Sumner Redstone

"Herb was accessible to everyone but the press and the social set. He rose before 5:00 a.m., had dinner at 6:00 p.m. sharp, and was in bed by 9:00. One time I was at his Wyoming ranch when a phone call made me half an hour late to the cookhouse. Three courses were lined up at my place setting. Herb looked at me and said, “When I say 6:00, I mean 6:00.” He was smiling, but I took his point. Herb was a model of integrity. After Sumner Redstone broke a promise and engaged another investment bank, he sent Allen & Company a token check for $1 million. I was in Herb’s office when it arrived. He took out his scissors, cut the check into tiny pieces, and returned them to sender. Herb was supremely loyal. He never forgot a birthday and gathered old college pals to dinners and on biking trips. After one friend got sent to Leavenworth for a white-collar crime, Herb visited him twice a year."

"I told him, “You wouldn’t let me fire Frank because of the money, and now it’s my job to save the money! Besides, Yablans is a thief; he’s been getting bribes from Sumner Redstone for years.” We had recently discovered that $100,000 worth of diamond jewelry was sent to a certain address every Christmas from a certain Boston jeweler. Boston was where the theater-owning Redstone lived; it wasn’t hard to trace it."

"It reminded me of Sumner Redstone’s fierce dictum: never cede or sell control. When you sell you give up being on center stage. Edgar’s uncle Charles, after they sold out to Vivendi, said, “All my life wherever we would go, when the plane landed there’d be a Seagram representative at attention on the tarmac to greet us, and we’d roll into the city royally. Now all I am is just another rich guy.” I was very grateful to Edgar for having given me the chance to build up his television assets and was really sorry we’d become estranged. Thankfully, over time we repaired our relationship and will always be good friends."

"One can imagine Davis, hearing that it was me in the hunt for Paramount, clutching fiercely at whatever pearls he owned, as he realized how humiliating it would be for him if I became his boss. Seeking the only safe harbor he could find, he quickly made a Faustian bargain to sell the studio to Viacom, controlled by the voracious Sumner Redstone. In this deal, at least he’d survive and keep what little dignity was now on offer. Even though he’d have to work for Redstone, the roughest of the roughest, he’d still remain Paramount’s CEO."

"The reason for the conflict was the way the original agreement had been written, with one critically important paragraph. It stated that all future cable channels owned by either Universal or Paramount were to be equally shared, so when Viacom bought Paramount, Universal took the position that it was entitled to own half of Viacom’s cable networks, which included MTV and Nickelodeon. Sumner Redstone, who controlled Viacom, went bonkers when he heard this extreme claim and countersued Universal, saying *he* ought to own the USA Network. As lawsuits tend to, this one dragged on for some time, and the final settlement gave Universal sole ownership of USA."