"Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way"

For all his clout in Hollywood, Martin Davis, 62, would never be mistaken for a movie mogul. He is a soft-spoken man who clearly lacks the bravura of his former boss, producer Samuel Goldwyn, for whom Davis once worked as an office boy and press agent. But Davis is a man in a hurry. He leapfrogged to the top of Gulf & Western over two more senior executives after the death of conglomerateur Charles Bluhdorn. It took Davis just six years to transform Gulf & Western from an unwieldy, 1960s-style pastiche of unrelated companies into the more focused media giant that he renamed Paramount Communications the day before he launched his bid for Time Inc. He is fond of exhorting his employees to "lead, follow, or get out of the way."

A native of the Bronx, Davis joined Paramount in 1958 as director of sales and marketing. After G&W bought the studio in 1966, Davis quickly rose to become the principal deputy to company founder Bluhdorn. When Davis gained control of the company in 1983, he immediately spun off some 100 subsidiaries, ranging from zinc mines to sugar plantations. Within 2 1/2 years, he reduced the company's size by half.

Using the proceeds from the sell-offs, Davis then began acquiring media properties like Esquire magazine and the Prentice Hall publishing firm. Wall Street applauded the restructuring and sent G&W's stock on a climb that earned shareholders a 240% return on their investment from 1983 to 1988. Davis became one of the highest-paid CEOs, reportedly earning more than $16 million in total compensation last year.

Some former employees say Davis is an authoritarian manager who sometimes has difficulty keeping talented subordinates. Among the top-level Paramount executives who have gone to rival companies: Barry Diller, now chairman of Fox Inc.; Michael Eisner, chief of Walt Disney; and Dawn Steel, head of Columbia Pictures. Davis told FORTUNE in 1984 that he was "thrilled" to have made the magazine's annual list of toughest bosses. FORTUNE quoted a business associate saying, "He exceeds all of the qualifications for the category of s.o.b."

Davis still tells friends that Goldwyn never got his name straight, referring to him as "Marvin." That slight dogs the Paramount chief to this ( day: he is often confused with Marvin Davis, the Denver oilman who is making a bid for Northwest Airlines. As the struggle for control of Time Inc. heats up, Martin Davis' relative obscurity is likely to end.