Show notes
Sumner Redstone (born Sumner Murray Rothstein) is
a media magnate who owns and controls the National Amusements
theater chain, and is the majority owner of CBS Corporation,
Viacom, the MTV Network, BET, and the Paramount Pictures film
studio. Redstone attended the Boston Latin School, where he
graduated first in his class, and then graduated Harvard College
in three years. He served in World War II, with a team that
decoded Japanese messages for the U.S. Army, and after the war,
earned his degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, he
worked for the U.S. Department of Justice Tax Division and then
went into private practice. After a few years, he joined his
father's theater chain and pioneered the "multiplex" in huge
suburban malls and expanded to 750 screens across the nation. He
also invested in movie content providers Columbia Pictures,
Twentieth Century Fox, and Paramount Pictures. In 1979, he almost
died in the Boston Copley Hotel fire when he crawled out of a
window onto a ledge. Redstone was not expected to survive and
underwent 30 hours of intense surgery. After a hostile takeover
in 1987, he won voting control of Viacom, a television
syndication, which also owned MTV and Nickelodeon and Showtime
networks. His next acquisition was Paramount Pictures in 1993,
and led the studio on a ten-year streak of record performance
with hit films including "Saving Private Ryan" and "Titanic."
That same year Sumner Redstone participated in the 1993
Achievement Summit in Glacier National Park, Montana and spoke to
the student delegates about his life as a student, risk taking,
and his personal commitment to his business
career.



