From `it' read to has-been

Kim Masters, who with Griffin co-wrote the book "Hit and Run," about the turbulent Guber-Jon Peters era at Sony, joined Premiere in 1988. She worried at first that Premiere "would be kind of a fawning magazine that would flatter the brilliance of the executives in the industry" but found her worries short-lived when they published a piece she wrote about CAA's Ovitz making a big fuss at the Palm because he objected to some agency defectors having four front booths at the restaurant.

In an e-mail this week to The Times, Ovitz said that if any such incident did occur, it was long ago and he doesn't remember it, adding: "It's hard to believe that with all that's going on in the world, anybody would be interested in this."

Those early years were a heady time for Premiere. Lyne sent Masters to London to cover the hush-hush making of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," even though the studio was refusing to cooperate.

Biskind went off to do an investigative report on the Sundance Film Festival. The magazine did oral histories on iconic films such as "Chinatown" and "Jaws."

"There was an audience for people who wanted to know how things were made," Karren said. "It wasn't about gossip. It wasn't about scandal. It was really designed for mainstream readers who wanted to know what happened and what you saw."

Lyne, who today is president and chief executive of Martha Stewart Omnimedia, was traveling this week in the Far East but sent an e-mail commenting on why she thinks Premiere achieved such success out of the starting gate:

"Premiere was really born as a result of the VCR. Suddenly, there was an adult audience for movies -- good movies, not just popcorn movies. With that came an interest in people behind the camera and in all the workings behind the scenes."

After Lyne's departure, Connelly became editor in chief in early 1996, and Griffin was his deputy editor. But the two top editors abruptly resigned in May of that year after publisher Hachette Filipacchi's then president and chief executive, David Pecker, gave Connelly an order to kill Premiere's California Suite column about Planet Hollywood, a celebrity-themed restaurant chain that had ties to billionaire Revlon owner Ronald Perelman, who was half owner of Premiere.

The order was the last straw in a series of decisions that Connelly and Griffin felt compromised the integrity of the magazine.