Former owner of The Bitter End, a coffee house/nightclub in Greenwich Village, NY, which gave exposure to many folk-singers and stand-up comics in the 1960s.
Working for Warner Brothers, he was instrumental in getting Woodstock (1970), though Warners at first didn't want to do it (studio execs didn't think it would make any money because, as one put it, "hippies don't go to movies").
Studied at the Wharton School of Business and afterwards took over the Darling Furniture and Toy company formerly operated by his parents, eventually expanding the business to 50 stores and selling it in the late 1950s.