Jerry Buss

Gerald Hatten Buss (January 27, 1933 – February 18, 2013) was an American businessman, investor, chemist, and philanthropist. He was the majority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning 10 league championships that were highlighted by the team's Showtime era during the 1980s. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor. Buss owned other professional sports franchises in Southern California.

Born in Salt Lake City, Buss and his three younger siblings were raised by their divorced mother, Jessie, who worked as a waitress. His father, Lydus, was an accountant who went on to teach statistics at Berkeley, who abandoned Buss after his first birthday and never returned. When he was nine years old, Buss moved with his mother to Los Angeles; three years later when she remarried, they then moved to Kemmerer, Wyoming and lived in a six-room home with his half-brother Mickey, his half-sister Susan, and stepbrother Jim. One of Buss' boyhood jobs was working for his stepfather, Cecil Brown, who owned a plumbing business. Other jobs in Buss' high school days included carrying bags at the Kemmerer Hotel (paid $2 per day (~$24.08 as of 2025), setting pins at the bowling alley, working on the Union Pacific Railroad, selling stamps, and shining shoes.

Buss earned a scholarship to the University of Wyoming, graduating with a BS degree in two and a half years in 1953. He then returned to Los Angeles and attended the University of Southern California (USC), where he earned an MS and PhD in physical chemistry in 1957 at the age of 24. Upon completion of his PhD, Buss moved to Boston and worked for Arthur D. Little. Buss started as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines (now the Mine Safety and Health Administration); he then briefly worked in the aerospace industry for McDonnell Douglas and was on the faculty of USC's chemistry department.

Buss originally invested in real estate to provide supplementary income so he could continue teaching. His first investment was $1,000 in a 14-unit West Los Angeles apartment building in 1959. Finding great success in the real estate business, he, along with longtime business partner, Frank Mariani, formed real estate investment company Mariani-Buss Associates. In 1979, Buss purchased Pickfair, the Beverly Hills estate once owned by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks; he sold it in 1987. Buss claimed his company owned—across Arizona, California and Nevada—roughly 700 properties by 1979.

In 1974, Buss produced a movie named Black Eye starring former gridiron star Fred "the Hammer" Williamson.

Buss was an owner of the Phoenix location of the Playboy Club.

In January 2008, Buss donated $7.5 million to USC's Department of Chemistry to fund two endowed chairs and an endowed scholarship fund for chemistry graduate students; the two chairs were to be named after his mentors at USC, Professors Sidney Benson and David Dows. Buss was an inaugural member of the USC College Board of Councilors.

His philanthropy also extended to people associated with the Lakers. When former Lakers player Walt Hazzard, then an adviser to the team, suffered a catastrophic stroke in 1996, Buss kept Hazzard on the payroll and told Hazzard's son that his father would remain a Lakers employee for as long as Buss owned the team. When Hazzard died in 2011, he was still a Lakers employee.

Buss has seven known children. His marriage to JoAnn Mueller ended in divorce in 1972 after having five children: Lee (born 1953), Johnny (born 1956), Jim (born 1959), Jeanie (born 1961) and Janie (born 1963). Their oldest child, Lee, was put up for adoption shortly after birth, and did not reunite with her mother and siblings until after Buss's death. Buss allegedly married his second wife, Veronica Hoff, in 1972 while still married to his first wife, JoAnn. During his time as Lakers owner, Buss was widely known as a playboy and had a string of young girlfriends. Buss dated Debbie Zafrani, a Playboy bunny and the younger sister of the wife of Lakers player Kurt Rambis.

Buss had two more children with a girlfriend, Karen Demel: Joey (born 1985) and Jesse (born 1988). At the time of his death in 2013, six out of seven of his children worked in the Lakers organization.

In 2012, Buss was in a hospital for months with an undisclosed intestinal problem. Through his 80th birthday on January 27, 2013, he had not attended a Lakers game during the 2012–13 season due to health concerns. On February 14, 2013, four days before his death, it was revealed that Buss had cancer since 2012.

After being hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with an undisclosed form of cancer, he died of kidney failure on February 18, 2013, aged 80. On February 21, hundreds of friends, colleagues, and family members gathered to pay tribute to Buss in a televised memorial service at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live, across from the Lakers' home court, Staples Center. Buss was buried on February 22 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills in a private ceremony with family and close friends.

NBA commissioner David Stern said of Buss "The NBA has lost a visionary owner whose influence on our league is incalculable and will be felt for decades to come". Lakers guard Kobe Bryant said "His impact is felt worldwide," and called Buss "the greatest owner in sports ever".

Buss's 66% controlling ownership of the Lakers passed to his six children (Johnny, Jim, Jeanie, Janie, Joey, and Jesse) via a trust, with each child receiving an equal vote (11% for each child). His succession plan had daughter Jeanie assume his previous title as the Lakers' governor as well as its team representative at NBA Board of Governors meetings.

The 2013 World Series of Poker paid tribute to Buss before the $2,500 Seven Card Stud event.