Peter Bart: Sumner Redstone Wanted To Champion Movies, But His Lust For Power Made Him A “Corporate Monster”
deadline.comFrom the outset, Sumner Redstone was a curiosity. A cluster of power players 50 years ago were suddenly bidding for control of Hollywood’s revered movie studios.
Competition was intense but most of the bidders were not even “movie” people. In fact, they’d rarely seen a movie. The exception was a cantankerous lawyer from Boston who’d inherited a small chain of theaters.
Unlike characters like Steve Ross (funeral business), Kirk Kerkorian (airplanes) or Rupert Murdoch (newspapers), Redstone was passionate about film.
He wanted to champion filmmaking and build a media conglomerate around that zeal. A new book by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams chronicles the successes and lurid failures of Redstone and his troubled domain – Paramount, CBS, Viacom, etc.
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