Charles Bluhdorn

Charles G. Bluhdorn, born Karl Blühdorn (September 20, 1926 – February 20, 1983) was an Austrian-born American industrialist.

Biography

Bluhdorn was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Per Who's Who in Ridgefield (CT), he was considered such a "hellion" that his father sent the 11-year-old to an English boarding school for disciplining. At 16, he came to New York, studying at City College and Columbia and, in 1946, went to work at the Cotton Exchange, earning $15 a week. Other accounts say that he emigrated to the United States in 1942 and served in the U.S. Army Air Forces.

Three years later, he formed a company that would make him a millionaire at 30; in 1956, he acquired Michigan Bumper, a small auto parts company that eventually grew into Gulf+Western Industries, a conglomerate that ranked 61st in the Fortune 500 by 1981.

Charles married Yvette M. LeMarrec, formerly of Paris, about 1950.

Subholdings of Gulf+Western were blue chip names such as Paramount Pictures (acquired in 1966), Madison Square Garden, and Simon & Schuster publishing as well as less glamorous holdings such as mining, New Jersey Zinc Company. Paramount was suggested to Bluhdorn by Sumner Redstone and the acquisition was encouraged by Paramount's head of publicity, Martin Davis. It was during Gulf and Western's ownership of Paramount that it went from being Number 9 at the boxoffice, based upon total receipt sales, to number 1 with such hits as The Godfather and Chinatown.