Peter Guber - Early Life

Early Life

Peter Guber's parents Sam Guber and Ruth Anshen, of Jewish descent, married in 1929. Peter's father owned a junk business in Somerville, Massachusetts. As a child, Guber was noted for his intelligence, outgoing nature, high energy, aggressiveness, and extreme competitiveness. He attended John Ward Elementary School and Newton North High School.

Following high school graduation, Guber enrolled in the pre-law curriculum at Syracuse University. He played intramural football and pledged the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. Guber spent his junior year abroad at Syracuse's Florence, Italy campus. At Syracuse he met his future wife, Lynda Gellis, the daughter of a kosher meat magnate and the "self-styled queen" of her sorority.

With the financial support of his wealthy new father-in-law, Guber enrolled at New York University for his J.D. and LL.M. law degrees, studying for his MBA at night. (Though he later claimed otherwise on resumes, he would never finish the last degree. As he neared graduation in 1968, Guber, tired of the bone-chilling winters in his native Northeast, accepted a position with Columbia Pictures as an assistant and management trainee.