Charles Bluhdorn

Charles George Bluhdorn (born Karl Georg Blühdorn; September 20, 1926 – February 19, 1983) was an Austrian-born American industrialist.

Other accounts say that he emigrated to the United States in 1942 and served in the U.S. Army Air Forces.

In 1946, Bluhdorn went to work at the Cotton Exchange, earning $15 a week.

Paramount was a former subsidiary of Gulf and Western Industries, which Bluhdorn purchased in 1956 when it was called the Michigan Plating and Stamping Company.

In 1956, Bluhdorn acquired Michigan Plating and Stamping, a small auto parts company that eventually grew into Gulf and Western Industries, a conglomerate that ranked 61st in the Fortune 500 by 1981.

He built his fortune in auto parts and commodities such as zinc, and following a 1966 acquisition became CEO, chairman and president of the Hollywood movie studio Paramount Pictures.

By 1966, Bluhdorn had grown Gulf and Western to revenues estimated at $182 million; that year it ranked 346th in the Fortune 500 list.

As Gulf and Western had purchased Paramount in 1966, Bluhdorn had plans to turn the island into a moviemaking mecca.

To sell the idea he constantly invited producers, directors, writers and movie stars, to get them to appreciate the natural beauty of the country.

In 1967, Gulf and Western paid $54 million for the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company.

Most of the company's operations were in the Dominican Republic, where it owned the extensive Central Romana sugar mill in La Romana and 300000 acre of land.

Nearly half of the land was used to produce sugar cane and, at the peak of the cane-cutting season, the company employed 19,000 people, making it the country's largest private employer as well as the largest taxpayer and landowner.

The company grew through acquisition, including the takeovers of Stax Records in 1968, Sega in 1969, and Simon & Schuster in 1975.

Bluhdorn became known in Hollywood for his intense yet gregarious character.

Gulf and Western acquired Consolidated Cigar Corporation in 1968 and later shifted its Canary Island cigar-making operations to La Romana.

It also created Corporación Financiera Asociada (Cofinasa), a Dominican finance company.

In 1969, the Dominican government and Gulf and Western Americas Corporation established an industrial free zone in La Romana.

The zone was administered by Gulf and Western America's Operadora Zona Franca de La Romana subsidiary.

According to Robert Evans, in 1970 Bluhdorn had told him: "Imagine, twelve years ago I was walking the streets selling typewriters door to door."

Apart from Gulf and Western, Bluhdorn was a director and major shareholder of Bohack, Pueblo Supermarkets, and Ward Foods.

Holdings of Gulf and Western were blue-chip names such as Paramount Pictures, Madison Square Garden, and Simon & Schuster, as well as less glamorous assets such as the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company, Pennsylvania Malleable Iron, and New Jersey Zinc.

Paramount was suggested to Bluhdorn by Sumner Redstone and the acquisition was encouraged by Paramount's head of publicity, Martin S. Davis.

It was during Gulf and Western's ownership of Paramount that it went from being number nine at the box office based upon total receipt sales, to number one.

After the marketing success of Love Story in 1970, Bluhdorn appointed Frank Yablans as president of the studio and Robert Evans as head of production.

Together they oversaw the studio in its heyday, releasing such hits as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and Chinatown.

During the 1970s, Gulf and Western developed 7000 acre of the sugar mill's land into the Casa de Campo resort.

Casa de Campo is home to three internationally renowned golf courses designed by Pete Dye – Teeth of the Dog, Dye Fore, and Links.

One of Bluhdorn's Dominican friends, Oscar de la Renta, was hired to do interior design for Casa de Campo.

De la Renta also licensed his men's wear line through Kayser-Roth, a Gulf and Western subsidiary.

He appointed the reserved Frank Yablans as president of Paramount and the out-spoken Robert Evans as head of production, an uneasy and ill-matched team that eventually oversaw the release of hit films The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), and Chinatown (1974).

In 1974, Bluhdorn stepped down as chairman of Paramount and hired Barry Diller as Paramount's chairman and CEO.

Bluhdorn was very aware of the financial potential of the Dominican Republic and invested a significant amount of resources into its social and economic development.

He is credited as being the father of the Dominican tourism industry.

After a meeting between Bluhdorn and Warner Communications CEO Steve Ross in 1976, the New York Cosmos played against Haiti’s Violette AC in Santo Domingo.

The soccer game was sponsored by the Central Romana division of Gulf and Western Americas.

He died suddenly in 1983 aged 56.

Details of his upbringing are vague; according to Vanity Fair: "truth be told, Charlie wasn't elucidative about a lot of things, including whether he was Jewish, which he kept Hollywood guessing about by posting a sentry outside the men's room door."

He was born in Vienna, Austria, to an Austrian Jewish mother Rosa Fuchs and father Paul Blühdorn.

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 moved to New York, studying at City College of New York and Columbia University.