Robert Stigwood is sitting in the drawing room of his mansion on the Isle of Wight, shuffling through a stack of publicity photos. He picks out an angel-faced young actor. "I've found another star,'' crows Mr. Stigwood, who, two decades ago, was the biggest star-maker around. "He's going to set Broadway on fire.'' This month, that young man will take centre stage in New York in Mr.

Stigwood's $9 million musical based on "Saturday Night Fever'', his 1977 film immortalising disco dancing and three-piece white suits. Yet there is more at stake here than the budding career of one performer.

After an extraordinary run in the 1970s, Mr. Stigwood all but dropped out of show business. He lived off his past, retreating to a remote estate and a yacht worthy of Jay Gatsby. Now, by dusting off "Saturday Night Fever'' and sending it to Broadway -- complete with polyester costumes and a massive disco ball descending from the rafters -- the producer is trying to recapture some of the old glory.

"The Year In Music: 1978,'' the only book on Mr. Stigwood's end table, is a relic from the heady days. Emblazoned on its cover are his biggest stars: the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, John Travolta (right arm raised high, index finger pointed to the heavens). Across the room, a small music box tinkles "Don't Cry for Me Argentina'' from "Evita'', the 1978 musical blockbuster that he produced.

Today, Robert Stigwood is 65. Rheumy-eyed and raspy-voiced, with thinning, sandy hair, he dresses like an aging lord at leisure: linen shirt and shorts, tapestry slippers. He walks with the assistance of a cane; an ugly cut zigzags across his shin. He was recently diagnosed with diabetes; he says medication is keeping the disease under control. He blames his current infirmities on three broken ribs, caused by two falls in as many months.

Over the course of a recent Saturday afternoon, he goes through several goblets of wine and a couple glasses of Bacardi and Coke; he repeats the same anecdote three times over. "His vigor is waning,'' says John Reid, the former manager of singer Elton John, who has known Mr. Stigwood for nearly 30 years.

"I don't see him back and going full blast, not remotely. But he does own certain rights, and he wants to be a player.'' What remains to be seen is whether this incarnation of "Saturday Night Fever'' will be a triumphant comeback or a swan song for Mr. Stigwood. On the heels of a successful London run, the Broadway show has sold more than $11 million in advance tickets, six times that of any other new show this season.

Nevertheless, the American public's appetite for things '70s has waned considerably. And Broadway has a spotty record when it comes to making musicals out of films: For every "Lion King,'' there's a "Big'' and a "Carrie''.

Mr. Stigwood bristles when asked if he is trying to get back into the game: He insists he has never left. He calls the '80s his "sabbatical'' and notes that he got a revival of "Grease'' on the London stage in 1993 and helped put "Evita'' on screen soon after. "You know the House of Lords? In this business, I'm a Peer.'' Born in Adelaide, Australia, Mr. Stigwood emigrated to London in the mid-1950s. After promoting a few concerts, he formed his own management company, his star client a young guitarist named Eric Clapton. He later signed a trio of singing brothers, the Bee Gees, and got backing from PolyGram NV.

He quickly expanded from music to theatre, bucking British censors to produce "Hair'' In 1970, after hearing a record album by young composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice, he bought the company that managed them and, based on that album, produced Mr. Lloyd Webber's first big musical: "Jesus Christ Superstar''. Between London, Broadway and various road productions, it wound up grossing $70 million. In 1973 came "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', which grossed $50 million over its various runs, and then "Evita'' in 1978, which ultimately raked in $100 million.

From the start, Mr. Stigwood was more than just a producer; he cross-promoted his various properties long before the word "synergy'' entered the entertainment vocabulary. Record albums generated theatrical shows, which in turn spawned movies that generated more record sales.

In 1977, Mr. Stigwood tested the limits of his formula with a film based on a New York magazine article about a Brooklyn disco king. He cast John Travolta, then a television actor, as the star and signed him to a three-picture deal.

Next, he went to the Bee Gees. "We hadn't seen the script,'' recalls Barry Gibb. "We played him what we had: `Stayin' Alive', `If I Can't Have You'. I told him those were for our new album. He said, `Then your album is the soundtrack.''' Mr. Stigwood negotiated an unusually generous distribution deal for the film with Paramount Pictures. In return for distribution rights, he kept 45 percent of the gross rental receipts along with rights to the soundtrack, which at the time weren't considered to be big business.

Still Stayin' Alive "Robert believed he could make a market for a soundtrack that was sung by rock stars rather than the characters,'' says Freddie Gershon, a former lawyer of Mr. Stigwood's who served as president of his American operations during their heyday. "No one had succeeded at doing that before.'' "Saturday Night Fever'' went on to gross $228 million. The double-album set, recorded on Mr. Stigwood's RSO Records label -- its symbol a small red cow -- remains the 15th best-selling album in the US, with a total of 15 million units.

Next came Mr. Travolta's second film, "Grease'' in 1978. Based on a 1972 off-Broadway musical, it cost just $6 million and became the highest-grossing movie musical of all time, taking in $353 million. The soundtrack went on to sell more than eight million units. That year, the Robert Stigwood Group grossed an estimated $500 million, with $75 million in profit.

But soon, the curtain would fall. Mr. Stigwood chose as his next project "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'', a movie musical based on the Beatles classic album, starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton as a Beatles-esque band, along with Alice Cooper and George Burns. Rolling Stone magazine called it "one of the worst movies ever made''. The $8 million film took in just $20 million at the box office and the soundtrack sold three million copies, a big disappointment.

"Robert was anesthetised by his success,'' says Mr. Gershon, now chairman of Music Theatre International, which licenses amateur rights to Broadway shows.

"He had golden ears, but he wasn't paying attention.'' In 1979, Roger Forrester, who was working with Eric Clapton, left the Stigwood group and took the rock guitarist with him. The contract Messrs. Lloyd Webber and Rice had with Mr. Stigwood ended, and they decided not to renew. In 1980, the Bee Gees left, filing a lawsuit claiming Mr. Stigwood had swindled them out of more than $100 million in royalties. (Mr. Stigwood denied the allegations; the suit was eventually settled out of court.) That was followed by a cluster of box-office bombs: the drama "Moment by Moment'', staring Mr. Travolta and comedian Lily Tomlin as his middle-aged lover; "Times Square'', a musical; and "The Fan'', a thriller with Lauren Bacall.

In December 1981, Mr. Stigwood and PolyGram decided to split up the assets of the Robert Stigwood Group. PolyGram retained rights to the records, with Mr.

Stigwood getting a 2 percent royalty on Bee Gees and Eric Clapton albums. Mr.

Stigwood kept the red-cow trademark and TV and film rights, including "Saturday Night Fever'' and "Grease''.

"I just didn't want to do it anymore,'' Mr. Stigwood says. "So I went yachting.'' He set sail on a 258-foot restored clipper ship, furnished with fabrics from London, antiques from France, marble from Italy and a mahogany grand piano (bolted down). His parties were legend: a grand piano and a case of champagne carted to the top of a lonely hill in Bermuda to celebrate Boxing Day; a toga party, with waiters in Roman costume, to celebrate not much of anything at all.

By the late 1980s, Mr. Stigwood says, "I was yachted out.'' In 1991 he bought Barton Manor on the Isle of Wight, once owned by Queen Victoria. Today, he lives there alone, attended to by three large dogs, a staff of 15, and a continuous parade of houseguests.

Patrick Bywalski, deputy chairman of Mr. Stigwood's current company, the Robert Stigwood Organisation Ltd., says about 70 percent of Mr. Stigwood's income these days comes from royalties from his '70s projects, with the balance generated by various trusts in Bermuda, where he used to maintain a residence for tax purposes. He declines to specify Mr. Stigwood's income, but values RSO at "under $200 million''.

Mr. Stigwood started edging back into the theatrical business in the early 1990s, when Paul Nicholas, star of the original London production of "Jesus Christ Superstar'' wanted to produce a road show of "Grease'' and include the songs that were in the movie, which Mr. Stigwood controls with Paramount Pictures. Mr. Stigwood suggested that instead of a road show they put on a full-scale production on London's West End. The show opened in July 1993 and is just now closing, having recouped the producers' initial $5.6 million investment in the first year.

In 1995, the movie version of "Evita'' finally went into production. "Robert came to the sound stages in London a couple times and was down to Argentina, where we were filming -- once,'' Mr. Vajna says. "He thinks he's still a powerhouse. I think he's living in his past.'' Mr. Stigwood, through a spokesman, dismisses the comment as "jealousy''.

"Saturday Night Fever'' began the journey from screen to stage not long after the "Grease'' revival in London. Mr. Stigwood assigned his attorney, John Breglio, to acquire the necessary rights. By now, the producer and the Bee Gees had reconciled, and the group agreed to write two new songs for the musical. To write the show's book, Mr. Stigwood turned to Mr. Breglio's wife, Nan Knighton, who had also written the book and lyrics for the Broadway musical "The Scarlet Pimpernel,'' which Mr. Stigwood had considered producing.

In early 1997, Mr. Stigwood raised the $6.4 million needed to mount the show, providing the majority of the funds himself. He helicoptered into London from the Isle of Wight every week or two to check on auditions and rehearsals.

The show opened on May 5, 1998, to mixed reviews. While the story is "neither interesting nor well told,'' the Times of London said, "the stage fizzes with rhythm.'' The Independent called it "not so much a musical as a marketing maneuver.'' But the show defied critics, playing to full houses in the first months after it opened. It recouped its initial investment in April and is expected to issue investor dividends shortly.

Plans for an American show began not long after the London bow. Mr. Stigwood asked Manny Kladitis, who heads Niko Cos., which produces and manages Broadway shows, if he would be interested in managing a Broadway run.

"I told him I was a Studio 54 animal, that that was my era,'' Mr. Kladitis says. "I told him I didn't just want to manage, that I wanted to produce as well.'' Mr. Stigwood told him he would "allow'' him to invest $1 million, but no more, Mr. Kladitis says. "It was like he was graciously allowing me to participate.'' Earlier this year, when the New York show was officially capitalized, Mr. Stigwood provided an additional $5 million, with the $3 million balance put in by an investor group that he declines to identify. Mr.

Stigwood has been fairly involved in setting up the Broadway production. Last summer he came to see the three theatres large enough to house the show, settling on the Minskoff, one of the newer and biggest houses. This past March, he sat in on final auditions for the five key roles. For the lead of Tony he selected James Carpinello, who starred in an off-Broadway show last season, over television actor Joey Lawrence.

In London, "Saturday Night Fever'' appears to be losing steam. Over the past couple months, the theatre has been just 60 percent to 70 percent full on weeknights, about 80 percent on weekends. Undeterred, Mr. Stigwood is already developing his next new stage production. He has optioned Anne Rice's novel "Cry to Heaven,'' about the castrati in 18th-century Italy. That the subject matter might be difficult for a mass audience doesn't concern him in the slightest. "It's different. It's controversial,'' he says. "And I've found the most handsome Australian countertenor.'' The Wall Street Journal Business Feature Still star searching: Music impresario Robert Stigwood pictured at his sprawling home Wreck Hill in Somerset before he sold it to move back to Britain to the Isle of Wight a few years ago.

Money makers: `Stiggies' biggest stars included film star John Travolta and rock legend Eric Clapton.