Jerry Buss: Former Owner of the Los Angeles Lakers
Business Owner · Sports & Entertainment
Jerry Buss grew up poor with a waitress mother, earned a chemistry degree in two and a half years and bought the Lakers in 1979, winning 10 championships and building the Showtime era.
About Jerry Buss: Former Owner of the Los Angeles Lakers
Gerald Hatten "Jerry" Buss (January 27, 1933 to February 18, 2013) was an American businessman, investor, chemist and philanthropist, the majority owner of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, who won 10 league championships under his ownership, highlighted by the Showtime era of the 1980s. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor and owned other professional sports franchises in Southern California. Buss was born in Salt Lake City and raised with his three younger siblings by his divorced mother, Jessie, a waitress; his father, Lydus, an accountant who later taught statistics at Berkeley, abandoned the family after Buss's first birthday. At nine he moved with his mother to Los Angeles, and three years later, when she remarried, to Kemmerer, Wyoming, where the family lived in a six-room home with his half-brother, half-sister and stepbrother. His boyhood jobs included working for his stepfather Cecil Brown's plumbing business, carrying bags at the Kemmerer Hotel for $2 a day, setting pins at the bowling alley, working on the Union Pacific Railroad, selling stamps and shining shoes. He earned a scholarship to the University of Wyoming and graduated with a BS degree in two and a half years, in 1953. Buss acquired the Lakers in 1979 from Jack Kent Cooke and became a mentor to Magic Johnson, whom the team drafted first overall that year. Sources: English Wikipedia (Jerry Buss, accessed September 2026).
Basic Information
Former majority owner, Los Angeles Lakers (1933-2013)
Company Details
Los Angeles Lakers
Sports Franchise Ownership, Real Estate
Related Business Owner
Latest Articles
Alana Evans Net Worth in 2026 – Income Sources, Career & Earnings
Amy Lee Net Worth 2026: Income Sources, Evanescence Career & Personal Life
Abz Love Net Worth 2026: Five Star’s Career, TV Comeback & Income Breakdown
