The Bronfmans

Description

The Bronfman family story is an improbable saga of larger-than-life personalities and bitter rivalries. "Mr. Sam," the man who made drinking whiskey respectable in the United States, built Seagram into the first worldwide liquor empire in the 1950s and 1960s. After Sam's death in 1971, his oldest son Edgar masterminded a major coup when he translated a small investment in oil made by his father into a 25% stake in the mighty DuPont company. But in the 1990s, Edgar allowed his second son, Edgar Jr., to indulge his ambition to become a media tycoon. He reinvested the DuPont stake in Universal, the film and theme-park empire, then bought Polygram Records. But at the same time, he remained in charge of the liquor business, which started to fall apart. Then came the final disaster, when the increasingly divided family sold out to the empire builder of the French conglomerate Vivendi.--From publisher description

First Sentence

WHEN TOLD FRIENDS THAT I HAD BEEN COMMISSIONED TO WRITE ABOUT the Bronfman family, many of them muttered about "cement galoshes" and one serious citizena leading investment bankerwarned me that the Bronfman family would infallibly take out a contract on me.

Subjects

Genres

• Biography

Other Editions

• The Bronfmans: the rise and fall of the house of SeagramSt. Martin's Press2006-01-01
• The BronfmansHardcoverThomas Dunne Books2006-05-30
• The BronfmansPaperbackSt. Martin's Griffin2007-10-30