Sumner Redstone, media mogul who headed Viacom, dead at 97

canoe.com:

RISK TAKERRedstone was born on May 27, 1923, into a Boston family that owned a chain of drive-in movie theatres. He graduated first in his class at Boston Latin High School, went through Harvard in three years and worked with an elite U.S.

Army unit that cracked Japanese codes during the Second World War.After the war, he earned a law degree at Harvard and successfully pleaded a case before the U.S.

Supreme Court. He joined National Amusements, his family’s theatre chain, in 1954, and became chief executive officer in 1967.Known for his blunt talk, Boston accent and audacious risk taking, Redstone was in his 60s in 1987 when he bought Viacom for $3.4 billion with mostly borrowed money.