By Matthew Burton

Alex P. Keaton can't stop moving. He's not jittery. Not shaky. He just keeps swaying, back and forth, as he sits in his office on Park Avenue. "It's not Parkinson's right now," he explains. "It's the medication." If he takes too much, his body reacts this way.

Yet nothing about this investment guru elicits pity. His story isn't about that; it's about his dramatic life change. It's about how one of the most powerful men on Wall Street he came to grips with his fate -- binges of cocaine, ecstasy and high-priced call girls in an attempt to forget; buying the San Diego Padres, making bad trade and stocking the roster with high-priced and over-the-hill free agents; and buying a film studio and green-lighting one of the biggest flops in history.

"I'm a man of action," Keaton said. "I deal with adversity by making deals."

Keaton explains it all in his new book, The View From the Top (Hyperion, $29.95). A first printing of 650,000 copies arrives today.

"We didn't plan initially to print such a large run," says Bob Miller, president of Hyperion, "but then Mr. Keaton reminded me that he owned Hyperion and that if I didn't print that many he'd fire me faster than a Chinaman on parade."

Keaton, 40, first struck a chord in the financial world with his hostile takeover of Scott Paper at the age of 27. "It was the beginning of the Keaton blueprint," said personal friend Warren Buffett. "The Keaton slash-and-burn. Buy a company, sell its most profitable assets and then cash out. The guy is a cold-hearted bastard. But that's why the financial world loves him."

Early on, Keaton had uncanny instincts for the latest and most innovative investing trends. He was one of the first investors to champion "focus funds." It's a brash, often risky strategy rooted in the theory that a stock picker's ideas are so good they all deserve starring roles in the portfolio.

Focus funds are not for the faint of heart. The blow-up of one stock potentially can strike these funds hard, because they invest as much as 10 percent of their assets in a sole stock, compared with about 1 percent or 2 percent for other funds.

"Even when focus funds began tanking in the mid-nineties, Keaton always had that, he always seemed to know how long to ride a horse and exactly when to get off," said Paul Herbert, a Morningstar fund analyst. "The guy is a genius."

In 1989, the S.E.C. questioned his genius and charged him with insider trader. He was acquitted, but he did agree to pay $600,000 in fines.

"The guy knows how to properly cover a paper trail," former S.E.C. investigator Eric Gonzales said. "We couldn't get anything on the guy."

In 1991, while working on a deal to acquire Dutch cable company United Pan-Europe Communications NV, begin having slight tremors.

"At first I though it had something to do with the fact that I snorted a large amount of coke the night before," he said. He then went to see his personal doctor when the symptoms persisted. And that was when that he heard the diagnosis: young-onset Parkinson's disease.

He began taking medication, popping pills like candy. He did the disease from everyone, except for a few in his close-knit inner circle.

Erwin "Skippy" Handleman, one-time CFO of Keaton's investment company, was one of the first to be disturbed by his cocaine use, especially after his diagnosis.

"We all did coke, it was a way to blow off a little steam from our high-powered lives," Handleman said. "But Alex always kept it under control. He only did after completing a deal. But then he started just started finding excuses to do it: "Hey Skippy, did you hear? The Fed's gonna lower interest rates! Let's do some blow.' or 'Hey Skippy, did you hear? The Padres didn't get swept in that three-game series. Let's do some blow.'"

One of Keaton's lowest point on cocaine came when he traded future Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn in 1992 to the Anaheim Angels for a one-armed pitcher and two minor leaguers to be named later. Gwynn would go on to lead the Angels to their the first of three World Series titles, batting .406 in 1995.

Keaton finally hit rock bottom when in 1993, a movie he greenlit while chairman of Columbia Studios and under the influence of cocaine was released: "Last Action Hero."

After seeing the completed movie, Keaton knew then it was time to quit. He quietly found a program and hasn't touched drugs or alcohol since. He still hadn't dealt with his Parkinson's and began to isolate himself.

"It's so obvious when I look at it now," he said. "I was going through stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance."

Eventually Keaton turned to psychotherapy, and regular appointments with an analyst. "I'm a new man," he said. Keaton now is a lot more philosophical these days. He still keeps a busy schedule on the business side, but now he also devotes time to charity. He is certain there will be breakthroughs and a cure within a decade. "I operate on that premise," he said. "Does my going ahead on a day-to-day basis hinge on that happening? No. I go ahead because I'm one greedy son of a bitch."