Jack Kent Cooke Jack Kent Cooke ( October 25 , 1912 – April 6 , 1997 ) was a Canadian entrepreneur and former owner of the Washington Redskins ( NFL ) , the Los Angeles Lakers ( NBA ) , and the Los Angeles Kings ( NHL ) , and built The Forum in Inglewood , California and FedEx Field near Landover , Maryland . Biography . Early career . Born in Hamilton , Ontario , Cooke moved with his family to The Beaches area of Toronto in 1921 , where he attended Malvern Collegiate Institute . At age 14 , Cooke got a job selling encyclopedias door to door . At the end of his first day , he took home over $ 20 to his mother , and is reported as later saying " I think that was the proudest moment of my life . " He later became a runner on the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange . He was selling soap in Northern Ontario for Colgate - Palmolive in 1936 when he met Roy Thomson , who hired Cooke to run radio station CJCS in Stratford , Ontario . The two became partners in 1941 , buying radio stations and newspapers in Ontario and Quebec . With the financial backing of J . P . Bickell , Cooke purchased CKCL in 1945 , changing the call letters to CKEY . He also continued to work with Thomson , and the two acquired the Canadian edition of " Liberty " magazine in 1948 , naming it " New Liberty " . The following year , Thomson sold his half of the magazine to Cooke . In 1951 , Cooke ventured into sports , acquiring the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club . He transformed the games from straight athletic contests into complete entertainment packages , with a long list of special promotions and celebrity appearances . With his focus on entertainment , Cooke was compared to St . Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck . Five months after becoming owner , Cooke presented a 48 - page booklet to all the teams in the league , outlining his promotional strategies . He was named minor league executive of the year by " The Sporting News " in 1952 . That same year , Cooke purchased Consolidated Press , publisher of " Saturday Night " magazine . He made an unsuccessful bid for " The Globe and Mail " newspaper in 1955 . While owning the Maple Leafs baseball team , Cooke set his sights on bringing Major League Baseball to Toronto . He tried to purchase the St . Louis Browns , Philadelphia Athletics , and Detroit Tigers when they came up for sale , and in 1959 he became one of the founding team owners in the Continental League , a proposed third major league for professional baseball . The league disbanded a year later without ever staging a game . Cooke still hoped to get an American League expansion team in Toronto , but the city ' s lack of a major league venue became an impasse . Cooke would sell the Maple Leafs in 1964 and was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985 . In 1960 , Cooke lost a bid to obtain a license for the first privately - owned TV station in Toronto . There had been nine bids in a highly competitive process , and the license was awarded to a consortium of Aldred - Rogers Broadcasting and the Telegram Corporation , which launched CFTO - TV . Move to the United States . Within weeks of being turned down for the Toronto TV license , Cooke applied for U . S . citizenship . With the support of Francis E . Walter , Cooke quickly became a citizen when both houses of Congress and President Dwight D . Eisenhower approved a waiver of the usual five - year waiting period . He sold CKEY at the end of 1960 and Consolidated Press in 1961 . At the time , Canada and the U . S . both had laws prohibiting foreign control of radio and TV stations . Cooke had entered the U . S . broadcasting industry in August 1959 by acquiring Pasadena , California radio station KRLA 1110 through his brother , Donald Cooke , a U . S . citizen . Cooke formed American Cablevision in the 1960s and acquired several cable television companies . He acquired majority ownership of TelePrompTer cable TV and sold it in the late 1970s for $ 646 million . In 1980 , he bought the Chrysler Building in New York City , one of the world ' s most renowned skyscrapers . In 1985 , Cooke bought the Los Angeles Daily News for $ 176 million . A year later , he acquired another cable TV company . Sports ownership . Cooke was recognized for having a keen eye for spotting leadership and the ability to teach , hiring Joe Gibbs and Sparky Anderson to their first head coach and managerial positions . Both men would go on to become Hall of Famers , each winning three championships in their respective sports . Washington Redskins . In 1961 , Jack Kent Cooke purchased a 25 percent interest in the Washington Redskins after team owner and founder George Preston Marshall became incapacitated by a stroke , becoming majority owner in 1974 and sole owner in 1985 . While he was owner of the Redskins , Cooke ' s team won three Super Bowl s under head coach Joe Gibbs in 1982 , 1987 , and 1991 , the franchise ' s first championships since the 1940s . In 1997 , Cooke completed a stadium deal near Landover , Maryland , for a new home for his team . This community was named Raljon — a name devised by Cooke by combining the names of his sons Ralph and John . Shortly afterwards , he died of cardiac arrest . The stadium was posthumously named Jack Kent Cooke Stadium , which was changed under subsequent ownership to FedEx Field in 1999 . In his will , Cooke left the team and stadium to his foundation with instructions to sell it . Cooke ' s son , John Kent Cooke , tried to put in a competitive bid to keep the team in the family , but it instead went to local businessman Daniel Snyder and his associates for a record - setting $ 800 million . Los Angeles Lakers . In September 1965 , Cooke purchased the Los Angeles Lakers for $ 5 million from Bob Short . Under Cooke ' s ownership the Lakers moved from the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena to The Forum and changed their colors from Royal and Light Blue to the current Purple ( which he referred to as " Forum Blue " ) and Gold . The Lakers during Cooke ' s ownership reached 7 NBA Finals and won the 1972 NBA Finals . Los Angeles Kings . As a Canadian , Cooke particularly enjoyed ice hockey , and he was determined to bring the National Hockey League ( NHL ) to Los Angeles . In 1966 , the NHL announced it intended to sell six new franchises , and Cooke prepared a bid . The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission , which operated the Sports Arena , supported a competing bid headed by Los Angeles Rams owner Dan Reeves , and advised Cooke that if he won the franchise he would not be allowed to use that facility . In response , Cooke threatened to build a new arena in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood . Nearly thirty years later Cooke told the " Los Angeles Times " sportswriter Steve Springer that he recalled " one official representing the commission laughing at him " ( Springer ' s words ) when Cooke warned he would build in Inglewood . Cooke won the franchise , and paid $ 2 million for the new Los Angeles NHL club , which he called the " Kings . " Springer : " Cooke went to Inglewood and built the Forum . Good - bye , Lakers . Good - bye , Kings . " The Kings played their first game on October 14 , 1967 — at the Long Beach Arena , while construction was being completed at Cooke ' s new arena . Cooke claimed The Forum would be " the most beautiful arena in the world . " It opened December 30 , 1967 , to rave reviews . Cooke was soon calling it " The Fabulous Forum . " The Kings struggled both on the ice and at the gate , however . Cooke had been told that there were more than three hundred thousand former Canadians living within a three - hour drive of Los Angeles , and remarked , " Now I know why they left Canada : They hate hockey ! " Cooke sold the Forum , Kings and Lakers in 1979 to Dr . Jerry Buss . Los Angeles Wolves . In 1967 , Cooke was a founder of the United Soccer Association and owned the Los Angeles Wolves team . In 1971 , he was financial backer of the first Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier boxing match , held at Madison Square Garden and won by Frazier . Elmendorf Farm . A lover of horses and a fan of Thoroughbred horse racing , Cooke owned Kent Farms , a estate in Middleburg , Virginia , not far from Washington , D . C . In December 1984 he purchased the historic Elmendorf Farm in Lexington , Kentucky from the estate of Maxwell Gluck . He bred and raced a number of successful horses , notably Flying Continental whose wins included the 1990 Jockey Club Gold Cup . Personal life . Cooke ' s marital history became progressively more colorful as he got older . He was married five times ; however , two of the five marriages were to the same woman : Marlene Ramallo Chalmers . He was married to Chalmers at the time of his death . Cooke ' s first marriage , his longest , lasted 45 years . He and Barbara Jean Carnegie married in 1934 , and were divorced in 1979 . In the divorce action , Carnegie was awarded what was then the largest divorce settlement in history — $ 42 million . The presiding judge during the bench trial was Joseph Wapner , who later became famous as the judge on television ' s " The People ' s Court " . Cooke and Carnegie had two sons : John Kent Cooke and Ralph Kent Cooke . Cooke ' s second marriage , to Jeanne Maxwell , lasted only 10 months . Cooke ' s third marriage , to Suzanne Elizabeth Martin , was even shorter : 73 days . During that brief marriage Martin , age 31 , gave birth to a baby girl who the couple named Jacqueline Kent Cooke , friend of Douglas L Hirsch . At the time of Jacqueline ' s birth , Cooke , her father ( age 74 ) , was 43 years older than Martin , her mother ( age 31 ) . Martin in the divorce action sought $ 15 million from Cooke . Following Cooke ' s death , it was revealed that his final wife , Marlene Ramallo Chalmers — a former drug runner from Bolivia who was 40 years his junior — had been cut out of his will . Cooke and Chalmers had married in 1990 , divorced in 1993 ( after she made headlines in May 1992 by accidentally shooting herself in the finger and in September 1993 by driving drunk in Georgetown with a man pounding on the hood of her Jaguar convertible ) , and remarried in 1995 . Chalmers filed suit against Cooke ' s estate and reportedly received $ 20 million in a settlement reached about a year after Cooke ' s death . The bulk of Cooke ' s $ 825 million estate went into establishing the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation to help selected students of modest means attend college . The stated mission of the foundation is to " help young people of exceptional promise reach their full potential through education . " Cooke ' s will , which revealed his multiple changes of heart regarding his wives and children , received considerable public attention at the time of his death . Jack Kent Cooke Foundation . Launched in 2000 , the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has been providing scholarships for many young high school , undergraduate , and graduate scholars studying worldwide . Each year the program helps approximately 650 students achieve their dreams via financial aid .