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Dick Guttman, who spent more than 70 years as a Hollywood “press agent” — his preferred term for publicist — with a client list that included Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, William Holden, Elizabeth Taylor and Buzz Aldrin, has died. He was 93.
Guttman died Saturday in Los Altos, California, his company, Guttman Associates Public Relations, announced. The longtime Malibu resident and his wife of 70 years, Gisela, moved north to be close to family last year after the Palisades Fire tore through their community.
Guttman also was a screenwriter with credits including the 1963 film Back Door to Hell, directed by Monte Hellman and starring Jack Nicholson, and two telefilms helmed by Joseph Sargent, 1986’s Passion Flower and 1990’s Ivory Hunters.
He also shared more than 1,000 stories from his decades in the industry in his 2015 autobiography, Starflacker.
Starting in the late 1950s, Guttman worked at Rogers & Cowan for more than a decade, where he represented the likes of Paul Newman, Tony Curtis, Milton Berle, Greer Garson, Simone Signoret, Carroll Baker, Candice Bergen, Peter Ustinov, Tony Randall, Dick Powell, James Mason and Rex Harrison.
In 1971, he partnered with publicist Jerry Pam, and Guttman & Pam was a preeminent Hollywood publicity agency for more than two decades, establishing a reputation for personalized, innovative promotion.
He launched Beverly Hills-based Guttman Associates in the early 1990s, and his clients included Barbra Streisand, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Cindy Williams, Jay Leno, Janet Jackson, Christopher Reeve, Rip Torn, Stacy Keach, Martin Landau, Maximilian Schell, Tom Skerritt, Jane Seymour, Sidney Sheldon, Kathy Ireland, Marilu Henner, Steve Guttenberg, David Janssen, Jacqueline Bisset, James Woods, Robert Urich, Bo Derek, Ernest Borgnine, Donny Osmond, William Shatner and Mickey Rooney.
Among the films he represented were Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Dirty Harry (1971), The Conversation (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), All That Jazz (1979), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Unforgiven (1992), The English Patient (1996), Shakespeare in Love (1998), The King’s Speech (2010) and The Artist (2011).
Guttman came to Los Angeles from St. Louis with his family after World War II. He collected used scripts from popular radio dramas and autographs outside soundstages, ran track at Fairfax High School and covered high school sports for the Los Angeles Examiner.
He discovered publicity as an undergraduate film and psychology student at UCLA through a part-time job at Rogers & Cowan. After college, he served as a unit publicist in Europe, working on such films as Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon (1957), before returning to Rogers & Cowan in L.A.
He also repped jeweler Harry Winston, Hello Kitty, Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic and Movietime (later E! Entertainment) and developed campaigns for books written by Dyan Cannon (her memoir of her life with Cary Grant, 2011’s Dear Cary), Patricia Hearst and Wayne Rogers.
He often said he was simply in the right place at the right time, when studios stopped contracting stars and publicists became vital to their careers. Asked how many clients he represented, he said: “I’ve done the rough math, and my guess is probably 700 clients and about 200 legends. I have been very blessed.”
Guttman and his wife lived for more than 50 years in Malibu, even after losing their home to a wildfire in 1993. In addition to his wife, survivors include daughters Monika and Danielle, granddaughters Alyssa and Claire, great-granddaughter Aria and sister Joan.
Guttman Associates will continue to represent talent, with his longtime colleagues Susan Madore and Rona Menashe at the helm.
Donations in his memory can be made to the Dick Guttman Memorial Fund at the Entertainment Industries Foundation, which supports members of the creative community through philanthropic efforts that include wildfire relief (Guttman spent many years working with the EIF).
English (US) ·