Rosenthal was born to a Jewish family. He has two siblings: Miriam Rosenthal Passerman and Morton Rosenthal. In 1924, he graduated with a B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. After school he took over his family's funeral home business founded by his grandfather, Louis Meyer, in 1897. In 1933, he divided the company into two brands, the Riverside Memorial Chapel and Parkwest Chapels and expanded to Miami, Florida ; Brooklyn ; the Bronx ; and Westchester County, New York. He expanded further via acquisitions acquiring the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, the Universal Funeral Chapel ; and the Walter B. Cooke Chapel to become the largest funeral company in the United States. The company diversified after he brought his son in law into the business, Steve Ross. They established a separate company that would lease out their vehicles in the evenings when they were not needed for funerals and then opened a rental company, Abbey Rent a Car. They later merged the funeral home and Abbey with a parking lot operator, the Kinney Parking Company, which was then owned by underworld crime figures Manny Kimmel and Abner Zwillman; and added an office cleaning business. In 1958, Rosenthal ceded control to his son-in-law. The resulting holding company, Kinney Service Corporation, was taken public in 1962 with a market valuation of $12.5 million. Rosenthal served as vice chairman of Kinney National from 1962 until 1966. In 1964, Kinney National purchased wood flooring manufacturer Circle Floor from Seymour and Paul Milstein for $15 million. In 1966, Kinney expanded into the entertainment business by purchasing the Ashley-Famoustalent agency and then in 1969, Kinney paid $400 million for the ailing Warner Bros.-Seven Arts film studio and record business. In 1971, the funeral business was purchased by Service Corporation International. A year later, after spinning off its remaining non-entertainment assets, Kinney National Services renamed itself Warner Communications with Rosenthal serving as vice chairman of Warner Communications from 1972 until 1983. During World War II, he served with the Seabees in Okinawa. Rosenthal was a founder of the Fairview-Greenburgh Day Care and Community Center.
Personal life
Rosenthal was married to Bea "Doris" Rosenthal; they had four children: Peter Rosenthal; Ellen Rosenthal Sarnoff; Patricia Rosenthal Cantor; and Carol Rosenthal Ross Maslow. His wife died in childbirth with their last child Carol in 1935. He died of leukemia at his home in White Plains, New York.
