television network. He lost the latter job reportedly as a result of a swinging personal life and a chilling heartlessness that earned him the nickname "the smiling cobra."

Financial Oscar. Under Aubrey, MGM churned out profitable, medium-budget schlock like Skyjacked and Black Belly of the Tarantula; directors often charged him with philistine meddling, and he alienated many of them. Meanwhile, as Kerkorian's agent of austerity, Aubrey slashed employment from 6,200 to 1,200 and recently began shifting film production from the silver screen to network television series. Aubrey also sold off MGM properties including its record division, studio real estate, theaters--even Ben-Hur's chariot at a much-publicized prop auction. In September he announced that MGM would withdraw from the film distribution business, cut its feature-film production from 18 a year to six or fewer, and concentrate on such "leisure-time" ventures as the Grand Hotel, the firm's Las Vegas gambling palace, which is still unfinished and well over budget at $107 million.

As a financial auteur, Aubrey may have deserved an Oscar. When he arrived. MGM was losing $35 million for the year, was $80 million in debt and faced a $70 million write-off from movie disasters. By fiscal 1973 the debt had been cut to $30 million and the firm earned $8.1 million in the first nine months of the year. Why, then, did Aubrey leave? For one thing, profits this year are running one-third behind last year's pace, and Kerkorian was growing impatient. Chief reasons for the falloff: MGM's recent movies (The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) have suffered box office anemia, and Grand Hotel cost overruns have been a continuing hemorrhage. Some Hollywood watchers report that, ironically, Kerkorian wanted to keep on cutting costs, but, in a major disagreement. Hatchet Man Aubrey saw that his empire was disappearing and thought that the chopping should stop. As Aubrey said last week: "The job I agreed to undertake has been accomplished."

The whole movie industry has changed dramatically since Aubrey joined it eight years ago. Several of the six remaining major Hollywood companies have become mere subsidiaries of profit-directed conglomerates like Gulf & Western Industries (Paramount) and Transamerica Corp. (United Artists). High-cost extravaganzas have become as rare as singing cowboys and have been replaced by Aubrey's genre: lowbudget, high-profit black films (Cleopatra Jones) and Kung Fu films (Fists of Fury). What future role Jim Aubrey may play in the new Hollywood that he helped shape is a question that will have to wait for his announcement of what he will do for an encore.

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