Laurence Alan Tisch (March 5, 1923 – November 15, 2003) was an American businessman, investor and billionaire. He was the CEO of
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
television network from 1986 to 1995. With his brother
Bob Tisch
Preston Robert Tisch (April 29, 1926 – November 15, 2005) was an American businessman who was the chairman and—along with his brother Laurence Tisch—was part owner of the Loews Corporation. From 1991 until his death, Tisch owned 50% ...
, he was part owner of
Loews Corporation
Loews Corporation is an American conglomerate headquartered in New York City. The company's majority-stake holdings include CNA Financial Corporation, Diamond Offshore Drilling, Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, Loews Hotels and Altium Packaging.
...
.
Early life
Tisch was born March 5, 1923, in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York, the son of Sadye (née Brenner) and Al Tisch.
His father's parents had emigrated from Ukraine and his mother's parents from Poland.
[ He was of ]Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
descent. His father, a former All-American basketball player at the City University of New York, owned a garment factory as well as two summer camps which his wife helped him run.[
]
Education and early career
He graduated from New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
when he was just 18 and received a Penn Wharton MBA in industrial management by 20. In 1946, he made his first investment, purchasing a 300-room winter resort in Lakewood, New Jersey
Lakewood Township is the most populous township in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. A rapidly growing community as of the 2020 U.S. census, the township had a total population of 135,158 representing an increase of 41,415 (+45.5% ...
with $125,000 in seed money (roughly equivalent to $1.5 million at 2012 prices) from his parents.[Business Insider: "The Tisch Dynasty: How Two Boys From Brooklyn Became The Biggest Name In New York" by Linette Lopez]
May 9, 2012 Two years later, his brother Bob
Bob, BOB, or B.O.B. may refer to:
Places
* Mount Bob, New York, United States
*Bob Island, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica
People, fictional characters, and named animals
*Bob (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
*Bob (surname ...
joined him in the business, launching a lifelong partnership between the pair with Larry handling financial matters and Bob the overall management.
Their first hotel was very successful and over the next decade, the Tisch brothers bought a dozen hotels in Atlantic City and the Catskills
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...
.
Loews
In 1960, using the proceeds from their hotel empire, Tisch gained control of Loews Theaters
Loews Cineplex Entertainment, also known as Loews Incorporated, is an American theater chain operating in North America. From 1924 until 1959, it was also the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM).
The company was originally c ...
, one of the largest movie house chains at the time, with Bob and Larry serving as co-chairmen of the company. They were attracted to Loews by its underlying real estate assets which they believed were undervalued. They were correct in this assumption and would later tear down many of the centrally located old theaters to build apartments and hotels reaping millions in profits.
The pair soon diversified the business, successfully venturing into a variety of areas. In 1968, Loews acquired Lorillard
Lorillard Tobacco Company was an American tobacco company that marketed cigarettes under the brand names Newport, Maverick, Old Gold, Kent, True, Satin, and Max. The company had two operating segments: cigarettes and electronic cigarettes.
The ...
, the 5th largest tobacco company in the United States at the time, which owned the popular brands Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, Newport and True
True most commonly refers to truth, the state of being in congruence with fact or reality.
True may also refer to:
Places
* True, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States
* True, Wisconsin, a town in the United States
* ...
. In 1974, they purchased a controlling interest in the nearly bankrupt insurance company, CNA Financial Corporation
CNA Financial Corporation is a financial corporation based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its principal subsidiary, Continental Casualty Company (CCC), was founded in 1897. CNA, the current parent company, was incorporated in 1967.
CNA is t ...
. This too was very successful and several years later it held an A+ credit rating. They also purchased the Bulova Watch Company
Bulova is an American timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 and has been owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate Citizen Watch Co. since 2008. The company makes watches, clocks and accessories, and it is based in New York ...
.
Through acquisitions, Tisch built Loews' into a highly profitable conglomerate (with 14 hotels, 67 movie theaters, CNA Financial, Bulova, and Lorillard) with revenues increasing from $100 million in 1970 to more than $3 billion in 1980.
In 2002, the year before Larry Tisch's death, the corporation had revenues of more than $17 billion and assets of more than $70 billion.[USA Today: "Former CBS head Tisch dies at 80"]
November 15, 2003
CBS
In 1986, CBS Inc. was the target of several hostile takeover attempts by the likes of Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist. He founded the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he fo ...
, Marvin Davis
Marvin H. Davis (August 31, 1925 – September 25, 2004) was an American industrialist. He made his fortunes as the chair of Davis Petroleum and at one time owned 20th Century Fox, the Pebble Beach Corporation, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the ...
, and Ivan Boesky
Ivan Frederick Boesky (born March 6, 1937) is a former American stock trader who became infamous for his prominent role in an insider trading scandal that occurred in the United States during the mid-1980s. He was charged and pled guilty to insi ...
. Tisch was invited by CBS to invest in the company so as to help stop the hostile advances. Tisch spent $750 million for a 24.9% stake in CBS and a seat on the board. Later, with the support of company patriarch William S. Paley
William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was an American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System ( CBS) from a small radio network into ...
, he was named the company's president and CEO.
The Tisch era at CBS was marked by relentless cost-cutting: Tisch fired 230 out of 1,200 news employees and cut $30 million from the news division's budget. CBS divested itself of non-broadcast assets. In 1986, he sold the book publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools.
The Holt name is derived from that of U.S. publisher Henry Holt (1840–1926), co-founder of the e ...
to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City a ...
for $500 million; in 1987, he sold the CBS magazine division to Diamandis Communications; and also in 1987, he sold the CBS Music Group
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
, the 2nd largest record company in the world at the time, to Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...
for $2 billion. Westinghouse Electric bought CBS in 1995 for an estimated $5.4 billion, of which Tisch's ownership netted him $2 billion. Although Tisch's decade long tenure at CBS was marked by a 15% annual increase in the value of its stock, CBS remained in third place out of the big three national networks. Tisch was criticized for not understanding the broadcast business, not diversifying the business after selling its non-broadcast assets, and poor performance of CBS relative to its peers. John Gutfreund, CEO of Salomon Brothers
Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street durin ...
compared him with Bill Paley
William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was an American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System ( CBS) from a small radio network into ...
, the founder of CBS: "Bill had a vision for the industry, for Larry, it is a business."
Philanthropy
Tisch made major donations to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
, the NYU Medical Center and the Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a non-governmental organization headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, that aims to conserve the world's largest wild places in 14 priority regions. Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological ...
. A $4.5 million gift created the Tisch Children's Zoo in Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
.
From 1978 to 1998, Tisch served as chairman of the board of trustees at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
overseeing a $1 billion capital campaign and major improvements in the university. Tisch was also a former president of the United Jewish Appeal
The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization that existed from its creation in 1939 until it was folded into the United Jewish Communities, which was formed from the 1999 merger of United Jewish Appeal (UJA), Co ...
of New York.
NYU's Tisch School of the Arts
The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University.
Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the a ...
is named in honor of him and his brother Bob, who donated the funds necessary to buy a building for the school. Tisch's donations also provided funding for a professorship in law, which was established in 2010 and is held by noted legal scholar Richard Epstein. There is additionally a Tisch Hall at the Stern School of Business and a Tisch Hospital at the NYU Medical Center.
The professorship for history and economics in Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
is named after him in recognition of his philanthropy to the school. The current Laurence A. Tisch professor is , a Scottish economic historian
Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and ins ...
.
Family
Tisch married Wilma "Billie" Stein in 1948; they had four sons:[
* Andrew H. Tisch
*Daniel R. Tisch – runs a family fund, Mentor Partners, and sits on the ]New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
board. He is the father of David Tisch
David Tisch (born 1981) is a businessman and angel investor based in New York City. He is managing partner of BoxGroup, a seed-stage capital firm, and a co-founder of TechStars New York City. He is the grandson of American businessman Laurence ...
.
* James S. Tisch
*Thomas Jonah Tisch – Works as a partner at FLF Associates, a private investment group in New York City. In 1985, he married Helen Vivian Scovell.
All four boys went to Suffield Academy in Suffield, Connecticut.
Death
Laurence Tisch died of gastroesophageal cancer,Like Father, Like Son
Fortune aged 80, in 2003. He was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
Hastings-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County located in the southwestern part of the town of Greenburgh in the state of New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, approximately north of midtown Manh ...
.
References
External links
TV Museum archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tisch, Laurence Alan
1923 births
2003 deaths
American billionaires
American mass media owners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
New York University Stern School of Business alumni
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Jewish American philanthropists
Philanthropists from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
Laurence Tisch
Laurence Alan Tisch (March 5, 1923 – November 15, 2003) was an American businessman, investor and billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995. With his brother Bob Tisch, he was part owner of Loews Corporation. ...
Paramount Global people
CBS executives
CBS chief executive officers
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Burials at Westchester Hills Cemetery
American real estate businesspeople