LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sumner Redstone: Boston Museum
built 236 days ago
Sumner Murray Redstone was born on May 27, 1923, to Max and Belle Rothstein in Boston, Massachusetts. Redstone's father got his start selling newspapers on the streets of Boston, then became a linoleum salesman and eventually got into the nightclub business, buying Boston's Latin Quarter from Lou Walters, the father of Barbara Walters. Max Rothstein, who later changed the family name to Redstone, opened the third drive-in theater in the United States, on New York's Long Island, and built a small chain of drive-ins that did well in the years after World War II. But Redstone insisted the real driving force in the family was his mother, who used to turn the clock back when he was practicing piano to make him work a little bit longer.
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At the heart of Redstone's new life, in fact, is an unlikely love story, one he and Paula haven't discussed publicly until now. It began in 2001. Phyllis lived quietly in Boston, while he worked in New York. During the 1990s, Redstone more or less openly dated other women, notably Christine Peters, ex-wife of producer Jon Peters. Nothing... appeared to soften his sharp edges; subordinates viewed him as a crabby old man who scoffed at executives who left before seven at night. A number of associates felt steady companionship might make him happier, or at least make his twilight years less lonely.
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Redstone is a physically tough individual. In 1979, he survived a Boston hotel fire by clinging to a third-floor window with one severely burned hand. Doctors never expected him to live through 60 hours of surgery, but he did. Medical experts told him he would never walk again, yet in time Redstone began to exercise daily on a treadmill and to play tennis regularly, wearing a leather strap that enabled him to grip his racquet. Those who know the Boston tycoon say that his recovery spurred on his ambition to succeed in the motion picture and later television business.
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It was all the more surprising because the Boston-born Mr. Redstone was co-chairman of Edmund Muskie's presidential campaign in 1972. He's ... a close friend of the other Massachusetts senator, Ted Kennedy. Monday's New York Sun, quoting the Federal Election Commission, said that since 1998 Mr. Redstone had given $50,000 to the Democratic Party. He's also donated the maximum $2,000 to the Kerry campaign, after supporting Al Gore in 2000.
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In April 2007, Sumner M. Redstone announced a commitment of $105 million in charitable grants to fund research and patient care advancements in cancer and burn recovery at three major non-profit healthcare organizations. The cash contributions of $35 million each will be paid out over five years to FasterCures/The Center for Accelerating Medical Solutions, based in Washington D.C.; the Cedars-Sinai Prostate Cancer Center in Los Angeles, California; and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/68549.php).
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Mr. Redstone enjoys and takes pride in teaching college men and women, and has lectured at a variety of universities, including Harvard Law School and Brandeis University. While serving as a Law Clerk in the Court of Appeals, Mr. Redstone taught at the University of San Francisco. In 1982, he joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Law, where he created one of the nation's first courses in entertainment law. In May 1994, Mr. Redstone received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Boston University.
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