Boston-bred executive built an industry giant with the acquisitions of Viacom, Paramount Pictures, and CBS Corp, passed away at 97.
Sumner Redstone, a towering figure in media who built his father’s drive-in theater business into an empire that included Viacom, Paramount Pictures and CBS Corp., only to see his legacy tarnished in his final years by corporate battles and sordid allegations by former girlfriends, died Aug. 11 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97.
National Amusements, the Redstone family’s private holding company that controls what is now ViacomCBS, confirmed that Redstone died Tuesday afternoon. After years of public battles with family members, Redstone had been in close contact over the past three years with his daughter, ViacomCBS chairman Shari Redstone, and others in his extended family.
“My father led an extraordinary life that not only shaped entertainment as we know it today but created an incredible family legacy,” Shari Redstone told Variety in a statement. “Through it all, we shared a great love for one another and he was a wonderful father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. I am so proud to be his daughter and I will miss him always.”
National Amusements noted Sumner Redstone’s role in shaping the modern media landscape with his early career in the exhibition business, followed by his acquisitions of Viacom, Paramount Pictures, and CBS Corp. He famously coined the phrase “content is king” to emphasize his interest in programming and production assets.
“Sumner was a man of unrivaled passion and perseverance, who devoted his life to his belief in the power of content,” National Amusements said. “With his passing, the media industry he loved so dearly loses one of its great champions. Sumner, a loving father, grandfather, and great-grandfather will be greatly missed by his family who takes comfort knowing that his legacy will live on for generations to come.”
The question of Sumner Redstone’s legacy is much clearer than it would have been just a few years ago when Shari Redstone was embroiled in legal battles with some of her father’s longtime business associates over control of his business interests. Upon his death, Sumner Redstone’s assets will formally be taken over by the Redstone family trust that will manage his controlling stake in ViacomCBS. Shari Redstone and other family members are among the trustees.
The Boston-bred mogul who ruled his businesses with an iron fist was forced to step down as chairman of CBS and Viacom in early February 2016 amid pressure from shareholders and activists questioning his mental capacity. Redstone famously vowed he would live forever, so he wouldn’t bother picking his successor. He served as ViacomCBS chairman emeritus and chairman-CEO of National Amusements until the end.
“Sumner Redstone was a brilliant visionary, operator and dealmaker, who single-handedly transformed a family-owned drive-in theater company into a global media portfolio,” said ViacomCBS president-CEO Bob Bakish. “He was a force of nature and fierce competitor, who leaves behind a profound legacy in both business and philanthropy. ViacomCBS will remember Sumner for his unparalleled passion to win, his endless intellectual curiosity, and his complete dedication to the company. We extend our deepest sympathies to the Redstone family today.”
In 2016, a drawn-out legal battle for control of Viacom pitted his daughter, Shari Redstone, against his one-time protege, Philippe Dauman, with former girlfriends Manuela Herzer and Sydney Holland in key supporting roles. In keeping with her father’s tenacious example, Shari Redstone prevailed in what at times became down-and-dirty brawls with her father’s former mistresses, Dauman and former CBS chief Leslie Moonves.
As late as October 2015, Sumner Redstone was said to be demanding a daily diet of steak and sex, according to court documents filed by Herzer. He indulged those appetites despite mostly being bedridden, fed through a tube, surrounded by around-the-clock caretakers, and unable to speak intelligibly because of a severe speech impediment. He was a shadow of the powerhouse who once out-dueled fellow-magnates Barry Diller and John Malone to take control of Paramount Pictures.
Redstone was among the last of a breed, a strong-willed in the mold of William Randolph Hearst and William Paley, who may be remembered as much for the battles he fought as for the successes he achieved in the entertainment business. He amassed some of the best-known holdings in the industry, including CBS, Paramount Pictures, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, and Showtime.
With his six-foot frame, the shock of orange hair, Boston brogue, and billionaire’s bearing, Redstone in his heyday of the 1980s and ’90s cut quite a figure in Hollywood’s business and social circles. He was respected by fellow moguls such as Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner for his willingness to bet big on mergers and acquisitions and to speak his mind. He was feared by many who passed through Viacom’s doors as a demanding boss who paid slavish attention to the company’s stock price. And he had an appetite for the high life, particularly as it related to female companions.
Redstone was a prominent exhibitor who had been a pioneer of the multiplex concept for movie theaters in the 1960s. He bought and sold at profit stakes in 20th Century Fox, MGM/United Artists, and Columbia Pictures before he set his sights on building his own studio empire.
Redstone became a well-known figure in Hollywood with his 1987 acquisition of Viacom in a leveraged buyout valued at $3 billion. Six years later he waged a hard-fought war to land Paramount Pictures for $10 billion, and in 1999 he clinched a deal with Westinghouse to take over CBS. That deal put CBS and Viacom under the same corporate roof — until Redstone decided that Viacom’s stock was undervalued. He split up them back into separate entities in 2006.
Redstone was a fighter by nature, and the tally of executives who battled with him, both from inside his companies and elsewhere, is extensive, including Wayne Huizenga, Frank Biondi, Mel Karmazin, Tom Freston, Jonathan Dolgen, Diller and finally Dauman, his longtime lawyer, and business consiglieri. Redstone famously publicly dropped Tom Cruise from a lucrative deal at Paramount in 2006 because he felt the actor’s unusual behavior had hurt the ticket sales for “Mission: Impossible III.”
Redstone often had stormy relations with his family, including his brother and his children, Shari and Brent. He successfully bought out his son’s share of the family business but failed to get his daughter to do the same despite a $1 billion offer. His marriage to Phyllis Raphael ended in 1999 after 52 years. In 2003, he wed former schoolteacher Paula Fortunato, but the union was over by 2008.
Redstone’s final years were marked by tabloid eruptions about various mistresses and family members, who fell in and out of favor at Redstone’s expansive home in the gated Beverly Park enclave in the hills above Los Angeles. Long-time companion Herzer and some-time girlfriend Holland reportedly received $150 million in cash and assets over a five-year period. Redstone spurned both in 2015 and his lawyers vowed the following year to go to court to attempt to recover the gifts.
Herzer’s lawsuit, filed in November 2015 became the first in a series of nasty legal challenges that defined Redstone’s final days. The Argentina-born socialite lost the case in May 2016 when a Los Angeles judge turned aside her request to be reinstalled as the ultimate overseer of Redstone’s health care. Herzer and Redstone’s attorneys fought it out for another 18 months before Herzer settled in January 2019 by paying Redstone $3.25 million for gifts the mogul had given her over the years.
Importantly, the Herzer case also cemented the reemergence of daughter Shari Redstone in her father’s life. After the court decision, Shari became an even more regular presence. Her camp said the rapprochement was possible because Redstone’s greedy and controlling female companions had finally been removed from his life. The “other women,” in turn, said it was Shari Redstone who was exerting undue influence over her increasingly frail father — a charge leveled against Shari by Herzer, Dauman, and Moonves.
After the split, Moonves remained CEO of CBS while former MTV Networks chief Tom Freston became CEO of Viacom. A year later, Redstone shocked the industry when he abruptly fired Freston for what many believed was Redstone’s frustration over Viacom’s failure to win social networking site MySpace. In retrospect, it’s clear that Viacom dodged a bullet as News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005 and sold it in 2011 for $35 million. In Freston’s place, Redstone placed his longtime lawyer, Dauman.
The issue of succession was not one Redstone ever addressed in public. The frequency of the question as his years advanced spurred his famous vow to “live forever.” The picture was further muddied when he had a falling out with his daughter, Shari, who served as president of National Amusements and whom many figured would take over for her father. But Redstone’s grip on CBS and Viacom — he controlled nearly 80% of the voting shares in each — allowed him to wave off pressure from investors to detail a specific plan following his death.
As part of his divorce settlement with his first wife, Phyllis, it was disclosed that all of Redstone’s stock would be left to his grandchildren. The Redstone Family Trust will inherit National Amusements assets and be run on behalf of the grandchildren by a group of seven trustees.
Amid the legal battles Herzer, Holland, and Dauman, Shari Redstone began to exert more influence as Viacom’s fortunes declined. She brought new board members into Viacom and was instrumental in selecting Bakish, who was formerly Viacom International Media Networks, as president and CEO in December 2016. Shari Redstone told friends and colleagues how important Viacom was to her father and how much she wanted to see it restored to health.
After years of on-again, off-again negotiations, Shari Redstone succeeded in bringing Viacom and CBS Corp. back together in a merger completed in December 2019, led by Bakish.
A longtime philanthropist, Redstone gave generously throughout his career to causes ranging from burn recovery research to the Cambodian Children’s Fund to Autism Speaks. He consistently made Forbes’ magazine list of the wealthiest people in the world. In 2012, Paramount renamed its Administration Building the Sumner Redstone Building in a dedication ceremony.
In closing out his memoir, Redstone wrote: “Chronological age has little to do with intellectual capacity, the ability to work, the ability to lead. In fact, I often surprise my younger colleagues by being the first to accept and, indeed, suggest new ideas and new agendas when the assumption is I will hold on to the old ones like a bulldog …. I still want to be No. 1.”
