[citation needed] Nederlander was born to a Jewish family in Detroit, Michigan, on June 1, 1927.
[5] His father's first venture into live theatre came in 1912, when he signed a 99-year lease[6] on the old Opera House at Campus Martius in Detroit and founded the family company, the Nederlander Organization.
He served in the Navy before returning home in 1947 and enrolled at Wayne State University for one semester.
[8] Nederlander, now working in all aspects of the business from the box office to sweeping the floors, with his father and brother James, also purchased the Riviera Theatre (demolished in 1996) on West Grand River.
The 3,500-seat movie house built by the Fisher brothers would be pared down to a state-of-the-art 2,200-seat legitimate live theatre.
[3] As the family business expanded and James moved to New York to continue to buy theatres and produce Broadway shows, Nederlander stayed behind to run operations in Detroit.