GIL SCHWARTZ, 1951 - 2020
Exec mocked corporate culture
The cause of death was a heart attack, said David Hirshey, Schwartz’s editor at HarperCollins.
Schwartz was the head of corporate communications at Westinghouse Broadcasting Group when it acquired CBS in 1995. He remained in the role and led the communications efforts for CBS until November 2018, when he departed shortly after the firing of former Chairman Leslie Moonves over allegations of sexual misconduct.
In a statement announcing his death, CBS described Schwartz as “a counselor to senior management, a mentor to future PR executives and a popular presence in every hallway. His diverse and sophisticated repertoire ranged from artful media relations and gifted wordsmithing skills to an insightful and humorous view of the media world he loved.”
While collecting a paycheck for representing one of the country’s highest-profile media companies, Schwartz skewered and parodied business bureaucracy in the columns and books he wrote under the pseudonym Stanley Bing.
While working at Westinghouse in the 1980s, Schwartz started contributing to Esquire magazine’s annual Dubious Achievement Awards section, which mocked the ignominious actions, bad behavior and embarrassing activities of the rich and famous. It led to a regular column on corporate life called the Strategist written under the Bing name, a deliberately bland and meaningless moniker meant to protect his identity from his bosses.
“He had been regaling his friends for years with all of these hilarious inside-the-belly-of-the-corporate-beast anecdotes,” said Hirshey, an editor at Esquire at the time. “Another editor at the magazine, David Blum, suggested that ‘Why don’t you just write a pseudonymous column?’ And Stanley Bing was born.”
In 1994, Schwartz moved Bing to Fortune, the magazine then owned by Time Inc. His column was retitled “While You Were Out” — named after the pink message slips left by assistants.
“He was at his best writing about CEOs who took themselves too seriously while not taking their beleaguered employees seriously enough,” said Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine, who was the top editorial executive at Time Inc. during Schwartz’s tenure.
Hirshey said he marveled at seeing Schwartz toggle between his two personas.
“Stanley Bing would ride the train into New York and emerge as Gil Schwartz and go to this job as the head of corporate communications at CBS,” Hirshey recalled. “For three or four hours in the morning he would be at CBS headquarters with all of these high-level discussions with Moonves and he’d be tense and agitated. Then he would show up at lunch as Stanley Bing and be full of bonhomie.”
Corporate environments were also the prevailing subject of Schwartz’s 10 Stanley Bing books, which included business advice parodies presented with bone-dry authenticity, and novels, including one about sexual harassment in the workplace called “You Look Nice Today.”
The first Bing tome was a paperback called “Crazy Bosses.” “He posited the theory that mental illness is actually a strength in business and government, not a liability,” Hirshey said. “That defined the Stanley Bing ethos.”
Schwartz was able to keep his alter ego a secret to his colleagues at Westinghouse, a low-profile industrial conglomerate of TV stations and radio stations before it acquired a major broadcasting network.
Once Schwartz was elevated to oversee communications at CBS, his identity was revealed to the New York Times by a former colleague at Esquire.
Hirshey said Schwartz feared that the revelation would end his career. But CBS executives embraced Schwartz’s side job and enjoyed the wicked wit that came with it.
As head of corporate communications, Schwartz navigated the network through a number of crises, including the scandal that ended Moonves’ storied career. In December 2017, as the #MeToo movement gathered momentum in the wake of Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations, a few senior CBS officials, including Schwartz, became aware of a report of an alleged sexual assault by Moonves decades before. Moonves denied the allegations and CBS hired a law firm, which quickly cleared the mogul of wrongdoing.
For months, Schwartz downplayed rumors of Moonves’ alleged misbehavior until July 2018, when the New Yorker magazine published investigative reporter Ronan Farrow’s report that brought the allegations of six women to light.
In late August 2018, Schwartz drafted a letter of resignation for Moonves to sign. Moonves refused and the crisis swelled for two more weeks before he was forced out.
Later that month, amid a corporate house cleaning, Schwartz announced his retirement from CBS.
Moonves declined to comment. A person familiar with the matter said he has expressed condolences to Schwartz’s family.
Schwartz was born on May 20, 1951, in New York City to Bill and Ruth Schwartz. His communication skills developed early as his parents encouraged him to articulate when speaking to his younger brother, Michael, who is deaf.
Schwartz grew up in New Rochelle before attending Brandeis University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in theater arts and English.
Along with his brother, Schwartz is survived by his wife, Laura Svienty; his daughter, Nina Pajak; his son, Will Schwartz; his stepson, Kyle Bender; his stepdaughter, Rachel Bender; and two grandchildren, Vivien and Sam. A memorial service will be held in the fall.
