The King of Content
Page 34
However, I owe particular debts of gratitude to the excellent reporting of the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Variety, and BoxOffice; the Courtroom View Network; and the formidable journalism of Judith Newman, Gretchen Voss, Bryan Burrough, William D. Cohan, Ken Auletta, Julia Angwin, David Kirkpatrick, Peter Elkind, and Marty Jones. Most of all, this book owes a great debt to Sumner Redstone’s 2001 autobiography, A Passion to Win, written with Peter Knobler, which captures the fighting spirit of the mogul at his peak.
Acknowledgments
This book exists, first and foremost, because of the insights of my Wall Street Journal editor, Amol Sharma, who presciently saw in the late summer of 2015 that the question that had long peppered investors’ conversations about Viacom—“How’s Sumner doing?”—was about to become a very big story. I am grateful for the time and space he gave me to dig into the story at the Journal, and for the support he has given this project at every step.
Nearly as forward-looking was my HarperCollins editor, Hollis Heimbouch, who reached out about the possibility of a book before the real power struggle for the Redstone media empire had even begun, and who helped me envision a more ambitious book than I had thought possible. Working with her was a delight.
Still the book would not have happened without my agent, Alice Martell, for whose faith, encouragement, and savvy I will always be grateful.
Beyond any individual, I owe the institution of the Wall Street Journal a great debt. When telling a business tale that stretches for more than a century, there is no greater resource than the archives of a 129-year-old business newspaper. While much of the reporting in the later chapters originated in my own reporting for the paper, much of the earlier chapters is built on the work of my predecessors and colleagues on the beat, including Laura Landro, Merissa Marr, and Martin Peers. In the present day, I am fortunate to be able to collaborate on this story with talented colleagues like Joe Flint, Joann Lublin, Ben Fritz, Erich Schwartzel, and Sarah Rabil, and on the broader media beat with Shalini Ramachandran, Jeffrey Trachtenberg, Lukas Alpert, Suzanne Vranica, Alex Bruell, Ben Mullin, and Laura O’Reilly. Thank you to Jim Oberman and Lisa Schwartz for their research help. I am particularly grateful to Joe Flint and Amol Sharma for covering for me while I was on maternity leave.
Thank you to Raju Narisetti for nudging me toward the Journal and to Martin Peers for hiring me, mentoring me, and giving me a great beat. I am grateful to Gerry Baker for giving me leave to work on this book, and to Jason Anders and Jamie Heller for supporting my commitment to both this book and the bigger story.
Thanks to the many members of the Redstone, Rothstein, and Ostrovsky families who spoke to me, and to their advisers who were generous with their time. In particular I want to thank Keryn Redstone and Gary Snyder for their patience and generosity.
Many historians and history enthusiasts helped me in my research, most notably Duane Lucia at the West End Museum, and Stephanie Schorow, David Kruh, and Amy Bentley at the Valley Stream Historical Society. Thank you to Kay Nguyen for patient and energetic research help. Thanks to Brian Wieser for ratings research.
I’m grateful to Luke Kummer, David Enrich, Lisa Dallos, Mike Spector, and Michael Wolff for their wise advice, to Lindsay and Steve Bronstein for their encouragement, and to all my friends—especially Nita Praditpan, Julie Alexander, Derik Riesche, Leah and Tal Gozhansky, Kirsten Osur, Michelle and Nigel Noyes, Lauren Lancaster, and Michael DelGrosso—for putting up with me and cheering me on over the last two years. I’m grateful to my brother, Foster Hagey, and his wife, Stephanie, for having our backs.
Thank you to Margie and Bill Harris, who provided child care at several critical junctures and have been so warmly encouraging throughout this project. Thank you to my grandmother Diane Igleheart, who let me camp out in her house and write for a week—with lunch provided. Thank you to Daiane Rezende, our au pair, whose wisdom and creativity have made all of our lives better, and to Griffin Bancroft-Baines for crunch time babysitting help and friendship.
I want to thank my parents, Jingle and Chandler Hagey, who showed me how to derive great pleasure from books and gave me the foundation for a satisfying intellectual life. I am grateful for the priority they placed on my education and the enthusiastic support they have given this project.
And most of all, I want to thank my husband, Wesley Harris, whose sacrifices made this book possible, and whose peerless advice has improved it. To our daughters, Belle and June, thank you for your patience and for filling our lives with so much joy.
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Notes
Prologue: “I Don’t Want to Sell Paramount”
1. Sumner’s protestations would not: Keach Hagey, “The Relationship That Helped Sumner Redstone Build Viacom Now Adds to Its Problems,” Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2016.
Chapter 1: Rain at Sunrise
1. For weeks leading: “Outdoor Auto Movie House, First in State, Being Erected on Highway at Valley Stream,” New York Times, July 3, 1938.
2. So when they turned: “Parking-Film Theater Started in Valley Stream,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 3, 1938.
3. “World’s Biggest Movie Screen for Outdoor Theater”: Popular Science, 1938.
4. Drive-ins mainly served: “Drive-In Theater; State’s First Auto Movie Theater Opens Wednesday on Sunrise Highway,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 7, 1938.
5. The chairman of the board: “Outdoor Theatre Protest in Dedham,” Boston Globe, October 1, 1937.
6. The ad in the local papers: Sunrise Drive-In Theatre advertisement.
7. By 1938, drive-ins were not quite as novel: Kerry Segrave, Drive-In Theaters: A History from Their Inception in 1933
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1992), 1–11.
8. The Sunrise was the first: William E. Geist, “Drive-In Movies: An Innovation Hits 50 and Passes Its Prime,” New York Times, June 7, 1983.
9. Foreseeing this boom: Sunrise Auto Theatre, Inc., business entity summary, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
10. Despite what a New York Times reporter: New York Times, August 14, 1938.
11. The bad weather: “Drive-In Theatre Open Until Mid-November,” Wave, September 4, 1938.
12. Under the leadership: “Profile: A Night at the Movies; the Rise and Fall and Possible Rise Again in the Popularity of Drive-in Theaters,” CBS News: Sunday Morning, June 30, 2002.
13. Although he was the straggler: “Harry Rohtstein of Mattapan; Services Today,” Boston Globe, August 27, 1967.
14. Boston’s immigrant population: Reed Ueda, West End House, 1906–1981 (Boston: West End House, 1981), 4.
15. From 1880 to 1920: Daniel J. McGrath, “Politicians, Planners and the Dilemmas of Urban Redevelopment: Boston’s West End and the Consequences of Rebuilding an Old City” (undergraduate thesis, Harvard University, March 23, 2000).
16. early, private form of affordable housing: Robert I. Rotberg, A Leadership for Peace: How Edwin Ginn Tried to Change the World (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).
17. By age seventeen: Joseph F. Dinneen, Spilling the Beans, Boston Globe, March 12, 1943.
18. It went by a variety: “‘Nigger Pool’ Agents Are Now Being Fined $250,” Boston Globe, November 11, 1930; “Nigger Pool Arrest Made on Lynn Wives’ Plaints,” Boston Globe, July 12, 1935.
19. By July 29, 1932: “Lottery Ring Raid Nets 26,” Boston Globe, July 30, 1932.
20. “Belle worshipped her father”: Judith Newman, “Fort Sumner,” Vanity Fair, November 1999.
21. Bootlegging in Boston: Emily Sweeney, Boston Organized Crime (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2012), 23–24.
22. The son of Russian Jews: Albert Fried, The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 104.
23. He became a member: Stephanie Schorow, Drinking Boston (Wellesley, MA: Union Park Press, 2012), 103–8.
24. So, too, was Linsey: Nicholas Gage, “Ex-Head of Schenley Industries Is Linked to Crime ‘Consortium,’” New York Times, February 19, 1971.
25. At age nineteen: “Explanations Due from Max; Must Uncover Mystery of Stolen Bag,” Boston Post, May 22, 1921.
26. He bought a used truck: Interview with Judith Newman.
27. he got a bank loan: “Real Estate Transactions,” Boston Globe, September 30, 1925.
28. “I remember when”: Belle Redstone to Edward Redstone, 1971.
29. By this point, in 1930: 1930 census records.
30. “My father peddled linoleum”: Sumner Redstone with Peter Knobler, A Passion to Win (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 41.
31. By the end of the decade: Schorow, Drinking Boston, 115–19.
Chapter 2: The Conga Belt
1. The club had an impeccable: Schorow, Drinking Boston, 103–20, 136.
2. After another change of ownership: “Restaurant License on Site of Mayfair,” Boston Globe, January 10, 1934.
3. In the wake of repeal: “Restaurant License on Site of Mayfair; Declared ‘Probationary’ by Boston Board,” Boston Globe, January 29, 1934.
4. “New Owner-Manager of Mayfair”: Boston Globe, January 29, 1940.
5. In the United States, where the increasingly anti-Semitic: Susan Welch, “American Opinion toward Jews during the Nazi Era: Results from Quota Sample Polling during the 1930s and 1940s,” Social Science Quarterly 95, no. 3 (September 2014): 615–35.
6. In an ironic twist: Nick Tosches, “A Jazz Age Autopsy,” Vanity Fair, May 2005.
7. His cousin Irving Rothstein: “Gaming Raids Result in 12 Arrests,” Boston Globe, September 19, 1947.
8. Another cousin, Edward Rothstein: Frank Mahoney, “U.S. Links Rothstein to Bootlegging Gang,” Boston Globe, April 8, 1960.
9. A few months after Mickey: Redstone, A Passion to Win, 46.
10. The Sunrise had been a success: Interview with Bob Sage.
11. By the late 1930s: “Club Mayfair Gets Special 3-Day Permit,” Boston Globe, February 26, 1943.
12. Mickey told the Boston Globe’s: Joseph F. Dinneen, Spilling the Beans, Boston Globe, September 9, 1942.
13. It would come out in court: “Club Mayfair Gets Special 3-Day Permit.”
14. Mickey had a good feel: Joseph F. Dinneen, Spilling the Beans, Boston Globe, September 9, 1942.
15. The Latin Quarter was the brainchild: Barbara Walters, Audition: A Memoir (New York: Vintage Books, 2009), 26–29.
16. In July 1942, Walters sold: Boston property records.
17. Winer would go on to cofound: “Louis Winer, 79, Was Boston Lawyer,” Boston Globe, March 12, 1993; Julia Collins, “The Double Life of George Abrams ’57,” Harvard Law Today, April 25, 2000.
18. On September 10, 1942: Joseph F. Dinneen, Spilling the Beans, Boston Globe, September 9, 1942.
19. Within a little more than a month: “Boston Niteries and Hotel Spots Expand Due to Best Biz in Years,” Billboard, October 24, 1942.
20. Sagansky’s other businesses were also: Testimony of Virgil Peterson, operating director of the Chicago Crime Commission, to the Kefauver Committee, U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, July 7, 1950.
21. Along with Costello, Erickson: Nicholas Pileggi, “Crime at Mid-Century,” New York magazine, December 30, 1974–January 6, 1975.
22. Sagansky had similar relationships: Kefauver Committee testimony.
23. A Hollywood cowboy movie star: Stephanie Schorow, The Cocoanut Grove Fire (Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2005), 10–26.
24. Within less than a half an hour: Samuel Cutler, “400 Dead in Hub Night Club Fire,” Boston Globe, November 29, 1942.
25. City officials launched: John Esposito, Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and Its Aftermath (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006), 129.
26. “The whole thing constitutes”: Leslie Ainley, “Grove a ‘Death Trap’—Bushnell,” Boston Globe, March 17, 1943.
27. The Latin Quarter had to yank: Schorow, Drinking Boston, 145.
Chapter 3: “The Whole Situation”
1. January 12, 1943, started out: Leslie Ainley, “24 Held in Racket Drive; Curley Confirms $8500 Loan from Dr. Sagansky,” Boston Globe, January 14, 1943.
2. But there had been a fire: “Scores Arrested in Multi-Million Dollar Lottery,” Associated Press, January 14, 1943.
3. Indeed, a hint about those priorities: “24 Held in Racket Drive.”
4. Curley had been mayor: Jack Beatty, The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 1874–1958 (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1992), 273.
5. The financial ties between: Esposito, Fire in the Grove, 15.
6. Within forty-eight hours of the raid: Leslie Ainley, “Probe of Department’s Anti-Gaming Work for Last 2 Years Indicated,” Boston Globe, January 15, 1943.
7. A week after Sagansky’s: Leslie Ainley, “Sagansky Rearrested; Pool Code Solved in Boston Area,” Boston Globe, January 17, 1943.
8. One of his first acts: Massachusetts State Senate Special Commission to Investigate Organized Crime and Organized Gambling, Second Report, July 1955, 11.
9. The American government: “Dec 1, 1942: Mandatory Gas Rationing, Lots of Whining,” Wired, November 30, 2009.
10. When Bushnell’s investigators caught: Ainley, “State Police Strike at Boston Rackets.”
11. “Obviously, these things converge”: Leslie Ainley, “Timiltys, Fallon and Long before Grand Jury Today,” Boston Globe, February 5, 1943.
12. As Bushnell built the two cases: Esposito, Fire in the Grove, 208.
13. And as he unveiled: Ainley, “State Police Strike at Boston Rackets.”
14. Second, in a stunning: “7 Police Heads Indicted; Commi
ssioner on Leave; Others Are Suspended,” Boston Globe, March 28, 1943.
15. But on the morning: Ainley, “Timiltys, Fallon and Long before Grand Jury Today.”
16. The proceedings laid out: Leslie Ainley, “Grand Jury Calls Comr. Timilty and Capt. Sheehan,” Boston Globe, February 7, 1943.
17. After he and associates: “Indicted as Leaders of Huge Liquor Ring: Four Men Accused in Brooklyn Said to Have Operated Fleet from Canada and Europe,” New York Times, January 5, 1933.
18. Once known as the “King”: “Louis Fox Rites Today in Brookline,” Boston Globe, October 27, 1963.
19. Only one small line: “Fox’s Testimony,” Boston Globe, March 22, 1957.