Content area
Full Text
He's still my chairman. I'll be other people's chairman. I mean I respect my father. He respects me as an adult now, which wasn't the case before. Because I wasn't an adult, you know. Pierre Sutton. The whole thing about retirement really was to step aside so...my son, my daughter and my nieces, my nephews - my young people, generally - might have an opportunity to move forward...Percy Sutton
WHEN PERCY E. SUTTON, the courtly chairman emeritus of Inner City Broadcasting Corp. and the man who resurrected the Apollo Theatre, withheld a loan payment and threatened to close down the beloved venue last month, he was gambling that his lenders would sense his urgency.
But not everyone agreed with Percy Sutton's pressure tactics, least of all his son, Pierre M. Sutton, 44, the new chairman of Inner City. He succeeded his father in January as head of this closely held entertainment and communications company, which is Sutton's limited partner in the landmark Harlem showcase.
"Percy Sutton is more of a political maverick," says his nephew Chuck Sutton. "That is not Pierre's forte, working the political system. That's not an area he has had a lot of expertise in."
In the end, Percy Sutton, the general partner of the Apollo and the one personally responsible for paying back at least $3 million if the group defaults on its loan, made a good-faith payment of $36,000. In doing so, he won a six-month reprieve from his lenders and their commitment to help save a powerful cultural symbol. His public pleas also provoked an outpouring of support from across the country.
Indeed, Percy Sutton's high-profile and highly personal crusade to save the theater, which has consumed more than $20 million in public and private funds for renovation and drained profits from Inner City, has nearly obscured the quiet passage of power to the next generation in this prominent, family-dominated business. Inner City ranked No. 38 on Black Enterprise magazine's list of America's black-owned companies in 1990, with sales of $25 million.
No one disputes that Percy Sutton is one tough act to follow. And while Percy Sutton says of his two children, "I see them as giants," the times may call for truly Herculean efforts by his...
