Saban has been bidding - or at least kicking the tires - on media properties around the world as he looks to expand his empire and, by extension, his political reach.īut what really has people talking in Hollywood and Washington is his most ambitious project yet: he is the proud owner of the largest television broadcaster in Germany. He vacations with Bill Clinton.Īt the same time, Mr. ("We played guitar and kibitzed," he said.) He regularly spends hours at a time on the phone with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister. He recently had Senator John Kerry over to his chateau-style home in Beverly Hills. To that end, he has become one of the largest individual donors in the country to the Democratic Party and its candidates, giving millions over the past decade - $7 million in just one donation to the Democratic National Committee in 2002. "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel," he said in his first extensive interview in years. He has since emerged as perhaps the most politically connected mogul in Hollywood, throwing his weight and money around Washington and, increasingly, the world, trying to influence all things Israeli. Saban became a billionaire by turning the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers into a global franchise that he merged with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and, in 2001, sold to the Walt Disney Company for $5.3 billion. "Do you know what I told him? I said, 'Governor, the fact that your wife is Jewish is your problem."'Ī self-described "cartoon schlepper," Mr. Saban, 59, let out a sharp laugh, pausing for effect, before delivering his punch line. "He tells me, 'Don't you know my wife is Jewish?"' "Do you know how he tells me that he is going to support Israel?" he recounted, with a look of incredulity.
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"Did I tell you what Howard Dean told me?" he asked, knowing full well that he had not, at least not yet today.
After devouring a bagel covered in lox, he leaned forward and launched into his favorite story from the Democratic presidential primaries. LOS ANGELES - HAIM SABAN, one of the nation's richest and most improbable media magnates, was slouched in a leather seat aboard his Gulfstream jet during a trip from Los Angeles to New York this spring, rattling on about his support for Israel.
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