George Randolph Hearst Jr. (July 13, 1927 – June 25, 2012) was an American businessman who served as the chairman of the board of the

Hearst Corporation Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televis ...

from 1996 through to his death in 2012, succeeding his uncle

Randolph Apperson Hearst Randolph Apperson Hearst (December 2, 1915 – December 18, 2000) was the fourth son of the five sons of William Randolph Hearst and Millicent Hearst. His twin brother, David, died in 1986. Randolph is the father of Patty Hearst. Earl ...

. He was a director at the company for over forty years.

Life

Hearst Jr. and his twin sister Phoebe were born July 13, 1927, in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California. Hearst first joined the Naval Air Corps. Later, he joined the United States Army and served in the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. In 1948, he joined the advertising staff of the ''

Los Angeles Examiner The ''Los Angeles Examiner'' was a newspaper founded in 1903 by William Randolph Hearst in Los Angeles, California. The afternoon ''Los Angeles Herald-Express'' and the morning ''Los Angeles Examiner'', both of which had been publishing in the ...

'', which his grandfather had founded in 1903, then worked for several years at the family-run ''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...

''. In 1957, he was named business manager of the ''

Los Angeles Herald-Express The ''Los Angeles Herald-Express'' was one of Los Angeles' oldest newspapers, formed after a combination of the '' Los Angeles Herald'' and the '' Los Angeles Express''. After a 1962 combination with Hearst Corporation's ''Los Angeles Examiner ...

'' and three years later was made publisher. In 1967, while publisher of the ''Herald Examiner'', Hearst felt pressure from the growing workers unions and "was determined to break them." The strikes by the unions lasted until 1977 by which point circulation of the paper had been cut in half to 330,000 and advertising had evaporated, partly because of aggressive tactics by organized labor; the paper never fully recovered. That same year, Heast joined the Hearst Corporation, where he would spend the rest of his career. Non-family executives are a majority on the trust that controls the corporation, and this trust will not dissolve until all grandchildren alive at the death of

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...

have died. George Jr. was one of the oldest grandchildren. However, there are five family seats among the 13 trustees, and George represented his branch of the family. Hearst Jr. died in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

, California at age 84 following complications from a stroke.

Children

He married Mary Thompson (born 1931) in 1951, and they had four children, all born in California. They divorced in 1969.(5 December 1969)
Mrs. Mary. Hearst
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' (noting divorce in death notice, died at age 38) * Mary Astrid Hearst (1953–2004), born in Santa Monica, daughters Shannon and Alexis, later married Randy Ives, died at

San Simeon, California San Simeon (Spanish: ''San Simeón'', meaning "St. Simon") is a village and Census-designated place on the Pacific coast of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Its position along State Route 1 is about halfway between Los Angeles ...

, of cancer; known as "Bunny"''San Francisco Chronicle'', April 30, 2004, Obituary *

George Randolph Hearst III George Randolph Hearst III (born 1955) is the publisher and CEO of the '' Times Union'' newspaper in Albany, New York, and a director of the Hearst Corporation. He is the second child of George Randolph Hearst Jr. and Mary Astrid Thompson and gre ...

(born 1955) * Stephen Thompson Hearst (born 1956) * Erin Wilbur Hearst (born 1959), married a Mr. Knudsen

References

1927 births 2012 deaths American mass media owners American socialites George Randolph Jr. American billionaires United States Army personnel of the Korean War Businesspeople from Los Angeles Military personnel from California United States Army soldiers 20th-century American businesspeople United States Navy sailors {{US-business-bio-1920s-stub