Gerald M. Levin, a “visionary” media executive, as he was often described, who became C.E.O. of the world’s largest media company, Time Warner, and an architect of its merger with America Online, widely considered the worst corporate marriage in American history, died on Wednesday. Mr. Levin had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Levin was Time Warner’s chief executive when he and his counterpart at AOL at the time, Steve Case, devised what was then the largest business merger in U.S. history. Instead, it became shorthand for the excesses of the turn-of-the-century dot-com bubble and the era of so-called synergy.

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Persons: Gerald M, Levin, Time Warner, Jake Maia Arlow, Mr, Levin’s, Steve Case, Warner, Henry Luce, Jack Warner Organizations: Time, America Online, AOL, Jan, America, American, Hollywood Locations: Long Beach, Calif, Virginia