Sumner Redstone

Sumner Murray Redstone (born Rothstein; May 27, 1923 – August 11, 2020) was an American media executive and billionaire businessman who transformed his family's Northeast Theatre Corporation, later renamed National Amusements, into a controlling force behind major media companies including Viacom and CBS Corporation. After serving as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he worked as a codebreaker deciphering Japanese military communications, Redstone earned degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Law School before joining the family business in the 1950s. He aggressively expanded National Amusements through acquisitions, notably gaining a controlling stake in Viacom in 1987, which under his leadership acquired Paramount Pictures and other assets, and engineered the $37 billion purchase of CBS in 2000, creating one of the world's largest media empires with channels like MTV, Nickelodeon, and BET. Redstone's tenure was marked by his mantra "content is king," emphasizing premium programming over distribution, but also by fierce corporate battles and personal controversies, including protracted family disputes over succession with his daughter Shari and son Brent, as well as lawsuits alleging elder abuse and mental incapacity in his later years involving former companions.

Sumner Murray Rothstein was born on May 27, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Jewish parents Michael Rothstein and Belle Rothstein (née Ostrovsky), whose forebears were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

The family resided in Boston's West End, a densely packed immigrant neighborhood predominantly inhabited by Jewish and Italian families, where they lived in a public housing project apartment amid modest circumstances. Michael's early ventures included selling linoleum from the back of a truck and operating as a liquor wholesaler alongside a nightclub called the Latin Quarter, before transitioning into the entertainment sector with drive-in theaters under the Northeast Theater Corporation, the precursor to National Amusements.

In 1940, the Rothstein family anglicized their surname to Redstone, reflecting a common assimilation practice among Jewish immigrants' descendants seeking broader acceptance in American business circles. Redstone grew up alongside his younger brother Edward in this environment, where his father's entrepreneurial shift toward movie theaters introduced early exposure to the exhibition industry, though the family's primary focus during his childhood remained survival amid urban immigrant challenges. The West End's vibrant yet precarious community, later demolished in the 1960s for urban renewal, shaped a formative period marked by resourcefulness and familial ambition rather than affluence.