Sumner Redstone

Sumner Redstone was a West Ender and controlling shareholder of Viacom CBS. Redstone worked with his father to establish a series of companies, eventually forming one of the U.S.’s largest media companies. 

Sumner Redstone, born Sumner Murray Rothstein on May 27, 1923, passed away on August 12, 2020 at the age of 97. Redstone was the controlling shareholder of ViacomCBS, and grew up in the West End. His parents were the children of Jewish immigrants: Max Rothstein, who sold linoleum from the back of a truck, and Belle Rothstein, a housekeeper. They lived in the West End’s Charlesbank Homes tenement when Sumner was growing up. Sumner attended the Boston Latin School, was excellent on the debate team, and graduated top of his class. Shortly after high school, Sumner’s father changed the family’s name to Redstone; many families of Jewish immigrants “Westernized” their last names in this fashion.

Sumner’s life after high school was defined by many achievements. He attended Harvard University on a scholarship, and graduated in three years, joined a team of Army cryptographers during World War Two, and later graduated with a Harvard law degree. After marrying Phyllis Raphael in 1947, and having two children – Shari and Brent – Redstone pursued a legal career until deciding to work for his father, who saved the money to purchase a drive-in theater. Sumner and his father, along with brother Edward who worked with them briefly, started a regional chain called National Amusements, and eventually had twelve drive-ins. By the early 1960s, as drive-ins became less popular, Sumner opened indoor theaters, or multiplexes (a term he coined), and became president of the Theater Owners of America. 

In 1979, Redstone was adversely harmed by the fire at the Copley Plaza Hotel, as he hung out the window while the building was in flames. He survived but had a permanently damaged hand. But before this event, Redstone purchased stock in multiple media companies, specifically Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and Orion Pictures. In 1987, he bought Viacom in a leveraged buyout, using the family business as collateral, and in 1994 had overtaken Barry Diller for control of Paramount. By 1999, as Viacom was recovering from considerable debts, Redstone was able to merge with CBS for $37.3 billion. 

Sumner Redstone may have passed away, but he was determined to live as long as he could. In a 2009 interview with Larry King, he said “I have no intention of ever retiring, or of dying.” The West End had a significant influence on his personality, according to author Keach Hagey: “Even after he became one of the richest people in America, he never stopped seeing himself as a person who grew up with the shared bathroom down the hall, as it was in his earliest years in the West End’s Charlesbank Homes tenement.”