Sumner's Discontent

As Redstone spins revisionist history, Paula sits barefoot and curled up on a sofa, listening and occasionally chiming in protectively, especially when I ask Redstone if it's prudent corporate governance for an octogenarian to be in charge of two public companies. "That's unfair," Paula tells me. "That's ageism."

It's a little unclear what she's doing there at all, considering the fact that Redstone is about to dispatch her from the fabulous life into which she was only recently welcomed. He has already bought two houses for her-a beachfront condo in Sarasota, Florida, and a house in Beverly Hills-both at a considerably lower altitude, in every respect, than the one in which she currently resides. Redstone declines to reveal what he paid, but he makes it clear that the houses will be in her name alone and that he is giving her substantially more than is required by their prenuptial agreement. (He won't say how much more, but a source close to the family says the total is nearly twice the $5 million figure.) "He's a pussycat," Paula gushes and then goes on to reminisce about their first date, which was set up by a mutual friend. She claims she didn't even know what her suitor did for a living. "He could read books," she says, with a vague smile. "He was charming. He held my hand. He would give me a sweet and gentle kiss."

"When we go out, people don't think I'm her father," Redstone volunteers with pride. "They know I'm her date." So why the divorce? Redstone's explanation seems less than forthcoming-that he is traveling so frequently on business, all over the world, that it's really "not a life for a wife to have." Paula offers, "We're two type-A personalities."

She listens, poker-faced, as Redstone tells me, "I would hope she will meet someone nice, who treats her well and isn't after her money-because she'll have a lot of money. And I hope she has a baby. She could still have a baby at her age." In an aside so implausible that it requires suspension of disbelief, Redstone adds, "She is the first lady not just of Viacom, but of Hollywood, and she will continue to be." At one point, Paula excuses herself to retrieve their four dachshunds, and as she leaves the room, she pinches Redstone's left earlobe in a showy display of affection.

In a later conversation on the phone, Redstone says, "I've told her she can buy any kind of furniture she likes [for the Beverly Hills house]; there's no limit at all on what she spends. As soon as it's sufficiently furnished for her to move in, then she'll move in. In the meanwhile, she stays in this house, and she's welcome. I want Paula to be happy, to be well-off financially for the rest of her life." As for dating other women, Redstone claims, "After I'm divorced, maybe. Maybe I will go out with women, but while I'm still married, the only woman I will take out is Paula."

Their friends talk about their sexual chemistry-and Sumner's libido. "I had a feeling they were always playfully arguing with each other, saying 'Go fuck yourself' and holding hands," says one frequent dinner companion. "Both of them love to talk about sex. Normally, if you make a dinner appointment with Sumner, he shows up on time, but if they show up 15 minutes, half an hour late, they might say, 'We had sex four times today!'?"

But recently, the marriage had become increasingly tempestuous. The Redstones' profanity-laced arguments were the talk of the entertainment industry. Sylvester Stallone, their next-door neighbor in Beverly Park, figures in a widely repeated anecdote that Redstone denies. According to two Hollywood insiders who spoke with Stallone and his wife, Jennifer Flavin, Redstone erupted a year ago at one of Arnold and Anne Kopelson's regular Sunday-night movie screenings, when Redstone was anxious to leave and Paula tarried to schmooze with Stallone. "Why don't you just fuck him already, so we can go home?" Redstone allegedly shouted. Stallone-who friends say was outraged by Redstone's remark-declines to comment.

Robert Evans, the legendary Hollywood producer who has been friends with the mogul ever since Redstone was an unknown movie exhibitor from Boston trying to strike deals for first-run features, suggests Redstone won't lack for companionship. "He loves women," Evans says. "I don't mean he loves women as a dirty old man. He loves the company of women. And he can be very charming. He plays the piano beautifully, even though his fingers are somewhat distorted from the fire, and he sings." The 78-year-old Evans, whose seven wives have included Ali MacGraw and Catherine Oxenberg, is no slouch himself. "Next to him, I think I am," he says. "No kidding." As to why women are attracted to Redstone, Evans says, "It's power. Power is a great aphrodisiac. I gave that line to Henry Kissinger." In the middle of our phone interview, Evans' secretary interrupts to inform him that Redstone is on the other line and demanding to speak to him right away. "Will you please tell him I'm on the phone?" Evans asks. "I'm afraid," I overhear the secretary protesting.

Arnold Kopelson probably has the most convincing take on why Redstone's second marriage didn't last. "I just think it's a period where Sumner is now moving on to something else. He spent five very good years with Paula, and I must assume that, for whatever reason, he decided he wanted to move on. Maybe it's like another business deal."

Redstone's apparent inability to separate business from personal dealings is at the heart of the conflict with his family and has major implications for the future of his companies. For years, he hasn't been on speaking terms with his 58-year-old son, Brent-a former Boston prosecutor who claimed in a 2006 lawsuit (since settled for $240 million) that his father had been denying him his rightful inheritance. Before the falling out, Brent had held a variety of jobs at Viacom and National Amusements, and today he lives on a ranch in Evergreen, Colorado. "I was shocked, and it hurt me," Redstone says about Brent's lawsuit. "The lawyers convinced him to do this." As he talks about his son, he struggles to maintain his composure. "I hope he's happy doing nothing, living on his farm. I want him to be happy. I told his wife, Annie, that I don't think it's right that he's not doing anything. [Before the lawsuit] I'd offered him various roles in the companies." Brent, through his lawyer, declined to comment. Sumner's nephew Michael is also litigating over similar issues. Suing over money seems to be a Redstone family tradition-back in 1972, Michael's father, Eddie Redstone, sued both Sumner and their father, Mickey, though Sumner says he and Eddie have buried the hatchet.

But the relationship that remains the most volatile, and upon which untold millions of dollars and the fate of an empire rest, is the one between father and daughter. After Sumner's death, Shari might find herself in a less exalted position than the one she really wants. Her post-Sumner role at Viacom and CBS hinges on a private trust that he established in 2003 to safeguard his 80 percent stake in National Amusements (to Shari's 20 percent) and set the terms of succession. Shari's supporters say the trust guarantees her the chairmanship of both public companies; Sumner insists it's up to the Viacom and CBS boards. Either way, a power struggle seems inevitable.

In the end, she might wind up with the titles but not the power. That's because she's just one of four trustees, with just one vote. The other three are Viacom's Dauman (but pointedly not CBS's Moonves) and longtime Sumner confidants George Abrams and David Andelman. So one possible scenario is that Dauman, Abrams, and Andelman could band together and decide the outcome of all significant issues, whether Shari agrees or not.

These days, as with virtually everyone else in his life, what Redstone has to say about his daughter is complicated and often contradictory. When he and I meet in L.A., he initially praises her stewardship of National Amusements' theater chain. "Shari is No. 1 in the exhibition business," he says. "I consider her to be the best. I've never criticized her for her running of the circuits." But he can't resist needling: "We don't always see eye-to-eye. She feels strongly about the exhibition industry, but I don't think it's a growth industry." He also shifts some blame to her for the catastrophic investments that National Amusements made in Midway Games, the videogame company he recently sold for a pittance. "They were all approved by the board, including Shari," he says. "I'm not passing the buck. But Shari was on the board-I was not. Midway has been very painful." He says Shari waited too long to change "incompetent" management at the company, of which she was chairwoman before she resigned in November to concentrate on National Amusements' debt problems.

National Amusements insiders say Shari actually opposed the continuing investments in Midway, and it was Redstone, through his control over the parent company, who pushed them. Shari declined to comment for this story.

Like her father and brother, Shari was trained as a lawyer. She received her degree from Boston University School of Law; after getting married, in 1980, she opted to stay at home to raise her three children. Redstone had installed Shari's then-husband, Ira Korff, a businessman and an Orthodox rabbi with advanced degrees in law and international relations, to oversee the National Amusements chain, which Korff did through the early '90s, a period during which it thrived. According to family lore, when Shari told her father that she and Korff had decided to split after a decade of marriage, his only response was, "Does that mean Ira's going to leave the company?"
At National Amusements, and then at Viacom and CBS, Shari developed something of a reputation for not always mastering the details. Moonves and Dauman are said by insiders to tolerate her presence in their boardrooms, but they keep her at arm's length and do not seek out her advice. Moonves has told at least one executive, whom Shari had asked to meet with privately, to steer clear.

Indeed, employees of the companies say Shari shares some of her father's expansionary impulses and that Sumner has indulged her, at least on some occasions. Her detractors say she may have contributed to the theater chain's-and therefore to National Amusements'-woes by continuing to plow huge sums into building multiplexes and luxury venues with stadium seating even as the economy soured. But her supporters claim it was Sumner, not Shari, who ran up debt by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on retrofitting older theaters with deluxe accessories. Shari was so incensed by the spending, according to her partisans, that one day, in the mid-1990s, she confronted her father at Viacom's headquarters in New York, delivering an ultimatum that he either stop interfering or she would leave the company. Sumner backed off.

At one point during our conversation at his home, Redstone suddenly waxes sentimental about their filial bond, saying, "We have a very loving relationship-she has been the love of my life. When she was a baby, I was the only one she would let feed her."

Then he hands me a document to demonstrate their continued closeness. Dated last May, it's a fax from Shari's office at National Amusements headquarters in Dedham, Massachusetts, responding to her father's request for a one-on-one meeting in Los Angeles. The note, typed completely in capital letters, is fraught with subtext: i've been giving it a lot of thought and for a variety of reasons i don't think that it makes sense for us to get together next week, it begins. i apologize for any inconvenience to you but i have another idea, she goes on, suggesting that they meet the following week in New York, ...perhaps with the kids (or even my mother) as i would like to keep this strictly social and feel it may be easier to do that here in ny with family. It closes with the word love, but a secretary had signed Shari's name.

These days, Redstone and his daughter communicate almost exclusively in writing or through spokespeople trading statements in the media. As for the succession question, Redstone continues to dodge the issue-or, if he comments at all, he makes it clear he's not planning to anoint her. In an open letter to Forbes magazine in July 2007, he stated that "the boards of the two public companies, Viacom and CBS, should select my successor." Then, last summer, he revealed that he was negotiating for her to buy the theater chain and separate herself entirely from his business interests. To me, he equivocates, but takes a none-too-subtle dig at her, suggesting that she's pushing too hard.

"Two years ago," he says, "I told her that 'If you give up your idea of the right to succeed me automatically, you would gain credibility with the boards.'?" Then he pauses. "But I think she's taking the advice of lawyers more than of her father."