Sumner Murray Redstone (born Sumner Murray Rothstein; May 27, 1923) is an American businessman and media magnate. He is the majority owner and chairman of the board of the National Amusements theater chain. Through National Amusements, Redstone and his family are majority owners of CBS Corporation and Viacom (itself the parent company of Viacom Media Networks, BET Networks, and the film studio Paramount Pictures). According to Forbes, as of September 2015, he was worth US$5 billion.
Redstone was formerly the executive chairman of both CBS and Viacom. In February 2016, at the age of 92 – a week after a court-ordered examination by a geriatric psychiatrist – Redstone resigned both chairmanships, was succeeded by Leslie Moonves at CBS and Philippe Dauman at Viacom, and became chairman emeritus.
Early life and education
Sumner was born to a Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts, to Belle (née Ostrovsky) and Michael Rothstein. In 1940, at Sumner’s behest, his father agreed to change the family surname from “Rothstein” to “Redstone” (“Red stone” is a literal translation of the German-Jewish name, “Rothstein”). Michael Rothstein owned Northeast Theater Corporation in Dedham, Massachusetts (the forerunner of National Amusements) and the Boston branch of the Latin Quarter Nightclub.
Redstone attended the Boston Latin School, from which he graduated first in his class. In 1944, he graduated from Harvard College, where he completed the studies for his baccalaureate in three years. Later, Redstone served as First Lieutenant in the United States Army during World War II with a team that decoded Japanese messages. After his military service, he worked in Washington, D.C., and attended Georgetown University Law Center. He transferred to Harvard Law School and received his law degree in 1947.
After completing law school, Redstone served as special assistant to U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark (who later served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967) and then worked for the United States Department of Justice Tax Division in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, and thereafter entered private practice. In 1954, he joined his father’s theater chain, National Amusements and in 1967, he became CEO of the company. As the company grew, Redstone came to believe that content would become more important than distribution mechanisms: channels of distribution (in varied forms) would always exist, but content would always be essential (Redstone coined the phrase, “Content is king!”). He invested in Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Orion Pictures, and Paramount Pictures (Redstone’s Viacom would buy Paramount in the 1990s), all of which turned over huge profits when he chose to sell their stock in the early 1980s.
In 1979, he suffered severe burns in a fire at the Copley Plaza hotel, in Boston, but survived after thirty hours of extensive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. Though he was warned that he might never be able to live a normal life, eight years later he was fit enough to insist on playing tennis nearly every day and to launch a hostile takeover of Viacom. Redstone has discussed the story of surviving the fire as a reflection of his strong determination and will to live.
Sumner Redstone net worth: Best known as the majority owner of Viacom and various other media conglomerates, Sumner Redstone has a net worth of $6.4 billion. Sumner Redstone is the Chairman of the National Amusements theater chain and also owns large portions of MTV, BET, CBS, Viacom, and Paramount Pictures. He also contributes large amounts to various philanthropic organizations that work with children.
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