Peter Guber was recruited directly from college by Columbia Pictures in 1968 and began a successful career as an independent producer in 1976. His first feature was the waterlogged adventure "The Deep" (1977), but he soon had greater critical success with "Midnight Express" (1978). In 1982 he joined with Jon Peters to form the Guber-Peters Company, one of Hollywood's most effective producing teams of the 1980s with blockbusters such as "Flashdance" (1983) and "Batman" (1989). Guber and Peters were appointed joint heads of Columbia after the Sony corporation's costly purchase of the studio in