Watch Your Back, Mr. Parsons

To find the real drama at Time Warner these days, forget about the back lot at Warner Brothers. It's all happening at the company's Rockefeller Plaza headquarters in New York. Mystery, intrigue, and plot twists abound, as Time Warner Inc. careens down an ever-more-treacherous Information Highway. On Oct. 31, Chairman Gerald M. Levin added one more ingredient to this murky brew: He named an outsider, Richard D. Parsons, as president of the entertainment giant.

A lawyer with potent political connections, Parsons is best known for rescuing Dime Savings Bank of New York from the brink of insolvency. Last July, Parsons engineered a merger with rival Anchor Bancorp Inc. to form the nation's fourth-largest thrift. Impressive as that sounds, several Time Warner insiders and observers believe it scarcely prepares the 46-year-old Parsons for the rigors of his latest assignment.