The real Jerry Buss was a smart, rich and fun-loving LA sports mogul
In 1984 the owner of the Lakers and future featured character in HBO's current hit series 'Winning Time -- The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty' was still building his empire.
During my life in 1980s LA I had a lot of fun interviewing a bunch of Hollywood celebrities and big-shots in sports for several airline magazines.
Al Davis, the scary owner of the Raiders, was a pleasant trip. So was hanging with Tommy Lasorda in his office under Dodger Stadium.
Interviewing Lakers owner Jerry Buss meant I got to hang out with him for a couple of hours at his humble hilltop home, Pickfair, where Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks used to live.
Jerry Buss
Air Cal Magazine
January, 1984
It's a good thing Jerry Hatten Buss has a passion for math, because when he wheels and deals, it's usually with some pretty big numbers.
In 1979, when the affable 6' 1" multimillionaire bought himself a sports empire — the Los Angeles Lakers, the L.A. Kings and the 17,505-seat Forum in Inglewood — he and his partners plunked down $67.5 million.
Not long afterwards, Buss himself put a cool $1.02 million down on a new home, the legendary Pickfair, a 42-room hunk of Hollywood history with a $5.4-million price tag.
But Buss can afford his monthly mortgage payments of about $37,000. He estimates his personal wealth — which includes the Lakers, the Kings, the L.A. Lazers indoor soccer team, the L.A. Strings pro tennis team, and real estate holdings —at about $50 million.
It's a conservative figure. Newspaper stories estimate that Mariani-Buss Associates, the real-estate company in which he's a partner, is worth as much as $350 million. The company's properties include the Forum, several large resort hotels, shopping centers, and 4,000 L.A. apartment units.
It's been a nice piece of entrepreneurship for a pool-hustling kid from Kemmerer, Wyoming, whose interest in mathematics led him out of poverty to a Ph.D. in Chemistry at USC at age 24.
Jobs in the aerospace industry proved too regimented and too impersonalized, however, and teaching chemistry at USC didn't pay enough. So in 1959 Buss and a chemical engineer friend named Frank Mariani bought a small West Los Angeles apartment building for $12,500 down.
Then they bought property after property, and Buss, an admitted "Monopoly" addict, soon left science altogether, going into real estate full-time and using his math skills to make millions.
Today, Buss is a celebrity-about-town who's known as much for his Hefner-esque social life and his blue jeans and cowboy boots as he is for his sports empire.
Privately, however, this 51-year-old is a voracious reader, a student of great literature, and a coin and stamp collector. With his fancy cars and beautiful women, Buss lives out other men's fantasies -- but his own fantasies include winning a Nobel Prize in literature or joining the Bolshoi Ballet, not slam-dunking over Moses Malone.
Divorced, he is a devoted father whose children share the work as well as the wealth. They are being groomed to run the family businesses; John, 27, is president of the L.A. Lazers; Jim, 24, is co-owner with his father of Knot 2 Stables; Jeanie, 22, has been running the L.A. Strings pro tennis team since she was 20. Jane, 20, is a USC student, but she, too, may end up attending what John has called "Jerry Buss University."
Buss is said to be at his most relaxed at Pickfair, where I interviewed him in the gigantic living room where long ago Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Pickford once screened silent films for their Hollywood pals.
Jerry Buss
AIRCAL: You've been described as a combination of Hugh Hefner and the Marlboro Man, a combination of Horatio Alger and Hefner. You're known for your women, your money, your wheeling and dealing, for having fun and living the good life. Who are you, really?
BUSS: There's probably two descriptions you'd need to get an accurate picture of who I am — one would be my social life, one my private life. The description of my social life, although perhaps blown out of proportion, is reasonably accurate. The description of my private life is, in fact, not accurate at all.
AIRCAL: What's the reason for that?
BUSS: The description of my social life has carried over into my private life. If you were around me other than at discotheques, you'd see a very different person.
For one thing, I read constantly. I don't read contemporary things, I read the classics. I try to keep up with science. I subscribe to at least five or six science journals, such as Scientific American, Archeology Today, Natural History, etc.
In addition, I spend a large amount of time looking through stamps and ancient coins, trying to decipher the markings, trying to identify the various emperors and rulers whose pictures are on the coins.
If you saw me under those circumstances, you'd find that this is a very studious person who was obviously an ex-professor of chemistry, which, in fact, I was — and which is, in fact, what I am. And that is an accurate description of my normal life.
AIRCAL: Then you're not at discos every night?
BUSS: I spend many hours doing these things. But I do work 50 to 60 hours a week — long, hard hours. I don't leave the hard work to others. I become actively involved in all aspects of my business.
But then, there does come a time in the evening, around ten or 11, when I head for the discotheques. I often eat dinner as late as 12. I usually end up closing them around 2 a.m. Sometimes I play pool, court the ladies, whatever, until three or four in the morning. I get to bed, and I'm up at ten.
AIRCAL: What books do you read?
BUSS: I have attempted to read at least one book by all the Nobel Prize winners in literature. If someone were to compile the 500 greatest authors of all time, I'd be tempted to read some of each one of their works.
AIRCAL: For your own satisfaction?
BUSS: The best answer to that might be that someone asked what I wanted to be when I was 12. It wasn't a cowboy, fireman, policeman, or even a chemist. It was, "I'd like to be a scholar.”
AIRCAL: You were a specialist - a Ph.D. in Chemistry - but you have general interests. Did you have those early in college?
BUSS: I became a chemist to pursue my true love, which is math. At the time I was in school, there were no jobs for mathematicians. You could become only a teacher, and teachers were underpaid. Chemistry was a compromise choice to gain a meaningful career.
AIRCAL: Yet, when you pursued a chemistry career you got a little upset.
BUSS: Yeah, I pursued it for four or five years and, really, what I wanted to do was go back and teach; but I couldn't accept the teaching salaries. So what I did was start a part-time real-estate business, hoping to build that into an auxiliary income so my teaching salary plus that income would equal my industrial salary.
AIRCAL: So you didn't necessarily start out to become a millionaire?
BUSS: No, no. I wanted total financial independence, which is a little different. I wanted an income comparable to industrial scientific salaries, but without being tied to the specific duties to earn it.
Many times considered trying to become a Guggenheim Fellow or a Fulbright Scholar, but those dollars were always slightly below what felt was necessary to live on. I was married and had 1, 2, 3 or 4 children, depending on the time you choose.
AIRCAL: Do you think the media have distorted your character in any major sense?
BUSS: The media have done an accurate job, but I think they've emphasized the part that's more interesting to read, and perhaps it's become distorted because of the public's demands in reading. I certainly have seen more references to me being like Hefner then being like Linus Pauling — but I've spent more hours imitating the latter than the former.
AIRCAL: Timothy Leary has said that Southern California is the hippest spot in America, and that the people who come here are the hippest, most industrious, innovative, go-getters, etc. What do you think of Southern California -- the lifestyle and the people?
BUSS: I agree. This is the place, this is where it's happening. It seems to me that all of the innovative things are coming out of Southern California — architecture, style, speech. I'm probably the most avid fan of California.
AIRCAL: You come from a poor back ground in Wyoming. Your mother was divorced. You had to go to work early. Yet you escaped that life. Why did you get out while so many others didn't?
BUSS: Probably because I had spent some years in California before going back to Wyoming. I spent the first eight or nine years of my life in Wyoming, the next four or five in California. I had become familiar with California and loved it very much. From the day I moved back to Wyoming, I always felt I'd ultimately come out to California.
AIRCAL: How wealthy are you?
BUSS: It's awfully hard to say. The kinds of things I own tend to be things that are not bought and sold every day, so you really don't know how much they're worth.
It's difficult to estimate in dollars what I'm worth, but it'd involve real estate holdings of perhaps $20 million, coupled with ownership of the Lakers and Kings. I think that'd be accurate, and I'll let everybody guess what the Lakers and Kings are worth. I'd say my personal wealth is in excess of $50 million.
AIRCAL: Do you have any big dreams or goals left?
BUSS: Oh, yeah. I have quite a few unfulfilled goals. Business-wise, one of my goals is to establish a regional sports pay TV station. Also, I'd like at some time to buy a football team or a baseball team, or perhaps both. I would like to try other sports and see how it works.
And some time I'd like to produce a motion picture and a Broadway play. I don't mean produce in the sense of my investing money in it. I mean produce in the sense of producing that is, me, individually doing that. It's something I'd like to do as an artistic expression.
As for my personal goals, I'd like very much to continue to acquire my stamps and coins and make them into one of the finest collections. I'd like to get married, I'd like to travel extensively in the next ten years, and continue my studies of literature.
AIRCAL: What do you have to say you could say in a movie?
BUSS: That's hard for me to answer, quite honestly. I guess because I read a lot of books, I feel there are particular works that I'd like to translate to the screen.
AIRCAL: Anything specific?
BUSS: Well, yeah. But I'd rather not say.
AIRCAL: You've said that one of your better ideas was the way you changed the pricing structure of tickets for the Lakers. What kind of changes did you make?
BUSS: Generally, there was a waiting list of thousands of people for the very good tickets, whereas the less expensive ones usually represented empty seats. My thinking was very simple: the expensive tickets must be underpriced — that's why so many people wanted them. The inexpensive tickets must be overpriced — even though they were cheaper — so I reduced them.
The end result was, I filled the empty seats, which meant that for the first time in 15 or 16 years in the NBA, L.A. actually had the largest attendance. That's unusual, because the hotbed of professional basketball is not considered to be L.A.
Because of the increase of the other prices, which I considered to be undervalued, we now lead the league in dollar attendance, as well. So that idea made the Lakers very successful and very popular, simultaneously. Similar ideas are being used across the country.
AIRCAL: You've described yourself as an "ultra-ultraconservative," and conservatives often pride themselves on having good economic instincts. Are you interested in economics?
BUSS: I am. As a matter of fact, I lecture on economics three or four times a year at various universities — not because. I'm a trained economist, but based on my experience. I've used economics successfully in my businesses, and some times it's nice to hear the practical side of economics as well as the theoretical side.
But I'm a big Milton Friedman fan, and have a number of his books upstairs. It's more than a casual interest. When I described myself as an "ultraconservative," the end part of that statement was that I was an "economic conservative." I don't think I'd describe myself as a "conservative..."
AIRCAL: You once said you didn't care much about politics. But you gave money to Barry Goldwater Jr.'s senate primary campaign in 1982. Have you changed your tune?
BUSS: When I feel that the issue being decided is an economic issue, then I'll support the conservatives, both verbally and through contributions. I've always felt that if the country's economy is sound, more people will benefit.
I'm one of those who say, "You should worry about having a bigger pie, rather than how to slice a smaller pie."
AIRCAL: Are you a fan of Ronald Reagan?
BUSS: Yes. Yes.
AIRCAL: What do you think of his policies so far?
BUSS: Exceptional. I think that had the runaway inflation continued, the controls. which were beginning to creep in would have spread by now through every conceivable phase — we would have a controlled society, a socialist society. I think he singlehandedly prevented our swing to socialism.
AIRCAL: You've said that most of your friends are liberals.
BUSS: I think most liberals find the overriding issues in politics are social issues. So they describe themselves as liberals. But even most liberals — at least the ones I'm acquainted with — conduct their own economic affairs as conservatives. They are aware that if you use a credit card you're likely to get a bill and, ultimately, it'll have to be paid.
AIRCAL: Back to books... what was the best one you ever read?
BUSS: I'd have to think about that for a while; but certainly one of the great books I've read is Dr. Zhivago, by Pasternak. For fiction, I like the Russian novelists.
On the other hand, Cyrano de Bergerac has to be one of the great books of all time. In nonfiction, my favorite author is Barbara Tuchman, I've read every book she ever wrote — Stilwell and the American Experience, The Guns of August, The Distant Mirror. She's just brilliant.
AIRCAL: You stress education a lot. But is your success due so much to education, or to other things?
BUSS: I think it's totally education. There's the formal aspect of education, but much more important than that is the acceptance you have if you have an education. It also gives you a very good sense of confidence in yourself.
AIRCAL: Yet, your son Jim dropped out of USC as a sophomore and went to work for you.
BUSS: John and Jim both started at USC and dropped out. But what they could gain from an education was a little bit different. They didn't need any doors opened. Their names opened the door. They didn't need any specific education because, clearly, they didn't need to know how to synthesize aspirin.
What they needed to know was how to run a sports team. So it was more practical for them to leam by doing rather than reading.
My daughter Jeanie has been running her sports team (the Strings pro tennis team) for three years. She certainly has a lot of confidence in her ability.
If, for whatever reason, I decided to retire tomorrow and said to her, "You're going to have to run the Strings for the next three years,” I would not frighten her. She does have that confidence.
AIRCAL: Of the Lakers, Kings, Lazers and Strings, which has brought you the most pleasure?
BUSS: The Lakers, because they've been so successful. The Kings are capable of bringing me that much happiness, but so far we've had a rather dismal fortune.
AIRCAL: Last season was the first year in ten that the Kings didn't make the playoffs. You once said if you can't produce a good team, then you should step aside.
BUSS: Yeah. If I don't have a good team this year — because I believe I have a good team — and if they don't play well, then I think I'll have to say at this point that I don't understand the game well enough to direct its fortunes.
AIRCAL: Do you have to be able to understand the game?
BUSS: I believe so. Unless the owner really understands the sport, it's unlikely he's going to produce a winner. Certainly there are people who do understand the game who don't produce winners, because there are a few winners and a lot of losers. But would rather give someone else a chance.
AIRCAL: How closely involved are you with your teams?
BUSS: Every trade, I okay. That's part of it. I also select the coach. That's very important, and the owner really contributes heavily to that decision. But thirdly, you select the general manager.
AIRCAL: Are you a George Steinbrenner-type owner?
BUSS: No, I'm not. Steinbrenner and a couple of other people have really transcended the general manager's position and gone into the coaching situation. I don't do that.
AIRCAL: You don't say, "Start Norm Nixon," or "Bench Jamal Wilkes"?
BUSS: No. On very, very rare occasions I've made suggestions directly to coaches. People like Steinbrenner are intimately involved on a daily basis with their coaches and are making demands. I don't do that.
AIRCAL: Is it accurate to say that your teams aren't toys to you? That they're investments as much as they are fun?
BUSS: They are fun. But some people have gone into sports on the basis that they'll invest a large sum of money and seek no return, I would not be willing to do that.
If I go into sports, I'll seek some return. It clearly is a lesser return than I could get by investing a comparable amount of money in a different business. So, to a pure businessman, I'm playful. To someone who's playful, I'm a pure businessman.
AIRCAL: Why have you had this strong attraction to sports? Did you ever play any sports?
BUSS: A little bit, not a lot. I've always enjoyed watching sports. I'm just a sports fan. I'm not a jock; I never really wanted to be.
AIRCAL: Do you attach any metaphorical significance to sports? Do you see it as a metaphor for life?
BUSS: Yeah, I do. To me, that's exactly the point. A game is very similar to life. It starts out, has a midpoint, it ends. Sometimes there's even overtime. There are fouls, unfairness, injuries, high drama, excitement, exhilaration of success.
I don't want to sound like ABC Sports here — but when you lose in life there's a similar emotion to when you lose in a game. When you win, there's a similar emotion.
AIRCAL: What, then, is your favorite sport?
BUSS: Track and field.
AIRCAL: What about dealing with superstars and superstar agents?
BUSS: Most of the superstars are really fun to be with, to talk to and socialize with. There are one or two exceptions who've let it go to their heads. They've lost their identity as human beings. They only see themselves as others see them-that is, as superstars. They look up to themselves.
But 95 to 98 percent don't lose that. They're aware of their accomplishments, but they're still inside looking out, instead of becoming one of the outside people looking in.
AIRCAL: You don't resent paying them so much?
BUSS: No. Not at all. Obviously, I object sometimes to having them request a little bit more than they're worth. But, of course, then I have to set myself up as the judge of who's worth what.
AIRCAL: Have you been good for the National Basketball Association? Have you made any impact on it?
BUSS: I've made the NBA more fashionable. In LA, prior to my joining the Lakers, it was not. I think everybody in L.A. is really aware of the Lakers and really enjoys the games. I've brought that aspect to it. If I've made a contribution to the NBA, I hope that it's been in attendance and exposure to the media.
Also, you see, what if you own a basketball franchise in Denver and it's worth $8 million, and the Lakers sell for $16 million? And then, because of my efforts, the Lakers are worth $30 million — has it affected the value of your franchise? And if this answer is yes, then I've contributed a hell of a lot to the NBA. Because there's no question that the Lakers are worth $30 million.
To that extent, I've contributed a lot to the perceived value of basketball franchises. I have shown that if you work at it, if you are innovative, you can become very successful in this sport.
AIRCAL: You use a lot of numbers. You seem to like math and numbers.
BUSS: I've always looked at numbers as another language. If you were Italian, I might ask you to speak Italian. A comparable question to me is, "Do you speak numbers?"
I think in numbers, and illustrate in numbers. And there are times when words don't go through my head, just numbers.
When I used to play Monopoly, which I really enjoy, I used to play without exchanging money. Money would be exchanged, but only mentally. I got so that I could play a two-man game without exchanging money.
AIRCAL: Who have been important influences on you?
BUSS: My mother, a high school teacher named Walt Garrett and my all time hero, Sidney Benson from USC, my chemistry professor. To me, Benson was the perfect man. He was brilliant enough to write a chemistry textbook, but he also had the fabulous ability to attract some of the world's greatest beauties. He was the most understanding person I ever met.
He was the ultimate liberal — not your Cadillac-Communist type, not the guilt-ridden individual — not that at all. But kind, understanding. The man was fabulous, totally devoid of any prejudice.
He was unquestionably the most widely read person I've ever met. So he has all of these things that I always wanted to have. He's funny, a hell of a tennis player. He's my hero, all the way through. A fabulous man.
AIRCAL: You've been with your business partner, Frank Mariani, for a long time. How important has he been to your success?
BUSS: The reason we're such good. partners is that we fit together like pieces of a puzzle, and we never have a conflict. I like to think up new ideas, and then I like to start them. But I really don't like to get into the details and finish them. In other. words, I'm the scientist, the inventor. He's the engineer.
AIRCAL: What's the biggest mistake you've ever made?
BUSS: Economically, the most I've lost was in World Team Tennis. That's my biggest economic error, but I don't look at it as a mistake, because I learned things there that later saved me millions when I owned the Lakers and the Kings.
Let's just say it was a private university with an exorbitant tuition. From 1973 to ‘78, I lost roughly $5 million.
AIRCAL: Are you happy with what you've become?
BUSS: If I knew me, I'd be my own best friend. Because I like me. But I wouldn't like me any more or less if I didn't own the Lakers.
I've had a lot of fun, but I think you're hooking me up with being the owner of the Lakers. That isn't me. Those are possessions I have, and it's been fun, and it's been fortunate. But I don't need them.