TELEVISION; The Wizard Who Spun Black Rock Into Gold

William S. Paley, the founder of CBS Inc. who died just over a week ago at the age of 89, was not only a giant in the communications field, he was a larger-than-life figure in his private and social domains as well. In this excerpt from "In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley," to be published by Simon & Schuster later this month, Sally Bedell Smith sketches a portrait of a man advanced in years but as hungry as ever for the power and attention that had been his for so long.

THE ONE THEY ALL WANTED TO see arrived late, as was his custom. To most of them he was "Mr. Paley" or "The Chairman." To a select few he was "Bill." But to everyone in the room, he was CBS, "the Tiffany network," the tycoon who seemed to have invented the idea of style. Although the party was to honor "60 Minutes," one of television's most successful shows, center stage belonged to William Paley, now just a few months shy of his 86th birthday. On this cool spring evening in 1987, all eyes turned to the man who had led the Columbia Broadcasting System for nearly 60 years.

Over a hundred members of New York's broadcasting and corporate elite circled the ornate Louis XVI Room on the second floor of the St. Regis Hotel on Fifth Avenue that night. Laurence Tisch, president of CBS, was doubtless the richest man in the room; his fortune, an estimated $1 billion, was double Paley's. But Tisch lacked Paley's panache.

Paley, whose title was little more than an honorific now, had spent much of the day in his elegant office on the 35th floor of Black Rock, the CBS headquarters four blocks away on the Avenue of the Americas. In the late afternoon he had taken a special express elevator to his waiting limousine, a maroon Cadillac Fleetwood with a television and a Sony compact disk player, and been driven to his duplex apartment on Fifth Avenue by Charles Noble, his chauffeur for 18 years.

After an hour with his exercise instructor, Paley dressed for dinner, assisted by his valet, John Dean, once an equerry to Prince Philip. Then Paley had headed out the door timing his arrival to miss the cocktail hour. The pain from a lifelong back ailment had become so persistent that he could no longer stand comfortably.

His face was creased with age, his small brown eyes nearly overwhelmed by pouches of skin. But the eyes still glittered with life. His pug nose lent him an air of toughness, somewhat softened by his smile, a slightly crooked little-boy grin that promised mischief and mirth. He was not classically handsome, never had been, but his face was virile and sensuous.

Age and a slight stoop had reduced his nearly six-foot stature by several inches, but the dinner clothes (by Huntsman of Savile Row) were impeccably tailored. The small paunch of his later years was gone. On his surprisingly small feet, custom-made evening shoes shone like blackened mirrors, and the air carried the scent of his musky Givenchy cologne (a scent created for him in the 1960's). Despite his advancing years, he appeared nearly as vigorous as 20 years before, when Truman Capote had once murmured: "He looks like a man who has just swallowed an entire human being."

Paley had an insatiable appetite for power. But he was not outwardly dynamic in the style of Chrysler's Lee Iacocca or the late Charles Revson, the tyrannical founder of Revlon. Paley didn't stride through the corridors in a commanding way or pound tables or bark orders. He was much more subtle. His office didn't even look as if it was intended for work; it seemed organized for fun, with an antique chemin de fer card table as its centerpiece instead of a proper desk.

Like Alice's Cheshire Cat, who lingered only as a wide smile, Paley was often a shadow presence. He had the disconcerting habit of going away and letting others manage CBS for long stretches of time. But somewhat paradoxically, his absences reinforced his power. No one knew exactly when he might appear -- or to what effect. He was rarely absent from programming discussions, where he exercised his authority through nuance and calculated obliqueness. Since programming is an instinctive, almost mystical, process, Paley was viewed by many underlings not so much as an executive but an oracle.

The flickering images on CBS represented the soul and sensibility of Bill Paley. In the early days he was practical and enlightened in his choice of CBS programs. He emphasized news shows and made sure his network served the public interest -- in large part to keep his burgeoning broadcast empire out of Government hands and away from strict regulation. Later, he made a calculated choice to concentrate on entertainment programs that would appeal to a mass audience.

After World War II, his second in command devised a plan to transform CBS into a highbrow network aimed at a smaller but more select audience. William Paley declined. Mass audiences meant more -- more viewers and more money and more power.

Despite this, Paley associated himself and his network with "a certain standard of taste." He knew how to transform prestige into profits with a legerdemain that frustrated his rivals. That was his genius. He managed to reconcile programs like "The Beverly Hillbillies" with the "Tiffany network" image, which was sustained by a dignified, superior news organization, a sprinkling of classy entertainment programs, the most elegant headquarters building, the best graphics (what other network would have a full-time chief of design?).

By that spring evening in 1987, the CBS-TV network was no longer either first or best. But at the St. Regis that night, Paley was still the star, though his empire -- or what was left of it -- now belonged to Larry Tisch, a man he did not choose.

Paley, of course, betrayed nothing of this in the St. Regis dining room as he shook hands with well-wishers. His smile widened at the approach of each woman. If she was young and attractive, his right hand glided reflexively up her forearm, while his other hand slid behind her back. Even as an octogenarian he remained the most flirtatious of men, always on the prowl, always looking for a conquest. His eyes twinkled and focused on the moment's object of his attention as if she were the only woman in the room."He always had a roving eye and a groping hand," said Irene Selznick, a friend for more than 60 years.

Over the years, Paley's pummeling energy proved an ordeal for his executives. One of his top programmers, B. Donald Grant, used to vomit after meetings. In marathon meetings, Paley would second-guess every programming proposal before settling on a prime-time schedule closely resembling the one originally put on the table.

Sitting in the candlelight at the St. Regis Hotel, Bill Paley looked as happy as anyone had seen him in a long time. On this evening, Paley was surrounded by memories, good and bad. Upstairs, on the 10th floor, was the suite he had taken after leaving his wife Dorothy in 1945, ending 13 years of marriage. As bright and opinionated as she was beautiful and stylish, she had been an important teacher. She had broadened his world and refined his tastes. But on returning from the war (and several love affairs overseas) he had wanted to change his life and his network.

Just a few years after the war, Paley's upstart network was a raging success, surpassing its rival, NBC, in profits and popularity. His St. Regis suite overlooking Fifth Avenue had been transformed into an exquisite pied-a-terre, the living room a flawless cube designed by Billy Baldwin and filled with French furniture, fine paintings and splendid objets d'art. The most beautiful adornment of all was his second wife, Barbara Cushing Mortimer, known to all as Babe.

Babe had come into his life with little money but enormous social cachet. She was the daughter of a famous brain surgeon. One of her sisters had married Jock Whitney, the millionaire sportsman and publisher. Her other sister married Vincent Astor, equally rich and prominent. Paley profited not only from Babe's social connections but from her position as a fashion goddess.

At the St. Regis, Paley was in peak form when he rose to salute "60 Minutes." His voice, a rich baritone, was slightly raspy but at once strong and soft. "When '60 Minutes' first went on the air in 1968, I'm sure that Don Hewitt didn't expect to be producing it nearly 20 years later," he said, reading from note cards through half-glasses. "I'm sure his first correspondents, Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace, didn't expect to be his correspondents nearly 20 years later. As a matter of fact the chairman of CBS in 1968" (rising laughter around the room) "didn't expect to be here" (more laughter) "as chairman nearly 20 years later."

The line had been written by Paley's speechwriter, Raymond Price, formerly an aide to Richard Nixon, but Paley delivered it with the timing of Jack Benny. When he finshed, the applause was loud and heartfelt. Everyone exchanged smiles and admiring glances. Copyright $; 1990 by Sally Bedell Smith. From "In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley," to be published by Simon & Schuster. Printed by permission.