The Jewish family broigus that makes Succession look tame

It’s a story of greed, of hubris and of a lot of very flawed people making very flawed decisions,” says New York Times journalist Rachel Abrams of Unscripted: the Epic Battle for a Hollywood Media Empire, the book she has co-authored.

It is also a real-life Jewish family drama that leaves the dark tragicomedy of Succession in the shade.

Sumner Redstone, who died in 2020 at the age of 97, headed up one of America’s biggest media empires.

At his height, the son of a Boston drive-in movie owner who won a scholarship to Harvard, controlled Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV and Nickelodeon. Unscripted tells the story of his dysfunctional relationships with a pair of live-in paramours who salted away $150 billion of his fortune while he was trapped at home in a wheelchair.

One was his long-time fiancée Sydney Holland, the other an old flame, Manuela Herzer, who joined his household while the mansion he had bought her was renovated.

They timetabled visits from his many girlfriends, tried to keep him at arm’s length from his daughter Shari — with whom, to complicate things, he fought and insulted relentlessly — and tried to prevent his family from attending his funeral.

After her father’s funeral, which she did attend, Shari strove to preserve her father’s legacy.

She was the vice-chairman of Paramount Global, the parent company of American broadcast television and radio network CBS, but she didn’t have any real power. “She had to face down an avalanche of sexism,” says Abrams.

Eventually, she became chairman of the organisation, but not before a fight to near death with its chief executive and one-time television actor Leslie Moonves. Before he was brought down by a series of #MeToo allegations, he had doubled the company’s value.

“Suing the daughter of the founder of the company you are trying to get control of takes a lot of chutzpah,” says Abrams of Moonves.

Meanwhile, Shari — the winner of this year’s Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Humanitarian Award for her work fighting antisemitism — is no Shiv Roy. Even though she and the double-dealing daughter in Succession share the same initials, red hair and designer wardrobe.

Rachel Abrams by Jorg Meyer

Rachel Abrams (Photo: Jorg Meyer)

The 68-year-old has a family of her own that she always put first, and an infinite capacity for forgiveness.

The book also reveals that she only, reluctantly, joined CBS at her father’s behest and then had to endure repeated false promises that she would succeed him during his lifetime. At one point, he even deleted her from his will. One Rosh Hashanah, he threw her out of his house on the orders of a paramour.

To the last, she was never sure she had won her father’s approval or even his love, says Abrams. According to Unscripted, Redstone also changed his trust tens of times to add or remove beneficiaries.

He was also a sexual predator who reportedly dated his grandson’s girlfriends.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Abrams, part of the New York Times reporting team that brought down Harvey Weinstein, tells me she and co-author James B.

Stewart managed to write the book thanks to “the treasure trove of documents and other material from sources which landed in our laps; we got an unprecedented look at what went on behind the scenes”.

And she suspects the book would not have been written if Stewart’s desk had not been in the aisle at the newspaper where they both worked.

It made it easier, she says, to tap him on the shoulder on her way out of the office and compare notes on the information they were both receiving on the unfolding scandal at CBS.

“I was nervous of approaching him because he’s such a legend, and already with 10 books already to his name,” explains the 36-year-old.

But being a woman also helped, she says. “Some people were more comfortable with talking to a woman who had done this kind of reporting before; they could relate to me and trusted I would handle their stories with care and compassion.”

Abrams credits her mother Alice, a former newsroom bureau manager at Voice of America, for drawing her attention to the sexist media scene her own generation had to endure and which Unscripted examines in detail.

“She would tell me stories of things said to her in the workplace that were shocking, and how she and other women stood up to the people who said them so their kids wouldn’t have to.”

She also thanks her father Ian, a successful film and television writer before he became a film professor, for believing she had a book in her. And she mourns the passing of her grandmother, artist Judy Abrams.

“She used to line-edit my writing when I was young, and I would have sought out her guidance for this book if she were still alive today.”

An investigative reporter and producer for her newspaper’s television channel as well as the newspaper, she hopes she has another book in her.

But most of all, Abrams is simply glad to have a secure perch in an uncertain world. “ Given how tough the newspaper world is these days, I’m very grateful to have a job at the New York Times.”

‘Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Hollywood Media Empire’ is published by Cornerstone Press, £25.

Topics:

Books

Media