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- BUSINESS, Page 51STEVEN JAY ROSS (1927-1992)The Merchant of Dreams
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- "I'm not a manager," Steve Ross once said. "I'm more of a
- dreamer." To his admirers, the chairman and co-chief executive
- of Time Warner Inc. was a visionary, a company builder with an
- unerring instinct for the art of the deal. To his critics, he
- was a symbol of corporate excess: an overpaid wheeler-dealer
- with a life-style that was more appropriate to Hollywood than
- to corporate America. Both fans and foes, however, agreed that
- Ross, who died last week at 65 after a long bout with cancer,
- projected an aura that was larger than life.
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- Part of that stemmed from his physical presence: he was
- tall and robust, with a perpetual tan and immaculately coiffed
- white hair. His friend Steven Spielberg, the film director, said
- fondly that Ross was like "a 6-ft. 3-in. E.T." Although quick
- to anger when crossed, he had an easy, charismatic charm,
- especially when playing expansive host. Behind that booming
- bonhomie was a calculator-quick mathematical mind: Ross loved
- concocting deals of such baffling complexity that he was often
- the only one who fully understood them. His favorite pastime,
- apart from screening films, was backgammon. Played for stakes,
- the game requires cool nerve; Ross, predictably, was a whiz at
- it.
-
- As an executive, he was instinctual rather than cerebral,
- farsighted but rarely reflective, freewheeling but not hands-on.
- He hired the best talents he could find, put them in charge of
- ventures, encouraged them to take risks, rewarded them
- generously when their gambles paid off -- and protected them
- when they stumbled. His managers enjoyed rare job security in
- the revolving-door worlds of movies and music. For those in his
- inner circle, working for Ross was akin to being part of an
- extended family, with the chairman presiding over sibling spats
- like a gregarious paterfamilias. In return, his employees
- rewarded him with a loyalty bordering on love. Indeed, Ross
- often signed his notes and letters to associates "Love, Steve."
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- He was born Steven Rechnitz in the Flatbush section of
- Brooklyn, the son of a struggling oil-burner salesman who
- changed the family name to Ross when his son was in
- kindergarten. The younger Ross was not above embellishing his
- past. He sometimes hinted that he broke an arm playing football
- at a training camp with the Cleveland Browns. In fact, he played
- nothing more bruising than touch football at Paul Smith's
- College near Saranac Lake, New York, which he attended for two
- years.
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- Ross's first jobs were in Manhattan's garment district as
- stockboy and later as salesman for a line of children's bathing
- suits. In 1954, shortly after marrying Carol Rosenthal, he went
- to work for his new father-in-law's funeral parlors. (That
- marriage ended in divorce, as did his second, to CBS chairman
- William Paley's stepdaughter, Amanda Burden. Ross is survived
- by his third wife, Courtney Sale Ross, whom he wed in 1982, and
- their daughter. He has two children from his first marriage.)
-
- It was at the mortuary, Ross later said, encountering
- people at an emotional low point in their lives, that he
- developed a gift for persuading others that they were utterly
- important to him. And it was there, in a drab office at the
- Riverside Funeral Home, that he first began to build his empire.
- It was a catchall conglomerate, named Kinney Services, whose
- businesses included parking garages, cleaning services,
- limousine rentals and magazine distribution.
-
- In 1969 Ross purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, a fading
- shadow of the great Hollywood studio it had once been. He soon
- sold off Kinney's unglamorous sidelines to concentrate on
- movies, pop music and television. Ross reacted to Hollywood
- glitz as if born under klieg lights. He became a confidant of
- such stars as Clint Eastwood, Barbra Streisand and jazz composer
- Quincy Jones, sharing with them his corporate jets and sojourns
- at Villa Eden, Warner's retreat in Acapulco. And his enterprise
- flourished. From 1961 to 1988 the revenues of Warner
- Communications (as the company was renamed) rose from $17
- million to $4.2 billion and its market value from $12 million
- to $14 billion.
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- Ross's career was marred by an incident that trailed him,
- as his biographer Connie Bruck wrote in the New Yorker, "like
- an unappeased spirit." In 1973 two of his close aides were
- convicted in a racketeering scheme involving a Westchester
- County, New York, theater in which Warner had invested. Ross was
- named an unindicted co-conspirator. His image as a corporate
- genius was blotted in 1983 when Warner nearly went under because
- of the crash of its previously profitable Atari video-games
- division.
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- Warner's 1990 acquisition by Time Inc. embroiled Ross and
- the new corporation in fresh controversy. Time Inc. directors
- voted to consummate the union despite a rival bid from Paramount
- Communications, which offered nearly twice what Time Warner
- shares are currently worth. The deal paid off handsomely for
- Warner executives, most notably Ross: his compensation package
- exceeded $78 million in 1990, the cost to Time Inc. of buying
- out the stake he had accrued in Warner over 30 years.
-
- Last May, Ross took a leave of absence to battle prostate
- cancer. But behind the scenes, he remained active in corporate
- affairs, most notably in a boardroom coup that led to the abrupt
- resignation of his co-CEO, Nicholas J. Nicholas. He was replaced
- by Gerald Levin, who is now Time Warner's sole CEO.
-
- History's verdict on Steve Ross is bound to be mixed. He
- may have rewarded himself excessively, but under his leadership
- Warner did grow from a has-been to an entertainment superpower.
- Even Ross's critics concede that he was unrivaled as a
- salesman, and friends contend that he would have accomplished
- even more with Time Warner's combined resources. But Ross's
- global dreams are now for others to fulfill.
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