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 Redstone, as executive chairman
of both Viacom Inc <VIA.O> and CBS Corp <CBS.N>,
had controlled the two companies through
privately held National Amusements. But in his
early 90s, the state of Redstone's physical and
mental health set off an avalanche of corporate
maneuvering over his media holdings that
resulted in him stepping down in 2016 as
executive chairman of both companies.
CBS and Viacom were combined from 2000 to 2006,
when Redstone separated them in an attempt to
unleash the value of Viacom's cable channels.
His position as one of the world's leading media
moguls had begun fading in 2015 as those close
to him began questioning his mental capacity.
The long-running legal battle that ensued put
him at odds with a former girlfriend and
long-time confidante Philippe Dauman but
reunited him with his daughter Shari, from whom
he had been estranged.
Shari Redstone said in a 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.”
The challenges to Redstone's mental health
resulted in him being replaced as executive
chairman at CBS by Les Moonves and at Viacom by
Dauman, whom Redstone would later drop from the
trust that was to determine the direction of CBS
and Viacom after his death.
After legal and backroom wrangling that one
observer likened to "Game of Thrones," the
Redstone family ousted Dauman from Viacom in
August 2016, ultimately replacing him with
Robert Bakish. Dauman had been among those
questioning Redstone's mental capacity and his
influence had waned after Redstone's daughter,
Shari, started taking a more active role in his
business.
Since 2016, Shari pushed twice to merge CBS and
Viacom. She's also weathered a lawsuit aimed at
diluting her family's control of CBS, and a
sexual misconduct scandal at CBS, which resulted
in the September 2018 resignation of CEO Les
Moonves. Viacom and CBS re-merged in 2019.
Shari Redstone and her son Tyler Korff will now
take over two seats on a trustee board that
controls the voting interest in an entity,
National Amusements Inc, that holds the
controlling stake in ViacomCBS, according to a
source familiar with the matter.
RISK TAKER
Redstone was born on May 27, 1923, into a Boston
family that owned a chain of drive-in movie
theaters. He graduated first in his class at
Boston Latin High School, went through Harvard
in three years and worked with an elite U.S.
Army unit that cracked Japanese codes during
World War Two.
After the war, he earned a law degree at Harvard
and successfully pleaded a case before the U.S.
Supreme Court. He joined National Amusements,
his family's theater chain, in 1954, and became
chief executive officer in 1967.
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 Known for his blunt talk,
Boston accent and audacious risk taking,
Redstone was in his 60s in 1987 when he bought
Viacom for $3.4 billion with mostly borrowed
money. A few years later he acquired Paramount
for more than $10 billion and added CBS to the
portfolio in 1999 in a deal valued at $37
billion. Before his health
deteriorated, Redstone had claimed to swim naked
every day and always liked to be surrounded by
beautiful young women.
"With a striking head of orange hair, Redstone
is a vainglorious, old-school egomaniac who has
an operatic personal life that has been largely
kept out of the media undoubtedly because he
controls so much of it," author Michael Wolff
wrote in New York magazine in 2002.
"LIVING GHOST"
After decades spent building his empire,
Redstone's participation at corporate events
became minimal in 2014 and he spoke only a few
words on earnings calls. Fortune magazine
reported he attended his last board meetings
that year and cited a witness who said he dozed
and drooled during it, which raised the question
about whether he was fit to run the company.
Despite the concerns about his health, Redstone
hung on to his chairmanship as long as possible.
In June 2015, he told Vanity Fair in an email
correspondence, "You should know that I am never
retiring!!!" Later that year,
the Wall Street Journal reported Redstone had
suffered mini-strokes that made speaking
difficult, although he remained mentally sharp.
Former girlfriend Manuela Herzer challenged
Redstone's mental competence in a lawsuit filed
in November 2015, referring to him as a "living
ghost."
The suit was thrown out in May 2016 by a
California judge who ruled that Redstone's
testimony had disproved Herzer's claims. Herzer
appealed the judge's ruling, and the parties
settled in 2019.
Redstone's death, which comes at a time the
media landscape is enduring wrenching changes,
thins the ranks of a group of media executives,
including Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner, who
changed the world of news and entertainment with
the companies they built.
Redstone displayed a penchant for forcing out
top executives, including Viacom President Frank
Biondi; Mel Karmazin, the CEO of CBS; and Tom
Freston, who was canned as CEO of Viacom after
losing a deal to acquire the social media
network MySpace to Murdoch.
Asked in his last interview, in January 2014,
with The Hollywood Reporter, about who might
succeed him, Redstone exploded, "I will not
discuss succession. You know why? I’m not going
to die."
(Reporting by Helen Coster and Jennifer Saba;
Editing by Bill Trott, Diane Craft, Toby Chopra
and Chizu Nomiyama)
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