He built his fortune in auto parts and commodities such as zinc, and following a 1966 acquisition became CEO, chairman and president of the Hollywood movie studio Paramount Pictures.

[3] Details of his upbringing are vague; according to Vanity Fair: "truth be told, Charlie wasn't elucidative about a lot of things, including whether he was Jewish, which he kept Hollywood guessing about by posting a sentry outside the men's room door.

[3] In 1956, Bluhdorn acquired Michigan Plating and Stamping, a small auto parts company that eventually grew into Gulf and Western Industries, a conglomerate that ranked 61st in the Fortune 500 by 1981.

[8][9][10] Holdings of Gulf and Western were blue-chip names such as Paramount Pictures, Madison Square Garden, and Simon & Schuster,[11] as well as less glamorous assets such as the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company, Pennsylvania Malleable Iron, and New Jersey Zinc.

After the marketing success of Love Story in 1970, Bluhdorn appointed Frank Yablans as president of the studio and Robert Evans as head of production.

Bluhdorn was very aware of the financial potential of the Dominican Republic and invested a significant amount of resources into its social and economic development.

Gulf and Western acquired Consolidated Cigar Corporation in 1968 and later shifted its Canary Island cigar-making operations to La Romana.

[citation needed] During the 1970s, Gulf and Western developed 7,000 acres (28 km2) of the sugar mill's land into the Casa de Campo resort.

After a meeting between Bluhdorn and Warner Communications CEO Steve Ross in 1976, the New York Cosmos played against Haiti’s Violette AC in Santo Domingo.

Bluhdorn had the idea of using the stones to re-create a sixteenth-century style Mediterranean village, similar to some of the architecture found in the historic center of Santo Domingo.

[6] Although he lived in the United States from the age of 16 onward, he was infamous (and widely imitated) for his cement-thick Austro-German accent, which has been lampooned in interviews by former collaborators such as Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Evans.

[21] On February 19, 1983, Bluhdorn died aged 56 of a heart attack on his corporate jet while returning home to New York City from his Casa de Campo resort in the Dominican Republic.