Dick Guttman, the longtime Hollywood publicity executive and screenwriter who worked with clients including Barbra Streisand, Clint Eastwood and Jay Leno, died Sept. 19 in Los Altos, Calif. He was 93.
Over his many decades in publicity at Rogers & Cowan and his own firms Guttman and Pam and Guttman Associates, he represented Hollywood notables including Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, Gene Hackman, Warren Beatty, Elizabeth Taylor, William Shatner and many, many more.
Guttman moved to Los Angeles from St. Louis, Missouri, with his family after WWII. As his official biography recounts, he rode L.A. streetcars to wait by the soundstage doors of popular radio dramas, collecting used scripts and autographs. He started out in journalism while still at Fairfax High covering high school sports for the Los Angeles Examiner.
While attending UCLA, he worked part-time for Rogers & Cowan PR, then became a unit publicist in Europe, where he worked on films including “Paris Holiday” and “The Key.” He met his wife Gisela while in Paris as unit publicist on Billy Wilder’s “Love in the Afternoon,” and they married in 1956.
When Guttman returned to Los Angeles, he worked at Rogers & Cowan for more than a decade, representing top actors at the time when actors weren’t under contract to studios and “press agents,” in his preferred terminology, became pivotal to successful careers.
He partnered with Jerry Pam in 1971 to form Guttman & Pam, which became one of Hollywood’s top agencies over two decades. Guttman formed his own agency, Guttman Associates, in the early 1990s, repping dozens of top stars as well as promoting films such as “Unforgiven,” “Dirty Harry,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Conversation,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “All That Jazz,” “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “The Man Who Would Be King,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Artist,” “Shakespeare in Love and “The English Patient.”
Guttman Associates continues to represent Hollywood talent with Guttman’s colleagues Susan Madore and Rona Menashe overseeing the firm.
Beyond Hollywood, he repped personalities such as author Sidney Sheldon and astronaut Buzz Aldrin as well as companies including Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, Sanrio’s introduction of Hello Kitty and more.
Asked if he knew how many clients he had repped, he once said, “I’ve done the rough math, and my guess is probably 700 clients, and about 200 legends. I have been very blessed.”
Guttman was also a screenwriter on seven films including 1963’s “Back Door to Hell” with Jack Nicholson and TV movies, including collaborations with director Joseph Sargent on “Passion Flower” and “Ivory Hunters.”
His 2015 autobiography “Starflacker” recounted numerous stories from his decades of working with Hollywood’s biggest stars.
After living for more than 50 years in Malibu, he and Gisela moved to Los Altos last year.
He is survived by Gisela, his wife of 70 years, his daughters Danielle Guttman Klein and Monika Guttman Robertson, granddaughters Alyssa Brucculeri and Claire Robertson; great-granddaughter Aria Brucculeri and sister Joan Ostrow.
Donations may be made to the Dick Guttman Memorial Fund at the Entertainment Industries Foundation, which supports members of the creative community through a variety of philanthropic efforts, including wildfire relief.