Jun 15, 2005 12:43 PM
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Hollywood, 3:49 PM
Tue Feb 9
56 posts in the last 24 hours
Skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone (still kicking it in the boardroom, even at 117 years young!) sat down with the LAT to discuss the announced division of his unwieldy conglomerate, serve notice to any whippersnapper family members and/or aspiring galactic dictators who salivate over the thought of picking his old bones clean, and announce his plans for immortality.
Q: How will Viacom change without you as CEO?
A: My role really won't change at all. I still control both companies. Les and Tom do not make a move without calling me and discussing it. They work for me. The management style of Viacom, in terms of its culture, attitude and personality, reflects my own views. And I'm not just sitting around, you know. Just last week, the governor of Hunan [China] came to my house with 23 of his lieutenants to talk about joint ventures with Viacom.
Q: Some say that your daughter Shari threw her support behind splitting the company only after she made you promise to make her vice chairwoman.
A: Absolutely, positively not. You know what I would have said? "I can't do it, you're not going to be vice chairman." No one's going to threaten me. I've spent my whole life building this company. Shari would never do that. Never.
Q: Is Shari's becoming vice chairwoman a sign you'll retire?
A: Look, sooner or later, no matter how good I look and how good my vital signs are, I'm gonna die and control of the company is likely to pass to Shari. I hope nobody inherits my power for another 20 years. I eat the right stuff. I swim every day.
Q: Naked, I hear.
A: [Laughter] Paula has helped me enjoy life a little more. She is a wonderful wife. I am more determined to live than ever before. But my hand will reach up from the grave….
Redstone didn't want to tip his hand by revealing the ancient Chinese secrets of immortality that he learned from the visiting governor of Hunan (God forbid Moonves ever learned them), but those 23 "lieutenants" ("babies," in certain translations) are now merely desiccated husks in a musty corner of the wine cellar, and the suddenly spry executive has put off having his headstone engraved indefinitely.
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