Jerry Perenchio

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Jerry Perenchio, 2016

Jerry Perenchio , actually Andrew Jerrold Perenchio , (born December 20, 1930 in Fresno ; died May 23, 2017 in Los Angeles ) was an American entrepreneur, art collector and patron. As an artist agent he represented numerous well-known actors and singers, as a sports promoter he was one of the organizers of the boxing match Fight of the Century between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali . He later produced cinema films and television formats and managed the media company Univision with Spanish-language television and radio programs. He donated his important art collection to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art .

Life

Family, study and army time

Jerry Perenchio's grandfather Giovanni Batiste Perenchio came to the United States as an immigrant from Italy. He changed his first name to John and founded the fruit wholesale market in Fresno and a winery in nearby Reedley . The father Andrew Joseph Perenchio was a co-owner of the Sunnyside Winery ; later he directed the Greek Theater in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. The mother Dorothea, nee Harvey, was a housewife.

Jerry Perenchio attended the private school Black-Foxe Military Institute and then until 1949 the Hancock Park School in Los Angeles. He then studied business administration at the University of California in Los Angeles. Among other things, he financed his studies as a party organizer, hiring music bands and organizing the catering. In 1954 he graduated and married his first wife Robin Gardner Green that same year. Their son John comes from this marriage. Perenchio also adopted his wife's daughters Catherine and Candace from a previous relationship. After graduating, Perenchio went to the United States Air Force for three years . Here he trained as a fighter pilot and then became a flight instructor at Gary Air Force Base in Texas .

Artist agent

Back in Los Angeles, Perenchio worked briefly for an artist agency before he was hired by Lew Wasserman as an artist agent for the media company MCA in 1958 . Here he looked after actors such as Marlon Brando , Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton . In 1962, MCA took over Universal Studios and had to part with its artist agency division in accordance with American antitrust laws . Perenchio then founded his own artist agency Chartwell Artists with financial support from partners . The agency had offices on Sunset Boulevard and hired a number of musicians who were previously under contract with MCA. These included Andy Williams , Glen Campbell , Henry Mancini , Johnny Mathis , Sérgio Mendes and the Kingston Trio . Chartwell Artists was later sold to ICM Partners . He was also active as a “deal maker” who used his contacts to broker contracts. In 1969, for example, he acted on the sale of the Caesars Palace hotel casino in Las Vegas and brought the previous owners together with Stuart and Clifford S. Perlman , who already owned the Lum's fast food chain . For this sale alone, Perenchio received a commission of $ 800,000. Also in 1969 he divorced his wife Robin and married Jackie Thaxton, the ex-wife of TV producer Lloyd Thaxton , in the same year . As an entrepreneur, Perenchio often showed a flair for new trends and ideas. In 1970 he engaged Elton John for a two-week US guest performance. The English singer had just released his second record and was largely unknown in the United States. With the first eight concerts organized by Perenchio at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles, Elton John's breakthrough in the United States began.

Sports promoter

In 1971 Perenchio made headlines as a sports promoter and, together with Jack Kent Cooke, organized the fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, which went down in boxing history as the Fight of the Century . The two boxers received an entry fee of 2.5 million US dollars for the fight in New York's Madison Square Garden , which was a record amount for the time. Perenchio was only able to generate a small part of the expenses through ticket sales at the venue. He achieved the main income from pay-per-view marketing, in which the event was broadcast live in numerous cinemas and 1.6 million viewers saw the event. This fight, which was also financially successful for Perenchio, was followed two years later by another sporting event that made headlines in a special way. The Battle of the Sexes ( The battle of the sexes ) was the onomatopoeic description of a match on 20 September 1973 at the Astrodome of Houston between the 29-year-old tennis player Billie Jean King and the 55-year-old tennis player Bobby Riggs . Perenchio made a substantial profit, especially with the television broadcasting rights.

TV and film producer

In 1973 Perenchio became President of Tandem Productions , a television production and distribution company founded by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin that produced successful sitcoms such as All in the Family , Sanford and Son and Maude . In 1974 Perenchio and Norman Lear co-founded the production company TAT Communications Company , which also produced successful sitcoms including One Day at a Time , Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and The Jeffersons . In 1977, he was a co-founder of ONTV , one of the earliest pay-TV channels in the United States. Four years later, Perenchio sold his 49% stake to co-partner Oak Industries.

In 1982 Perenchio and Norman Lear bought the Avco Embassy Pictures Corporation film studio for $ 25 million . They merged the studio with their TAT Communications Company to form Embassy Communications . The company produced the popular series Diff'rent Strokes , The Facts of Life , Silver Spoons , Who's the Boss? , Square Pegs and 227 . In 1985 Perenchio and Lear Embassy Communications sold to Coca-Cola subsidiary Columbia Pictures for $ 485 million . Perenchio was also involved in the production of feature films. Together with Bud Yorkin he produced the science fiction film Blade Runner in 1982, directed by Ridley Scott, with Harrison Ford in the lead role. This was followed by Richard Attenborough's A Chorus Line, produced by Embassy Films in 1985, and the film Miss Daisy and Her Chauffeur , which won four Oscars in 1990, alongside the Zanuck Company . Perenchio was also involved in the production of the film Frida with Salma Hayek in 2002 . In the meantime, Perenchio owned shares in the Loews Theater chain from 1985 to 1987 , which he was able to sell on for a substantial profit.

Real estate ownership

In 1986 Perenchio bought a villa in Bel Air as a private residence . Also known as the Kirkeby Estate or Chartwell Estate , it was previously used as an outdoor set in the sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies . Perenchio subsequently expanded the castle-like property by purchasing neighboring properties, most recently in 2016 the former private residence of US President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy . In addition, Perenchio acquired large-scale land in Malibu . In 1987 Perenchio married Margaret Rose McHugh, third marriage.

Univision

In 1986, US President Ronald Reagan, a friend of Perenchio, passed a reform of the immigration law that included an amnesty for illegal immigrants living in the United States. This mainly affected people from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Perenchio, who did not speak Spanish himself, recognized a growing market for the media industry here. When the greeting card manufacturer Hallmark Cards wanted to part with the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision in 1992 , Perenchio acquired the loss-making media company together with the Mexican Emilio Azcárraga Milmo and the Venezuelan Gustavo Cisneros for 550 million US dollars. From 1992 to 2007, Perenchio was a managing director (chairman and chief executive officer ) of Univision Communications and a shareholder. Under his leadership, Univision developed into the largest Spanish-speaking media company in the United States, with its television and radio stations and a music publisher. In 2002 Univision was sold to media entrepreneur Haim Saban for $ 12.3 billion . Perenchio made a profit of 1.3 billion US dollars with its shares.

Supporters of politicians, last years as patrons

Perenchio supports numerous politicians, parties and political campaigns. He gave money for the election of the mayors of Los Angeles Richard Riordan ( Republican ) and Antonio Villaraigosa ( Democrats ), supported the Senator of California Dianne Feinstein (Democrats), stood up for the presidential candidacy of John McCain (Republican) in 2008 and supported with it Carly Fiorina (Republican) ran for $ 3 million in the 2016 primaries. Perenchio served on the board of directors of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation .

In addition, he donated considerable sums to various institutions. For example, he supported the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles . In 2017, Perenchio died of lung cancer in Bel Air. His net worth was last estimated at $ 2.7 billion.

Art Collection Foundation

Perenchio rarely appeared in public. That changed in 2014 when he announced in a press conference that he would donate his art collection to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art after his death. The collection, amassed over several decades, was estimated to be worth $ 500 million, according to media reports. He tied the foundation to the condition that the new museum wing designed by Peter Zumthor must be completed as planned by 2023.

The collection consists of 47 works of art, most of which were created between 1870 and 1930. These include the landscape painting La Maison et l'arbre by Paul Cézanne , the café scene Au Café Concert: La Chanson du Chien by Edgar Degas , the portrait of a waiter M. Gauthier-Lathuille fils by Édouard Manet and the life-size representation Un Soldat by Gustave Caillebotte . There are paintings by Claude Monet from different creative periods, such as the still life Asters and The Artist's Garden in Vétheuil , which were created around 1880 and also a water lily picture from his later work. There are also several paintings by Camille Pissarro in the collection, including the landscape painting Le Déversoir de Pontoise . The collection includes Pablo Picasso's drawing Kopf der Fernande from his early work , Pierre Bonnard's colorful interior motif Après le repas and René Magritte is represented with a surrealistic female nude called Les Liaisons dangereuses . The collection also includes Femme au bouquet by Fernand Léger and works by Jasper Johns and Marc Chagall . The collection also includes a few sculptures: a study of the multi-figure sculpture La Danse by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux came to the museum; Degas made three smaller bronzes.

  • Paul Cézanne:
    La Maison et l'arbre , 1874

  • Edgar Degas:
    Au Café Concert: La Chanson du Chien , 1875

  • Édouard Manet:
    M. Gauthier-Lathuille fils , 1879

  • Gustave Caillebotte:
    Un Soldier , 1881

  • Claude Monet:
    Asters , 1880

literature

  • Leah Lehmbeck: Impressionist and Modern Art; The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection . Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 2016, ISBN 978-3-7913-5561-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Meg James: Jerry Perenchio, promoter of the first Ali-Frazier bout and Bobby Riggs vs. Billie Jean King, dies at 86. In: Los Angeles Times . May 24, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Kathryn Harris, Nancy Moran: Jerry Perenchio, Dealmaker Who Built Univision, Dies at 86. In: Bloomberg News . May 25, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Richard Sandomir: Jerry Perenchio, Entertainment Mogul Who Advised 'Think Big,' Dies at 86. In: The New York Times . May 25, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Soraya Nadia McDonald: Jerry Perenchio, a very private man, just publicly bequeathed the LA County Museum half a billion dollars worth of art. In: The Washington Post . November 7, 2014, accessed January 19, 2019 . of the
  5. ^ Matt Schudel: A. Jerrold Perenchio, sports promoter who led Univision, dies at 86. In: The Washington Post. May 24, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Helena Andrews-Dyer: Ronald and Nancy Reagan's former home sells for $ 15 million. In: The Washington Post. July 20, 2016, accessed January 19, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Perenchio, Jerry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Perenchio, Andrew Jerrold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur, art collector, and patron
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Fresno
DATE OF DEATH 23 May 2017
Place of death los Angeles