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51 STEVEN SPIELBERG (21) F T K Since signing with the preeminent Creative Artists Agency last year, Spielberg, 43, has embarked on a new round of blockbuster moviemaking. Whatever properties he wants, he gets. Expectations are huge for the $70 million Hook. Then it's on to Jurassic Park, a dinosaurs-run-amok adventure, and a high-rent retelling of the Zorro tale. Meanwhile, through his Amblin Entertainment, he also produces an array of projects, including daytime TV's hit Tiny Toon Adventures.
52 HERBERT A. ALLEN JR.. (96) F For helping Creative Artists Agency chairman Michael Ovitz broker Matsushita's $6.6 billion buyout of MCA, Allen pocketed a cool $8 million for his investment banking firm, Allen & Co. At 51, he's possibly the savviest investor in entertainment, having netted $40 million for the 1982 sale of Columbia Pictures to Coca-Cola and then $106 million for its 1989 resale to Sony. Linked to power brokers from producer Ray Stark to mogul Rupert Murdoch, Allen, whose family fortune reportedly tops $1 billion, has no trouble getting calls returned.
53 PHYLISS GRANN ( -- ) P Grann, 54, runs Putnam Berkley more like a '40s movie studio than a '90s publishing house-with lots of long-term contracts, and pampering of her stars: Bill Cosby, George Burns, Amy Tan, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Clancy, Robert Parker, Dick Francis. Grann's methods have paid off; since she took over in 1976, Putnam Berkley's annual revenues have soared from $23 million to $190 million, and its authors have had an extraordinary string of No. 1 best- sellers-including Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife and Clancy's The Sum of All Fears in 1991.
54 AKIO TANII ( -- ) F V T M When Konosuke Matsushita died in 1989, Japan wondered whether his cash-rich but stodgy company could change. Tanii changed it. The Matsushita president, 63, bought MCA for $6.6 billion, saying software and hardware are ''two wheels of the same car.'' Tanii now heads a vast electronics company and a vast film studio; he triggered a furor when he wouldn't vow to keep his hands off the content of Universal movies but later relented. Rumors abound of more Matsushita purchases. Certainly the company has deep pockets: '90 earnings were $1.5 billion.
55 DAVID GEFFEN (13) M F After Geffen sold his eponymous record company to MCA for $545 million in stock in 1990, his bankbook ballooned by another $165 million when Matsushita bought out MCA. Now Geffen, 48, whose label boasts Guns N' Roses, Cher, and Nelson, is both a behind-the-scenes power broker and a flush financial speculator. (Witness his bid for troubled Executive Life Insurance.) But not everything has been upbeat: Aerosmith left his fold, and his sole movie offering this year, Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life, grossed just $16 million.
56 MARCY CARSEY/TOM WERNER (53) T Their 8-year-old cash cow The Cosby Show departs next May, but Carsey, 46, and Werner, 41, need never worry about their next paycheck. The low-key producers co-own ABC's top-rated Roseanne, NBC's still-strong A Different World, and ABC's shaky Davis Rules, which, thanks to the duo's clout, returns later this season. Not that they'll lose Cosby completely; Carsey-Werner will produce his syndicated You Bet Your Life in 1992. If that fails, the team can coast on The Cosby Show's rerun sales-so far, they total over half a billion dollars.
