James Thomas Aubrey, Jr.
James Thomas Aubrey, Jr. was a leading American television and film executive. President of the CBS television network from 1959 to 1965, he put some of televisions most enduring series on the air, including Gilligans Island and The Beverly Hillbillies. Under Aubrey, CBS dominated American television the way General Motors and General Electric dominated their industries. The New York Times Magazine in 1964 called Aubrey a master of programming whose divinations led to successes that are breathtaking.
Aubreys outsize reputation160 beaming smile, dapper dress, endless womanizing160 and his dramatic exit from CBS inspired characters in three novels. His former friend Keefe Brasselle wrote The CanniBalS A Novel About Televisions Savage Chieftains , the title of which had very unsubtle capitalization and was, in Nora Ephrons assessment, unreadable. Harold Robbinss The Inheritors and Jacqueline Susanns The Love Machine also contained characters based on him. In Susanns book, Aubrey is network executive Robin Stone. Paul Rosenfield said Aubrey had quietly cooperated with Susann, giving her background on TV, although Susanns husband, Irving Mansfield, had been a busy TV producer himself, before switching to managing his wifes career fulltime. Susann said Aubrey, her neighbor, was one of those people who are born to run the works. A natural for a novel.
Source: Wikipedia