John KlugeAt one time the richest person in

AmericaBy Marshall Parrish

JOHN WERNER KLUGE Born (1914-09-21)September 21, 1914

Chemnitz, Germany

Died September 7, 2010(2010-09-07) (aged 95)

Education Columbia University

Occupation Chairman, Metromedia

Wealth US$6.5 billion (2009)[1]

• Kluge was born in Chemnitz, Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1922.

Immigrating

Business Career

• Kluge's major move into media was by purchasing stock in the Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation in the mid-1950s.

• In 1986, Kluge sold the Metromedia television stations to the 20th Century Fox film studio, which is now controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, for a reported $4 billion dollars. Those stations would later form the core of what would become the Fox television network.

• Kluge reached his greatest successes in television by buying the syndication rights to M*A*S*H.

Generosity• In celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Library of

Congress, Kluge donated an unprecedented $60 million to create the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.

• In 2001, Kluge donated his 7,378-acre estate in Albemarle County, Virginia to the University of Virginia. The estate, valued in excess of $45 million, was the largest gift in the University's history.

• He paid for life saving surgery for British cancer patient Craig Shergold after being asked to send a greeting or business card to the young patient. Kluge decided that the child needed medical treatment instead of a Guinness world record for most cards