John Kluge At one time the richest person in America By Marshall Parrish

Born ( )September 21, 1914 Chemnitz, Germany ChemnitzGermany Died September 7, 2010( ) (aged 95) Education Columbia University Occupation ChairmanChairman, MetromediaMetromedia Wealth US$US$6.5 billion (2009) [ US$6.5 billion (2009) [1] [ US$ [1]

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

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.

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