Director of Time Resigns; Doesn’t Care for Show Biz

NEW YORK —  Time Inc.’s decision to expand in Hollywood by merging with the entertainment giant Warner Communications Inc. apparently does not sit well with the Texas lumberman on Time’s board.

Arthur Temple, former chairman of Time’s divested Temple-Inland lumber and forestry subsidiary, is resigning from the board because the entertainment business is “not a type business I can be proud of,” according to a Warner proxy statement released Tuesday.

“This is not to say I feel it will not prove profitable,” added Temple, who controls 3% of Time Inc. stock. His stake is the second largest; only Henry Luce III, heir of the Time founder, holds more shares.

Temple, 69, who voted for the merger despite his reservations, could not be reached late Tuesday at his home in Diboll, Tex.

He is one of three members of the current Time and Warner boards who have not been nominated to the 24-member board that will oversee Time Warner when the merger is completed. The others not nominated are Clifford J. Grum, president of Temple-Inland, and Henry C. Goodrich, former chairman of Sonat Inc.

Separately, the proxy statement disclosed that Time may have to dispose of some cable systems to comply with government rules against owning a cable system and a television station in the same market. A Time spokesman said five Southern California systems could be affected because a major Warner shareholder, Chris-Craft Industries, owns KCOP-Channel 13.

He identified those cable systems as American Cablevision of Orange, ATC Cablevision of San Marino Inc., ATC Cablevision of South Pasadena Inc., Canyon County, ATC Cablevision and Time’s 50%-owned Paragon Cable system, which serves Hawthorne and Torrance.

Fewer than 100,000 subscribers are served by those five systems, the spokesman said.

Times staff writer Kathryn Harris in Los Angeles contributed to this story.