The boards; enter Mr. Goldwyn.(theater)(The Talk of the Town)(Interview)

Alan King, the legendary standup comedian and actor, was in his second-floor dressing room the other morning at upper Broadway's cozy Promenade Theatre, where he was about to start rehearsing a new play, "Mr. Goldwyn," in which he takes on the title role of the legendary movie producer known for his stubborn independence as well as for his malapropisms ("Keep a stiff upper chin," "Include me out," "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on," etc.).

"I made this place!" King said as he stretched his arms out commandingly toward his accommodations. "I was my own decorator. Look. Posters from my movies, including 'Night and the City' that I made with Bob De Niro. My family photos -- my wife, my children, my grandchildren."

He patted a nearby clothes rack, hung with elegant, beautifully pressed clothing on hangers spaced uniformly, with mathematical precision. "My Sam Goldwyn suits and stuff," King said. "The way that man dressed! Only in the best! With nothing in the pockets. No wallet, no keys. He didn't want to ruin the line of the suit. Everything perfect, the Sam Goldwyn way. Of all those great movie moguls, Goldwyn -- the only one of them who owned his own studio till the day he died -- cared the most about how he looked," King said. "He was firm, barrel-chested, with a rigid jaw, strong." King assumed perfect posture, his face chiselled, looking firm, barrel-chested, with a rigid jaw, and strong.

He was called to the rehearsal and headed for a door leading into the theatre. "When they said they wanted me to play Sam Goldwyn, I knew I wouldn't be doing an impression. I will do Goldwyn the way I see Goldwyn. The way I know Goldwyn. I've been at this for sixty years. As Billy Wilder said, 'You don't become Sam Goldwyn just by saying "Include me out." ' I gotta give Sam Goldwyn a soul."

He stood briefly at the back of the theatre, regarding the set, a replication of Goldwyn's office: floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves; floor-to-ceiling windows; a huge desk with a red leather top, a telephone, and an intercom.

"As Goldwyn, I gotta get outside myself," King said. "This isn't Lear. I get to strut. I never met Goldwyn, but I saw him once, in 1956. I was with Judy Garland in London, where we did the Palladium together for sixteen weeks. One day we were walking on Bond Street, and we saw Goldwyn, dressed, as usual, to the nines. We watched him go into a little shop and come out carrying a package. So I went in and asked what he had bought. It was Zizanie cologne. I bought some. If it was good enough for Sam Goldwyn, it was my sweet smell of success. I've used it ever since -- it's in my dressing room right now."

King waved genially to his director, Gene Saks, and to the play's authors, Marsha Lebby and John Lollos, waiting in the otherwise deserted orchestra seats. "Goldwyn was one of the great moguls," King said. "All of them camefrom Eastern Europe, within a five-hundred-mile radius of each other. Men of great egos! Very opinionated!