10 Questions for Carl Icahn

It has been a busy few weeks for Carl Icahn, the billionaire financier who gained fame--some would say notoriety--in the 1980s by taking over TWA and agitating for change at the likes of Texaco and RJR Nabisco. While juggling his bids to get on the board of mobile-phone manufacturer Motorola and to buy car-parts maker Lear, Icahn, 71, took a break to talk with TIME's Barbara Kiviat about imperial CEOs, movies by mail and the one thing no one ever gets about him.

In the 1980s, you were called a corporate raider. Now you're a shareholder activist. Why do people think...