Dick Guttman

Dick Guttman died on September 19, 2026, in Los Altos, California, at the age of 93. His death was announced by Guttman Associates Public Relations, the firm he founded, and reported by Deadline and Variety soon after. No cause of death has been disclosed by his family or representatives, and it remains unknown to the public.

Guttman had lived in Malibu for more than 50 years before he and his wife, Gisela, relocated to Los Altos in 2025, roughly a year before his death.

He is survived by Gisela, his wife of 70 years, whom he met in Paris while working as a unit publicist on Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon. He is also survived by his daughters, Danielle Guttman Klein and Monika Guttman Robertson, granddaughters Alyssa Brucculeri and Claire Robertson, great granddaughter Aria Brucculeri, and his sister, Joan Ostrow.

Tributes following his death focused on his decades representing some of the biggest names in Hollywood, from the classic era of Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood to later clients including Barbra Streisand and Clint Eastwood, and on his reputation within the industry as a publicist trusted by stars for over half a century. In lieu of flowers, his family has asked that donations be made to the Dick Guttman Memorial Fund at the Entertainment Industries Foundation, which supports members of the creative community, including through wildfire relief efforts. No public memorial service details had been announced as of this writing.

Richard A. "Dick" Guttman was born on 26 August 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri. After the Second World War his family relocated to Los Angeles. His official biography recalls riding L.A. streetcars to wait by soundstage doors of popular radio dramas, collecting used scripts and autographs. At Fairfax High School he ran track and covered high school sports for the Los Angeles Examiner. He enrolled at UCLA to study film and psychology while working part-time for Rogers and Cowan, the Century City public-relations firm that launched his career.

After college Guttman worked as a unit publicist in Europe on films including Paris Holiday and The Key. In Paris, while serving as unit publicist on Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon, he met Gisela; they married in 1956. Returning to Los Angeles he spent more than a decade at Rogers and Cowan representing top actors after the end of the studio contract system, when independent press agents became central to careers. Early clients and contemporaries associated with that era of his work included Paul Newman, Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Tony Curtis, Milton Berle, Greer Garson, Simone Signoret, Candice Bergen, Natalie Wood, William Holden and others named in later obituaries.

In 1971 Guttman partnered with Jerry Pam to form Guttman and Pam, which became one of Hollywood's top independent publicity agencies over roughly two decades. In the early 1990s he founded Guttman Associates. The firm represented dozens of leading performers and promoted major film campaigns. Variety noted that Guttman Associates continues with colleagues Susan Madore and Rona Menashe overseeing the firm after his death. Asked how many clients he had represented, he once said he estimated probably 700 clients and about 200 legends, adding that he had been very blessed.

Among the names most often linked to Guttman are Barbra Streisand, Clint Eastwood, Jay Leno, Paul Newman, Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, Gene Hackman, Warren Beatty, Elizabeth Taylor and William Shatner. Film campaigns associated with his work include 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. Outside entertainment he also represented author Sidney Sheldon, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic and Sanrio's introduction of Hello Kitty.

Guttman was credited as a screenwriter on seven films, including the 1963 war picture Back Door to Hell featuring a young Jack Nicholson, and on television movies made with director Joseph Sargent such as Passion Flower and Ivory Hunters. In 2015 he published the memoir Starflacker: Inside the Golden Age of Hollywood, drawing on decades of stories from the publicity trenches. He appeared as a TCM guest programmer with Robert Osborne in January 2016 and gave interviews to the Associated Press and other outlets about the book and his favourite films.

Guttman and Gisela lived more than fifty years in Malibu before moving to Los Altos in 2025. In a 2020 Los Angeles Business Journal "8 Over 80" profile, then aged 87, he said he still worked forty to fifty hours a week because client relationships spanning decades deserved his gratitude. He died on 19 September 2026 in Los Altos at 93. He is survived by Gisela, daughters Danielle Guttman Klein and Monika Guttman Robertson, granddaughters Alyssa Brucculeri and Claire Robertson, great-granddaughter Aria Brucculeri and sister Joan Ostrow. The family asked that donations go to the Dick Guttman Memorial Fund at the Entertainment Industries Foundation.