J Bruce Llewellyn

James Bruce Llewellyn was born to Jamaican immigrants on July 16, 1927, in East Harlem. His father, Charles, a newspaper linotype operator, moved the family to White Plains when Bruce was 2. His sister, Dorothy Cropper, became a judge on the New York State Court of Claims. Gen. Colin Powell was a close friend of the family’s. In White Plains, Mr. Llewellyn worked in a restaurant his father acquired. He sold Fuller Brush products door to door and read Fortune magazine. Graduating from high school when he was 16, Mr. Llewellyn joined the Army in a special cadet program. He later became the youngest officer in his battalion. Afterward he used Army severance pay to buy a liquor store in Harlem. While running it, he attended the City College of New York on the G.I. Bill and graduated in 1955. After attending Columbia Business School and the New York University School of Public Administration and Social Service without graduating from either, he earned a law degree from New York Law School in 1960. Part of Mr. Llewellyn’s success stemmed from tax laws aimed at furthering minority ownership of communications companies. When he and some black partners bought a television station in Buffalo in 1985, the seller, Capital City Communications Inc., could get millions of dollars of tax advantages by selling to a member of a racial minority. As a result, Mr. Llewellyn’s group succeeded even though it offered a lower price than other suitors. Mr. Llewellyn reprised the Buffalo deal when he assembled a group to buy NYT Cable TV, a New Jersey concern, from The New York Times Company in 1989 for $420 million. Mr. Llewellyn put up 20 percent of the price (the minimum percentage required to get tax breaks for minority ownership) while the Comcast Corporation and Lenfest Communications Inc. each picked up 40 percent. Mr. Llewellyn became chairman. Mr. Llewellyn’s marriage to Jacqueline Brown ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, the former Shahara Ahmad; two daughters from his first marriage, Lisa Llewellyn and Alexandra Clancy; one from his second, Jaylaan Llewellyn; his sister, Judge Cropper; and a granddaughter.