In the most desperate moments of his life, a severely burned Sumner Redstone saved himself by clinging to a window ledge with his right handand counting to 10 over and over again as flames swept through his room in a Boston hotel fire. "My legs were burned to my arteries," he recalls. "I got to a window, and it wouldn't open. I got to another one and hung by my hands. It seemed like a lifetime." Despite 60 hours of burn surgery, doctors doubted that Redstone would ever walk again. His tendons were destroyed, his little finger partly amputated. Yet 14 years later, he not only walks but plays tennis with a ferocity that unnerves his opponents.
That relentless will to survive and conquer has now led Redstone, 70, the chairman of MTV-owner Viacom Inc., to launch what could be the business coup of a lifetime. At an age when most executives are thinking country clubs and conferences, Redstone last week engineered an $8.2 billion offer to acquire Paramount Communications for $69.14 a share in cash and stock and thereby create one of the world's media giants.Since Redstone would hold 70% of the voting stock of the combined company, he would have majority control of more movies, books and television shows than any other media mogul--unless Ted Turner, Barry Diller or one of the other rival suitors now circling the Paramount building comes forward and derails the merger (see box).
Redstone, a rags-to-riches tycoon who is worth about $4 billion, has always sought to crush all comers -- from rivals who might try to bust up his latest deal to weekend tennis partners. On the court he uses a special leather strap that wraps around his scarred right hand to enable him to grip the racquet. "He is the most formidable competitor I've ever had," says Alan Friedberg, a retired chairman of Loews Theater Management Corp. In one tennis rally, Redstone demanded to know whether his ball was in or out. "He had to know, even though we were just hitting," Friedberg recalls with lingering wonder. "It happened to be out, and I told him. He insisted it wasn't. We were rallying, mind you. I was stunned."
Off the court, Redstone wears nondescript suits and owns the same three- bedroom home in Newton, Massachusetts, that he and his wife Phyllis paid $42,000 for 35 years ago. He favors the less fancy Pine Brook Country Club in nearby Weston over the prestigious Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline. He spends weekdays in Manhattan's Carlyle Hotel to be near Viacom headquarters. Often rising at 5 a.m., he reads the morning papers and then works out on a treadmill while watching TV. His days last up to 18 hours. "I live modestly," Redstone says. "Possessions don't count. Achievement counts. Winning counts."
Just who is this ultracombative billionaire who happens to be the grandfather of the MTV generation?