Charles Bluhdorn

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  The Mafia, CIA and George Bush (Part 10)

  Gulf and Western Industries, Inc., for a number of years known as Gulf+Western, was an American conglomerate. Gulf and Western's prosaic origins date to a manufacturer named Michigan Bumper Co. founded in 1934, though Charles Bluhdorn treated his 1958 takeover of what was then Michigan Plating & Stamping as its "founding" for the purpose of later anniversaries. Under Bluhdorn the company diversified widely, leaving behind things like stamping metal bumpers not only for communications properties like Paramount Pictures (1966) but also clothing (Kayser-Roth, which happened to own the Miss Universe pageant because it had bought Pacific Mills, which had invented the pageant to sell its Catalina brand of swimsuits), APS Holding Corp. auto parts, New Jersey Zinc (1966), the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company in La Romana, Dominican Republic (1967), the Associates First Capital Corporation, a financial services company (1968), Consolidated Cigars (1968), Stax Records (1968), Sega (1969), Simon and Schuster (1975), Madison Square Garden and by extension the New York Rangers and New York Knicks (1977) and Simmons Bedding Company (1979). The company also purchased Desilu Productions from Lucille Ball in 1967, which included most of Ball's television product, as well as such properties as Star Trek and Mission: Impossible (It and its successor companies would make millions on both series over the following decades with such projects as Star Trek's various hit follow-up TV projects and ...

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  THE GODFATHER Marlon Brando Tribute DON VITO CORLEONE

  Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 July 1, 2004) was an American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, and part of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century. As a young sex symbol, he is best known for his roles as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan in the early 1950s. In middle age, his well-known roles include his Academy Award-winning performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Colonel Walter Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, both directed by Francis Ford Coppola and an Academy Award-nominated performance as Paul in Last Tango in Paris. Brando's performance as Vito Corleone in 1972's The Godfather was a mid-career turning point. Director Francis Ford Coppola convinced Brando to submit to a "make-up" test, in which Brando did his own makeup (he used cotton balls to simulate the puffed-cheek look). Coppola was electrified by Brando's characterization as the head of a crime family, but had to fight the studio in order to cast the temperamental Brando, whose reputation for difficult behavior and demands was the stuff of backlot legend. Mario Puzo always imagined Brando as Corleone. However, Paramount studio heads wanted to give the role to Danny Thomas in the hope that Thomas would have his own production company throw in its lot with ...

More on Charles Bluhdorn

Birth Date:

September 1, 0020

Birthplace:

Vienna, Austria

Death Date:

February 20, 1983

Cause of Death:

heart attack

Religion:

Jewish

Spouse:

Yvette Bluhdorn

Residence:

Ridgefield, CT

Occupation:

industrialist

Known for:

Gulf+Western

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