NEW YORK — With his trim dark suits, gold cuff links and erect bearing, Philippe P. Dauman projects a sense of dignity and reserve that some in Hollywood regard as just this side of pompous. One industry insider called him "the quintessential New York suit."
Dauman, 53, who just finished his first year as chief executive of the entertainment conglomerate Viacom Inc., is such a Manhattanite that he doesn't drive; he never even applied for a license.
In a business dotted with college dropouts and spike-haired hustlers, he's the brainiac takeover lawyer who entered third grade at age 6 and Yale at 16. His sport is golf, his venue East Hampton's posh Maidstone Club, but he's not much of a player and seldom breaks 100.
All of which may help explain why the cool kids love throwing spitballs at Philippe. Even his name bugs them.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch took a couple of sly jabs at Dauman last month at an investor conference in New York. Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, co-founders with Steven Spielberg of Viacom's DreamWorks movie studio, bad-mouthed Dauman recently for showing insufficient respect for Spielberg. In July, Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt publicly skewered Dauman and Viacom at Allen & Co.'s retreat for media moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Heading the list of Dauman's supposed offenses against coolness are, one, that he played a part in the ouster of the charismatic Tom Freston, architect of MTV, whom he succeeded at Viacom last year, and two, that he filed a $1-billion copyright lawsuit last March against Google and the new king of hip: its popular YouTube video-sharing site.
Dauman also is suspect because he holds the world record for getting along with Sumner M. Redstone, the crusty autocrat who built Viacom and looms Zeus-like from his hilltop mansion in Beverly Hills as executive chairman and lead shareholder of Viacom and its sister company, CBS Corp.
Cool or not, Dauman's 25-year relationship with Redstone, 84, is the key to his power at Viacom. It also increases the odds that he will be a force there after Redstone is gone.
Dauman once served as Redstone's personal lawyer and co-executor of his estate. He has been his strategist, secret agent, corporate troubleshooter, fellow board member and, now, top executive. With the circle around Redstone thinning because of ongoing conflict within his family, there may be no one closer to him than Dauman.
