Arthur B. Krim, an entertainment lawyer and former chairman of Orion Pictures and United Artists, died in his sleep early yesterday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 84.
He had suffered a long illness, said Barbara Handman, a friend of his family.
At his death, he had been counsel since 1978 to the New York-based law firm of Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon, where he went to work in 1932 and was a partner from 1935 to 1978. In his case, being counsel meant that he kept an office at the firm's headquarters and was a permanent adviser there.
Known as the producer of more than 1,000 movies, he had the titles of chairman and then founder-chairman of Orion Pictures from 1978 to 1992 and was chairman of United Artists from 1951 to 1978.
The senior partner in Mr. Krim's law firm, Louis Nizer, said yesterday, "Arthur Krim revolutionized the film industry because he had an eye for artistic talent and a head for film financing."
Mr. Krim and two associates founded Orion Pictures in 1978, as a joint venture with Warner Brothers, after a much-publicized split with United Artists, where there was friction between them and the Transamerica Corporation, which was then United Artists' parent company.
The group went on to produce films like "10," "Arthur" and "Excalibur" and to take over Filmways and to form the Orion Pictures Corporation. By 1992, the company had become burdened with debt and had to sell off assets in order to survive.
The company filed for bankruptcy and in talks with a variety of potential buyers, it was announced that Mr. Krim would be released from his contract as founder-chairman. An aide said yesterday that Mr. Krim stopped working for Orion in 1991.
It was four decades earlier that Mr. Krim and Robert Benjamin headed a syndicate that took over United Artists, which was founded by Charlie Chaplin and other filmland celebrities but fell on hard times in the late 1940's. The new management made it profitable again in the early 1950's, and United Artists made highly regarded films like "High Noon" in those years.
Earlier, United Artists had operated at a competitive disadvantage, compared with other movie companies, because it did not have a studio of its own. But that deficiency became a plus in the 1950's and 1960's because United Artists did not have to pay overhead on a studio in those years, when on-location movie-making became widespread in the film industry.
In 1967, United Artists became a unit of Transamerica, a conglomerate, and it had a notable degree of success in the 1970's, when three of its movies in a row won Academy Awards as the best films of their years: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), "Rocky" (1976) and "Annie Hall" (1977).
Outside the film world, Mr. Krim was long prominent in Democratic political circles and was a valued fund-raiser and a trusted giver of advice to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter. Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale once called him "a shrewd political strategist and a fiercely loyal adviser and friend."
Mr. Krim was especially close to Johnson. Mr. Krim and his wife, Dr. Mathilde Krim, had a room at the White House during the Johnson Administration and were on hand when Johnson announced in 1968 that he would not seek re-election, though the Krims had tried to dissuade him from that decision.
From 1966 to 1968, Mr. Krim was the chairman of the Democratic National Finance Committee and for years he was on the boards of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation and the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
He was a member of Columbia University's board of trustees from 1967 to 1982 and that board's chairman from from 1977 to 1982. He was also active on behalf of a variety of causes, including civil rights, equal rights for gay Americans, efforts against AIDS and opposition to the old system of racial separation in South Africa. He became close to Nelson Mandela, now South Africa's President, and other prominent South African opponents of racial separation.
A native New Yorker, he was the son of Morris Krim, an immigrant from Russia who started out in New York with a fruit and vegetable stand on the Lower East Side, and the former Rose Ocko. Arthur Krim earned a bachelor's degree in 1930 from Columbia College and then a degree from Columbia's law school, where he was editor in chief of the Columbia Law Review.
In the 1930's, he prospered as an entertainment lawyer, with clients like the playwright Clifford Odets and the actor John Garfield.
He served in the Army in World War II, rising to lieutenant colonel. Then he became president of Eagle Lion Films, in New York, from 1946 to 1949.
At his death, he was on the boards of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation and of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science and was a life trustee of the African-American Institute.
The honors and awards he received included Columbia's Alexander Hamilton Medal and medals from France and Italy.
In addition to his wife of 35 years, Mr. Krim is survived by a daughter, Daphna, of Washington, and two grandchildren.
