Sumner Redstone, who built a media empire that included Viacom, Paramount Pictures, and CBS, died on Tuesday at age 97.
“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,” current ViacomCBS CEO and president Bob Bakish said in a statement. “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.”
Shari Redstone, ViacomCBS chair and Redstone’s daughter, added in her own statement, “My father led an extraordinary life that not only shaped entertainment as we know it today, but created an incredible family legacy. 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.”
Born in Boston on May 27, 1923, Redstone became a fixture in the entertainment industry through his father’s company, National Amusements. Redstone took over the drive-in theatrical brand as CEO in 1967 and remained in that post until his death.
“Sumner was a man of unrivaled passion and perseverance, who devoted his life to his belief in the power of content,” a representative for National Amusements said in a widely distributed statement. “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 take comfort knowing that his legacy will live on for generations to come.”
As National Amusements became one of the world’s biggest theater companies, Redstone acquired Viacom, Paramount Pictures, and eventually CBS. He often claimed to have coined the phrase “content is king,” a Gordon Gekkoian mantra for the modern landscape of consumer entertainment.
“People don’t watch CBS, they watch what’s on it,” Redstone said in a 2000 interview, during which he took credit for the phrase—which had previously been the title of a 1996 Bill Gates essay. “They don’t watch distribution, they watch what’s on it.”
Redstone’s life was not without turmoil. In 1979, he survived a fire at the Copley Hotel in Boston that left him badly burned on more than 45 percent of his body and permanently scarred. “The people who fear dying are people who are going to die. I’m not going to die,” he once told Larry King, as Vanity Fair reported.
Redstone frequently joked about his own immortality. In his last major interview, a 2014 chat with The Hollywood Reporter, he refused to discuss any succession plans for his empire. “You know why?” Redstone, then 90, said. “I’m not gonna die. So why should I discuss succession?”
Redstone’s final years were marked by embarrassing revelations brought forward by lawsuits against him from former girlfriends Sydney Holland and Manuela Herzer, each of whom had lived with Redstone and claimed his mental capacity had severely diminished with age.
Redstone was also estranged from Shari for years. In a 2015 email, she wrote that Redstone would allow her to succeed him as chair of CBS and Viacom “over his dead body.” But soon after, they reconciled.
“Sadly, people came into his life who had a different agenda, and their agenda was to separate us. And in some ways they did a good job,” Shari told Forbes in 2019. “It never meant we stopped loving each other or caring about each other, but it became really hard.”
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