With the one-year anniversary of former Endeavor agent John Lesher's takeover of Paramount Vantage (n e Classics) approaching, today's LAT looks at how he's quickly built the studio's specialty unit into an operation that's already competing with the "independent film" arms controlled by other huge multimedia conglomerates like Fox and NBC Universal. The Times solicits some anecdotes from Lesher's current filmmaking associates, demonstrating that the "idiosyncratic" executive (whom "detractors say...can be a cocky snob") hasn't lost his old agent's touch for sensing what others need from him, whether that be some good-naturedly melodramatic groveling or a the simple, pure enthusiasm of a fourth-grader first discovering a love of film:

[Year of the Dog writer/director Mike] White said that when Lesher first saw a cut of his movie, the executive surprisingly "leapt from his seat and laughed and cried." Earlier, at a "Nacho Libre" production meeting with White and his former production partner, actor Jack Black, Lesher dropped to his knees for effect.

"He threw himself at Jack's feet," begging the actor to stay involved in one of Vantage's films," said White, referring to the untitled Baumbach project. "It worked."

Writer-director Adam McKay, a production partner with actor Will Ferrell in a company signed by Vantage to make low-budget comedies, said he loved that Lesher could converse about the artistic merits of films and still "giggle like a giddy 9-year-old."

In other cases, like in his successful attempt to secure of the rights to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, Lesher can abandon these showier skills and fall back on the gift for intimate physical contact that made him Hollywood's undisputed Master of Hugs. As depicted here in photos from an April screening of the film, sometimes all Lesher needs to put a prospective partner at ease is to throw his arm around them, rock some mutual devil horns, and then close the deal by ceremonially activating their Wonder Twin powers.

[Photo: Getty Images]