EXECUTIVES: Profitable Oedipus

It was the stuff of a corporate soap opera, created by Norman Lear (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) in collaboration with Sophocles (Oedipus Rex). A crusty entrepreneur single-mindedly builds his obscure shoe company into a billion-dollar conglomerate. He turns it over to his son. The young executive discovers that without drastic reorganization the whole empire could topple. His father fiercely disagrees. Finally, the company's board gives the younger man the power to dismantle much of the corporate structure his father had put together. While the old man watches bitterly from the sidelines, the young executive sells marginal stores and unprofitable...

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