Broad, Eli, 1933-2021, American
financier and philanthropist, Bronx, N.Y., Michigan State College (BA,
1954). Broad was the son of poor Lithuania-Jewish immigrants; his family
moved to Detroit, Mi., when he was seven years old. After graduating college
with a degree in accounting. he in that field for a period of time, and then
formed a partnership with his brother-in-law to build inexpensive housing,
beginning in Detroit but then expanding to Phoenix and Los Angeles. The firm
purchased an insurance company, Sun Life, in 1971, which Broad later sold to
the American International Group for $18 billion. With a lifelong interest
in contemporary art, he supported several museums in Los Angeles, his
adopted home, including The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, and founded his own Broad Museum. He also was
a major donor to medical research and cultural institutions, including the
Walt Disney Concert Hall, in the city, and led an effort to revialitize its
downtown. His two foundations, The Broad Art Foundation and the Eli and
Edythe Broad Foundation (supporting education, science, and medicine), have
estimated assets of $2.4 billon. In 2019, Forbes magazine
ranked him as the 78th wealthiest person in the U.S., whose estimated net
worth was $6.7 billion.
See his memoir, The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional
Thinking (2012).
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