Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 214 Undertaker Ross

"Steve Ross is not his original name. His real name is Steven Rechnitz. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. His family background is not rich, but it is also very good."

“Although his family went bankrupt during the Great Depression, he attended college at a private college and then moved to Manhattan to live with his uncle.”

"His uncle owned a huge clothing store in Manhattan, located in the middle of Fifth Avenue. The business was very good, and he provided customized services to some wealthy people all year round. Therefore, Steve Ross had opportunities that ordinary people could hardly get. In addition, he was very handsome when he was young. Therefore, he only worked there for a year before he was spotted by a rich girl named Carol Rosenthal."

"How rich is Rosenthal? In the last century, more than 50% of the funeral homes in New York City were owned by her family. Before she met Steve Ross, her family was already the second largest funeral company in America."

"The love of the wealthy daughter allowed Steve Ross to see the opportunity for a class jump. In addition, his uncle's reputation in Manhattan was very good, so with the help of his uncle, Steve Ross successfully married Rosenthal. The girl in the family, and then...he just soared into the sky.”

At this point, Spielberg paused.

Because he had already noticed that the two people opposite him looked surprised.

Ethan and Evelyn's confusion made him smile and take a sip of his drink, then he said, "Surprised, huh? But you heard it right, Steve Ross was able to succeed because he was handsome enough."

This fact made Ethan feel a little emotional. He didn't expect that the opponent who had disgusted him was actually a gigolo? But compared to this, Ethan was more curious about how a gigolo became the chairman of Warner?
As he asked, Spielberg sighed with emotion and explained: "It's very simple, because the Rosenthal family rejects Steve Ross..."

According to Wang Dachui's routine, after marrying a beautiful, rich and beautiful woman, the next step is to reach the peak of his life.

And this is what Steve Ross really wants.

Unfortunately, the Rosenthal family did not like this tailor from Brooklyn. Even though Steve Ross's wife told her father that Steve Ross could familiarize himself with the family business on her behalf and take over part of the family business, her brothers and sisters did not agree.

According to the process in the novel, what should be staged next is a power grab, but Steve Ross is not a normal person. Since the heir of the Rosenthal family does not welcome him, he will not confront him head-on, but change his perspective and see what the Rosenthal family's resources can bring to him.

During his search, he found that the funeral home's vehicles were only used for a short period of time during the day, and when the time for picking up passengers was over, they would be parked in the company and wasted time. This situation led him to find his father-in-law and tell him that he wanted to borrow the vehicles when they were not in use and rent them out.

Since Steve Ross did not directly seize power and fully respected the Rosenthal family, his father-in-law agreed with his idea, which allowed him to earn his first pot of gold.

"Wait a moment--"

Hearing this, Evelin finally couldn’t sit still anymore.

The girl interrupted Spielberg's story and gave him an incredulous look.

"Steve Ross took the funeral home car out for rent?"

"Oh Sxxt! Isn't this behavior disgusting?"

The girl's facial features were tense and she looked gloomy.

"Of course it's disgusting."

Spielberg nodded and said, "To be honest, I also felt disgusted when I heard his story, but he did make money from this, because the Rosenthal family at that time received high-end clients in New York, and they picked up and dropped off guests in luxury cars. Those cars were very popular after entering the market."

"Okay, okay, okay..." Ethan raised his hand to signal to stop.

Although he admitted that Steve Ross was a talented person for coming up with such a money-making idea, he also felt that doing this was really damn unlucky.

"Let's skip this part." He waved his hand, "Otherwise all this food will be thrown away."

"I understand, I understand."

Spielberg smiled and nodded, and continued: "In short, after he made his first fortune with his brain, the Rosenthal family looked at Steve Ross differently. They gave him more power and wanted to see what he could do."

"Then……"

"Steve Ross found a new revenue stream for the Rosenthal Family Funeral Home."

“That means charging for parking.”

"It's protection money."

Parking fees actually appeared in the early 20th century, but around the 1950s, this type of fee was not as common as it is in the 21st century, and there was no such strange incident as charging by the 15-minute time limit and owing a maximum of 60,000 yuan.

The only places that can actually organize people to collect fees are either large national parks or commercial areas in megacities, such as those in front of funeral homes, where customers who choose to park are allowed to park for free.

But in Steve Ross's eyes, this behavior was a waste, so he unified the planning of all the funeral homes in his father-in-law's family, set those parking spaces for private use, and everyone who came had to pay.

This behavior also made him a lot of money.

After all, when people are in grief and going in and out of a funeral home, they don't have the time to worry about parking fees. In this case, as long as they don't charge too much, it's free money.

After the Rosenthal family discovered that Steve Ross seemed to have a real business mind, his father-in-law controlled the family company to acquire other companies in the same industry and become the number one funeral service company in the United States. At the same time, he handed over the actual management rights of the company to Steve Ross, allowing him to officially manage the company.

When this fact came out, Steve Ross finally tasted the power, and the first thing he did after taking over the company was to expand externally.

Since those who were able to collect parking fees in that era basically had a background in the underworld, he teamed up with the Jewish gangster Abner Zwillman.

The two parties merged all their car rental companies and parking fee collection companies.

Overnight, Steve Ross became the king of car rentals and parking fees in New York City.

As for the reason?

Very simple!
Abner Zwierman was known as the Al Capone of New Jersey! He was the man who used military armored vehicles to transport alcohol from California to New York during the Prohibition era!
This guy can guarantee Steve Ross will receive the money 100%!
When Steve Ross had a steady stream of cash flow...

The drama of mergers and acquisitions and expansion naturally emerged.

In the early 1960s, they acquired and merged more than 60% of the car rental and parking service companies on the East Coast, and also started the car wash business;
When the company's development reached a bottleneck, they entered the field of construction and became real estate tycoons in New York, starting to develop residential and commercial real estate;
Entering the entertainment industry through acquisition of talent agencies;

Became owner of DC by purchasing National Journal Publishing Company;

He entered the music field by acquiring Atlantic Records;

At the same time, it acquired Warner and directly became one of the Hollywood giants.

It was because of this action that Warner officially owned DC.

"Uh - quite inspiring -"

After listening to Spielberg's description, Ethan couldn't help but admire it. Although he and Warner were enemies, he had to admit that Steve Ross was quite good at playing the financial game.

Diversify the company's operations through acquisitions?

This is indeed a great method.

This is the method used by John Malone, who was known as the Genghis Khan of the American media industry, founded TCI and sold it to AT and T for a sky-high price of 50 billion in 1999.

And Stan Kroenke, the owner of the Premier League's Arsenal and the Denver Nuggets of the Mosaic League, who married the Walton family heir, also likes to expand in this way.

As long as the company's financial problems do not occur, this method is the fastest way to expand personal wealth.

"So...why haven't I heard of these things?" Ethan asked.

He had looked up Steve Ross's information before, but all he got were normal responses.

This question made Spielberg shrug his shoulders.

"Would you write someone above me on your face?"

"Puff——" This rhetorical question made Evelin laugh out loud. Hiding one's background is something that all successful people like to do.

This has nothing to do with being self-reliant. It is purely about hiding one's background so that one can have more tricks up one's sleeve when facing the enemy. It is like playing bridge. The first defender to play a card can either throw an A first to take the winning trick, or throw a small card first to give up the right to play and wait for an opportunity.

"Okay."

"Do you use these things to judge that Steve Ross is the mastermind?" Ethan asked.

"Yes," Spielberg nodded.

"But I didn't see any flaws." Ethan spread his hands.

Spielberg was not impatient and continued, "The flaw lies in Steve Ross's former partner Abner Zwierman. During the Prohibition period, he took the goods from Seagram's hands. At the same time, he was also a friend of the Genovese family."

"!"

When the name Genovese family appeared, Ethan and his sister looked at each other.

At this moment, the two finally understood why Spielberg said that Steve Ross was able to make the guys who were targeting Columbia Pictures lose interest in Warner Burbank Studios after revealing the dirty laundry of Columbia Pictures! Because the Genovese family is a special mafia!
They are Americans from Corleone, Sicily, Italy!

And MGM boss Kirk Kerkorian…

But the casino was developed with their money!

Oh no, there's Seagram in there too!
Kirk Kerkorian’s start-up capital was provided by Seagram!
"MFxxk!"

Ethan, who had straightened out the entire network of relationships, immediately started cursing.

"Together?"

He stared piercingly at Spielberg.

"In the same group."

Spielberg took a deep breath and nodded.

This fact made Ethan frown!
Although Spielberg's ideas were a bit far-fetched, when the backgrounds of these people kept appearing like nesting dolls, Ethan felt that the truth might be right in front of him!
"First of all, we have a feud with Warner and it won't end until one of us dies."

After returning to the hotel, Ethan spread out a huge piece of white paper on the table in the conference room and wrote and drew.

"Secondly, Warner's current boss Steve Ross and MGM's current boss Kirk Kerkorian are friends who are bound together by interests. Kirk Kerkorian must know Steve Ross's plan, and Steve Ross also knows that Kirk Kerkorian will return to Hollywood after building the MGM Grand in Las Vegas."

"At the same time, they also know that both sides are very interested in video games."

"In this case, our cooperation with Columbia gave them an opportunity, because Steve Ross felt that Columbia Pictures had taken his things, and Kirk Kerkorian wanted to acquire Hollywood Pictures to make MGM, which had lost its complete production and promotion capabilities, stronger again, so they hit it off."

"They've blown up the check counterfeiting case!"

"They want to disrupt our filming plans while attacking Colombia!"

When Ethan connected all the names on the paper, the extremely clear case process made him clench his fists. If he had felt that the Colombian check counterfeiting case was a bit inexplicable before, then now... "MFxxk!!! A bunch of sons of bitches!!!"

The motive was clear and the events made sense, so he slammed his fist on the table.

There was a muffled bang, and cracks appeared on the white paper.

Evelin, who witnessed all of this, folded her arms and leaned against the table and asked, "Are you sure?" As if she felt that her question was not obvious enough, she added, "Do you think what Steven said is true? Is it possible that he is lying?"

“Because he’s a friend of David Geffen.”

The story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is the best test of human nature.

If Spielberg had not concealed his relationship with Columbia's David Beigelman before, Evelyn might have accepted his story in its entirety, but now...

The girl thought that Spielberg might want to help David Geffen, so he asked Ethan to focus his attention on Steve Ross, the boss of Warner Communications.

This idea made Ethan frown and think about it. After a moment, he shook his head and said, "I think what Steven said this time should be true, because Warner and we are enemies."

"Even if he didn't say that today, I would still fight Warner to the end."

"There's no way I'm going to let him go unless he leaves the video game market."

"More importantly, our company does not have any patents for video games. Philips cannot use patents to attack us. It's all because Ralph Baer is a consultant in our company."

"If he wants us to help David Geffen, he can ask for that."

"When he was able to go against the ideas of his mentor Sidney Sheinberg and negotiate with Universal, it was impossible for him not to know what kind of bargaining chips he had with me."

“But he didn’t use any of that.”

"So this can only prove one thing."

"He genuinely likes video games, and he still wants to be friends with me."

"Of course, there is another possibility. That is that his father told him that as long as President Fred is still alive, the lineup of Stanford, HP, Lockheed, and Thor can easily crush Steve Ross."

"No matter how good the funeral industry is, it can't beat the military industry!"

"If Steve Ross's background was strong enough, the California court would have accepted Warner's lawsuit against us long ago. How could they have ignored it until now?"

"If Steve Ross's background was strong enough, news smearing us would have been all over the place long ago, and those media outlets wouldn't be as silent as they are now!"

"Besides, finding the real culprit is also Steven's goal, right?"

"Although David Beigelman did something as bad as forging checks, he did help Steven and his good brother George Lucas after all."

Ethan stared at his sister seriously and said in a deep voice, "To put it bluntly, if nothing unexpected happens, Steven wants revenge more than I do."

Evelin nodded slightly at the clear and coherent words. She stared at the relationship diagram in front of her and asked, "What are you going to do now? Officially declare war on Warner?"

This question made Ethan laugh. "Declare war? No, No, No..."

"We're already at war."

"There are only two things we need to do now."

"The first thing is to investigate Steve Ross's true background and see if Steven is lying. And the second thing... since they like to play sneak attacks, let's tell them that all conspiracies are vulnerable in the face of absolute power."

"Since Steve Ross is still making moves, it proves that he will not give up the video game market. In this case, we just need to find the release time of his new product and then confront him head-on..."

Since Steve Ross is unsportsmanlike, keep reaching out!
Then don't blame Ethan Jones for picking up a knife and stabbing people!
"You can't beat me openly, so you hide in the dark and become a covetous person?"

"Ah--"

"Just a bedbug!"

Note: ①Steve Ross did achieve class transition by eating gigolos, because his main business is the largest funeral company in the United States, so he has always had a nickname in the United States, called the Undertaker. ②Steve Ross's partner in the article, the gangster Abner Zwierman, is mixed with the "gangster accountant" Meyer Lansky. This guy owns a large number of casinos in Las Vegas, Cuba, London and other places. He let the Italian mafia enter Las Vegas. The Flamingo Hotel acquired by MGM's boss Kirk Kerkorian was held on his behalf by the mafia. Under their matchmaking, Steve Ross and Kirk Kerkorian have a very good relationship. ③If you watch American entertainment, you should know that Seagram's Bronfman sold DuPont shares to buy Universal. This is not a sudden idea of ​​their family. Their friends like Steve Ross and Kirk Kerkorian are all in the entertainment industry.

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(End of this chapter)