1. Walter Yetnikoff was an American music industry executive who was the president of CBS Records International from 1971 to 1975 and then president and CEO of CBS Records from 1975 to 1990.
17 Facts About Walter Yetnikoff
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Walter Yetnikoff helped launch the careers of Lauper, Culture Club, and Gloria Estefan.
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Billy Joel spoke of how Walter Yetnikoff bought back Joel's publishing rights and gave them to him as a birthday present.
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Also, in its early years, when the cable music station MTV refused to air many music videos by Black, Latino, Asian, and other non-White Anglo acts, Walter Yetnikoff threatened to go public and accuse the station of racism, and stated he would pull all of CBS Records' acts from MTV if the station did not air the video to Jackson's "Billie Jean", a CBS artist, which had become a US number one hit.
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At CBS, Walter Yetnikoff was the chief architect of the sale of CBS Records, to Sony, which in turn created Sony Music Entertainment, in January 1988.
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Walter Yetnikoff's memoir, Howling at the Moon, written with David Ritz, was published in 2004.
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Walter Yetnikoff was born to a Jewish family in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the son of Bella, a bookkeeper, and Max Walter Yetnikoff, a hospital painter.
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Walter Yetnikoff forged a close and lucrative working partnership with Sony executives, thereby establishing a groundbreaking collaboration between a major US company and Japanese corporation.
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Walter Yetnikoff nurtured Michael Jackson's solo career from Off the Wall through Thriller.
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Under Walter Yetnikoff's partial watch, "Weird Al" Yankovic became the highest-selling comedy artist of all time.
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Walter Yetnikoff relentlessly pursued Paul McCartney and finally persuaded him to sign a deal that put the ex-Beatle's North American releases on CBS.
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Walter Yetnikoff was involved in Barbra Streisand's biggest selling album, Guilty with Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees.
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In 1988, Walter Yetnikoff was the chief architect of CBS Records' sale to the Sony Corporation based on his decades-old relationship with Sony.
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Walter Yetnikoff's autobiography, Howling at the Moon, co-written with David Ritz, was published in 2004.
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Walter Yetnikoff recounted in it how a Catholic priest, Monsignor Vincent E Puma, had helped him recover from his addictions to alcohol and drugs.
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Walter Yetnikoff lived with his third wife Lynda Kady and their dog Alexandra in New York City and upstate New York.
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Walter Yetnikoff died of bladder cancer on August 9,2021, at a hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut, two days before his 88th birthday.