President Clinton’s affair with a young intern, his lies about the relationship, and the purported cover-up would likely get most executives fired in corporate America.

But not in Hollywood, where illicit sex, lies and other shortcomings by high-paid producers, actors and executives are often overlooked as long as they can deliver box-office hits.

Clinton, who will be in Los Angeles again this week, is a president who openly courts Hollywood. His powerful friends in the entertainment industry A-list actors, producers and studio executives have provided financial backing and political counsel at crucial stages of his career. There have been persistent rumors always denied that a job in Hollywood is waiting as soon as he leaves office (whenever that might be).

But in light of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, there could be other, less benign connections: sex and lies. The Starr Report’s accounts of Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky suggest a president whose behavior is more like that of a Hollywood mogul than a Fortune 500 chief executive.

“I find him very normal and mainstream,” said actress Angie Dickinson, who has worked in Hollywood for four decades. “It’s just when you sit at that desk, your appetites are magnified and exposed. He has a very horny appetite and I find that very normal.”

Certainly, sex and deception are not unique to Hollywood. But show business tends to be an industry where what people say isn’t necessarily what they mean, and what they mean isn’t necessarily what they say. There’s little doubt that the industry tends to have different standards and judgments than that of American business in general.

“Clinton fits right into the Hollywood mogul mentality,” said Jackie Collins, the best-selling author of “Hollywood Wives” and other steamy novels. “You lie, lie, lie and when you are pushed into a corner, you lie again.”

“He is not bashful about using the strength of his office,” said Ken Khachigian, a Republican political consultant. “The most obvious analogy is the old casting couch where Hollywood moguls and producers reportedly moved the careers of starlets up the ranks.”

But Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic political consultant, said he believes the comparison is not fair.

“Clinton said he was sorry. A mogul means you never say you are sorry,” Shrum said. “A mogul would have bragged about what he did.”

But the differences Shrum speaks about only underscore the fact that Clinton’s behavior would not be a firing offense in much of Hollywood as long as he was successful in the next movie or television series.

“Clinton has done a great job,” Shrum said, “but now there is talk of impeachment. It wouldn’t happen in Hollywood.”

“In Hollywood, the mogul gets away with it,” agreed Michael Josephson, the head of the Marina del Rey-based Josephson Institute of Ethics.

Last spring, for example, news organizations carried stories about New Line Cinema Production President Mike DeLuca engaging in a public sex act with a producer at a movie-industry bash. Despite the bad press, DeLuca, who is considered a gifted and successful movie executive, remained in his job.

“He’s a single man,” said one New Line colleague. “Immorality arises when you are married and lying before a grand jury.”

Through a spokesman, DeLuca declined comment.

“Most companies with people in the public view who were in a similar position (as DeLuca) would agree to step down or would be fired,” Josephson said. “But in Hollywood, it is shrugged off.”

One of the most infamous Hollywood moguls was David Begelman, who ran Columbia Pictures until it was discovered that he forged a check bearing the name of actor Cliff Robertson to pay off gambling debts. Nothing was done for months until the scandal finally erupted in the press.

Begelman, who was likeable and popular in Hollywood, had been highly successful at Columbia and moved over to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after the scandal dissipated. Only after his magic touch at the box office faded was he fired. Years later he ran out of money and committed suicide.

To be sure, Hollywood is filled with plenty of hard-working actors, directors, writers and executives and who raise families, practice their religion, pay their taxes and steer clear of drugs. But there is a dark side of Hollywood, and it extends beyond sex.

Screenwriters, for instance, routinely register their work with the Writers Guild of America for fear that their scenarios will be stolen by unscrupulous agents or studio executives.

In one memorable case, columnist Art Buchwald successfully sued actor Eddie Murphy for stealing his idea for the film “Coming to America,” and Paramount Pictures for not giving him his fair share of the film’s profits.

Murphy’s reputation didn’t seem to suffer from the judgment, as it might have in another industry. But Hollywood seems more tolerant of indiscretions of all kinds.

David Geffen, co-founder of DreamWorks SKG, got his start in the entertainment industry at the William Morris Agency when he faked a transcript showing he was a graduate of UCLA. If anything, the anecdote is told in Hollywood as a sign of Geffen’s enterprise.

And except for the occasional fatality (John Belushi, River Phoenix), film studios tend to turn a blind eye to drug abuse as long as the customers are buying tickets.

“Aberrant behavior is considered artistic,” said Dr. Marshall Blonsky, who specializes in the study of cultural icons at New York University. “It’s the tremors of genius. It’s a release like River Phoenix doing drugs or Eddie Murphy picking up a transvestite. For a mogul to have an affair is a badge of honor and a sign of potency.”

But such “tremors of genius” generally are not tolerated in the conventional business world, according to Richard Ellsworth, a professor at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management at Claremont University Graduate School.

If a situation such as Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky were to occur at a typical corporation, “they would gather the facts and if it were a fairly senior executive he would be out,” Ellsworth said.

“You cannot behave in a way that abuses your power and expect to continue in leadership,” he said. “Today organizations are very sophisticated. They may not be democratic, but they are more democratic, and trust and credibility of leaders is much more important to their effectiveness than the days when they were much more autocratic and managed through fear.

“The exceptional companies, with a strong sense of who they are, put character ahead of performance,” Ellsworth said.

Despite the legends of the casting couch, and the more recent escapades of executives like DeLuca, there are some who believe Hollywood is becoming more corporate and thus more conservative. Certainly, Hollywood’s biggest entertainment company, Walt Disney Co., would balk at any suggestion that illicit sex would be tolerated in its corporate offices.

“Hollywood is a lot more discrete,” said Lin Bolen, an independent producer and former NBC programming executive. “These guys don’t do it at the office and not with employees. That’s a major sexual harassment case for anybody who does it and the chicks in Hollywood are smart. They know when they are sexually harassed.

“Clinton,” she added, “couldn’t survive out here.”

But others in the worlds of both Hollywood and politics think the president would not only survive, but thrive.

“Clinton seems to fit in better here than he does in Washington,” said Joe Cerrell, a veteran Democratic political consultant.