Gerald Hatten Buss (January 27, 1933 – February 18, 2013) was an American businessman, investor, chemist, and philanthropist. He was the majority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning 10 league championships that were highlighted by the team's Showtime era during the 1980s. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor. Buss owned other professional sports franchises in Southern California.
Early life and business career
Born in Salt Lake City, Buss and his three younger siblings were raised by their divorced mother, Jessie, who worked as a waitress. His father, Lydus, was an accountant who went on to teach statistics at Berkeley, who abandoned Buss after his first birthday and never returned.[1] When he was nine years old, Buss moved with his mother to Los Angeles; three years later when she remarried, they then moved to Kemmerer, Wyoming and lived in a six-room home with his half-brother Mickey, his half-sister Susan, and stepbrother Jim.[2] One of Buss' boyhood jobs was working for his stepfather, Cecil Brown, who owned a plumbing business. Other jobs in Buss' high school days included carrying bags at the Kemmerer Hotel (paid $2 per day (~$24.08 as of 2025), setting pins at the bowling alley, working on the