Henry Caruso

Early life

Of Italian heritage, Caruso was born in Pennsylvania. His father, August Caruso, worked in the landscape business and decided that the weather in the Mid-Atlantic was problematic and moved the family to Los Angeles, California in the mid-1920s. They first moved to East Los Angeles but soon settled in the Silver Lake neighborhood where Henry and his brothers, Albert and Lawrence, were raised.

He enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC) in 1939 with plans to study medicine, but left to join the US Navy Air Corp and earned the distinction of Navy Pilot LTJG. He returned to USC after the war to finish his studies.

Career

Caruso entered the automobile business by acquiring a number of new car dealerships, including from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. In the early days of TV he virtually monopolized commercial television airwaves in Los Angles with his radio and TV singing commercials where he billed himself as “H.J. Caruso—he's the greatest.” The Desert Sun called him the "glamour boy of automotive salesmanship in Los Angeles."

He founded Dollar Rent-A-Car in 1966 as Dollar A Day Rent A Car. After opening five locations, he was determined to open lucrative airport locations; however the "big three" car rental companies, Hertz, Avis and National, had already established locations in airports and made it difficult for the new company to enter the market.

This led to a legal fight in the 1970s that caused the Federal Trade Commission to take action and prohibit any practices that discriminated against small companies vying for airport locations. Many airports, newspapers, and local townships rejected his request to display the "Dollar A Day" sign as they felt it constituted false advertising.

In 1973, the Palm Springs, California Planning Commission rejected Caruso's request for approval of a “Dollar A Day” sign as “misleading advertising.” He later changed the name to Dollar Rent-A-Car. Under his 20 years of guidance it grew to be the fourth largest car rental agency worldwide with over 1,400 locations. He sold the company to the Chrysler Corporation in 1990 (it is now a part of the Dollar-Thrifty Automotive Group).

Caruso was also the head of Caruso Affiliated, which owned his car dealerships, and HJC Investment Corporation, an investment company.

Legal history

On April 25, 1957 Henry J. Caruso was indicted by the Grand Jury of Los Angeles County for criminal conspiracy to defraud and cheat, forgery, and grand theft related to his automobile dealerships. On June 5, 1957, Caruso was indicted for additional counts of grand theft and forgery. Caruso pleaded guilty to two counts (forgery and grand theft) of the April 25 indictment and two counts (grand theft and forgery) of the June 5 indictment. He “answered in the affirmative when asked if he was entering his pleas of guilty because he was actually guilty of the offenses and if he was doing so freely and voluntarily.”

Caruso was given a suspended sentence. Probation was granted for a period of 10 years conditioned on his spending the first year in the county jail, paying a fine of $10,000 and remaining "out of the automobile business or any business involving sales to the public." Caruso’s appeal to the Court of Appeals of California to withdraw his guilty plea was denied on October 21, 1959.

In their February 3, 1958 issue, Time Magazine called auto dealer Caruso "the shadiest of them all".

In 1986, the Attorney General of the State of California obtained a civil judgment and permanent injunction against Dollar Rent-A-Car for engaging in unfair competition and making false and misleading statements. The trial court found that Dollar Rent-A-Car had used in excess of 500,000 contracts “which were deceitful, misleading and ambiguous” and had misrepresented the cost of repairs in 1,500 repair invoices.

The judgment was affirmed on appeal and the appellant court found that the trial court had properly imposed liability on Henry J. Caruso personally because, Judge Harry W. Low wrote, “Caruso participated in the unlawful practices as if he personally made the misrepresentations.”

Personal life

Caruso lives with his wife Gloria in Beverly Hills, California. He has one daughter, Cristina Caruso, and two sons, Rick J. Caruso, a billionaire builder and retail operator and owner and CEO of Caruso Affiliated, which has built and owns and operates such retail properties as The Grove at Farmers Market and The Americana at Brand and Marc Caruso, a Los Angeles music executive and CEO of Angry Mob Music.