Max Palevsky

Early life

Palevsky was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Jewish immigrant parents — Izchok (Isadore) Palevsky (born May 10, 1890, in Pinsk, in the Brest Region of the Russian Empire [now in Belarus], died September 27, 1969, in Los Angeles), and Sarah Greenblatt (born May 16, 1894, died December 28, 1949, in Chicago). Izchok had arrived in Baltimore from Bremen, Germany, on the S.S. Brandenburg on March 18, 1910, while Sarah immigrated around 1916. Palevsky's parents spoke Yiddish fluently, but little English. His father, a house painter, did not have a car and had to use the Chicago streetcars to transport his equipment.

The youngest of three children, Palevsky grew up at 1925½ Hancock Street in Chicago. His older brother, Harry (September 16, 1919 — September 17, 1990), was a physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb at Los Alamos National Laboratory; his sister, Helen (born 1920), married Melvin M. Futterman (December 28, 1918 – March 14, 1989).

After graduating from public high school in Chicago, Palevsky volunteered for the US Army Air Corps as a weatherman during World War II and served from 1943 to 1946. For his training he went for a year to the University of Chicago for basic science and mathematics and Yale University for electronics. He was then sent to New Guinea, which was the Air Force's central base for electronics in the South Pacific. After the war, the GI Bill made it financially feasible for Palevsky to earn a B.S. in mathematics and a B.Ph. in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1948. Palevsky also did graduate work in philosophy at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of Chicago.

As a venture capitalist, Palevsky helped to fund many companies, including Intel, which grew to become one of the nation's leading semiconductor companies and a pioneer in the development of memory chips and microprocessors. Palevsky became a director along with Arthur Rock, who helped bankroll SDS, at the company's founding, on July 18, 1968, as NM Electronics Corporation, a name later changed to Intel (August 6, 1968). Intel was funded with $2 million in venture capital assembled by Arthur Rock. Palevsky became a director emeritus in February 1998.

Palevsky also became a director and chairman of Rolling Stone, which he rescued from financial ruin in 1970 by buying a substantial share of the stock. While on the board he became friends with the late Hunter S. Thompson, inventor of what came to be called Gonzo journalism. In December 1970, Cinema V, a movie-theater distribution operation, entered film production in a joint venture, Cinema X, with Palevsky. Palevsky went into independent production with Peter Bart, former production vice president of Paramount Pictures in November 1973, with a Paramount contract to produce six features in three years. Palevsky produced and bankrolled several Hollywood films, including Fun with Dick and Jane and Islands in the Stream both with Peter Bart in 1977, and Endurance in 1998. Author Albert Goldman dedicated his controversial 1988 biography The Lives of John Lennon to Palevsky. In June 1977, Palevsky was elected to the board of the American Ballet Theatre.

Palevsky also served as a director and chairman of the Board of Silicon Systems Inc. of Tustin, California, from April 1983 until February 1984; as chairman and chief executive of the board of Daisy Systems Corporation, a maker of computer systems used to design electronic circuits based in Mountain View, California; and, from November 1984 to 1999, as a director of Komag Corp., a Milpitas, California, based maker of data storage media.

Palevsky also collected art, particularly Japanese woodblock prints, and gave generously to establish and maintain institutions of visual art. He established the Palevsky Design Pavilion at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. He also built an Arts & Crafts collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and donated $1 million to help establish the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2001, he promised his art holdings to LACMA, but his collection of 250 works was scheduled to be sold by Christie's in the Fall of 2010.

Max Palevsky funded the American Cinematheque's refurbishment of the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. The theater re-opened in January 2005 and bears his name.

Palevsky was married five times and divorced four times. He had five children. He was married to his first wife, Mary Joan Yates (Joan Palevsky), from 1952 to 1968. With her huge divorce settlement, the largest at that time in California, she became a renowned philanthropist. With Max, she had two children, Madeleine and Nicholas Palevsky. Joan died in 2006. His second wife was Sara Jane Brown, whom he married on September 6, 1969. In November 1972, he married Lynda L. Edelstein, his third wife, the mother of his sons, Alexander and Jonathan Palevsky. Jodie Evans, his fourth wife and widow, is a political activist and mother of Matthew Palevsky.

Palevsky owned homes notable for their architecture, furniture, and art collections. Three California Houses: The Homes of Max Palevsky featured architecture and design by Ettore Sottsass of the Memphis group, Craig Ellwood, George Washington Smith, and Coy Howard.

In 1985 and 1988, Palevsky was named to the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. His estimated worth for those years was $600 million (1985) and $640 million (1988).

Palevsky died at the age of 85 of heart failure on May 5, 2010, at his home in Beverly Hills, California.

Palevsky was a prominent member of the Malibu Maifa, an informal group of wealthy American Jewish men who donated money to liberal and progressive causes and politicians during 1960s–1990s.

In 1972 Palevsky donated $319,000 to George McGovern, and in 1973 he managed Tom Bradley's first successful campaign for mayor of Los Angeles. He made numerous friends and allies on the California political scene, including former governor Gray Davis, and was elected to serve on Common Cause's National Governing Board in 1973. Many were dismayed at Palevsky's $1 million contribution in support of California Proposition 25, a campaign-finance reform initiative. He said to Newsweek: "I am making this million-dollar contribution in hopes that I will never again legally be allowed to write huge checks to California political candidates."

Despite his membership in the Malibu Mafia, Palevsky was less willing to support other Malibu Mafia members in efforts such as their fight to break up Big Oil and was absent from meetings discussing the formation of the Energy Action Committee (EAC). In 1980, Palevsky would also break with other members of the Malibu Mafia who made efforts to aid the U.S. Presidential campaigns of Ted Kennedy and John B. Anderson, and supported the re-election campaign of Jimmy Carter.

Palevsky raised funds in 2007 to help Barack Obama with the 2008 United States presidential election.