George J. Cotliar, who served as editor-in-chief of the LA Times for 19 years during a 40-year career at the newspaper, has died.
Cotliar's daughter, Sharon Cotliar-Zweifach, confirmed that Cotliar died in his sleep early Monday morning at his Newport Beach home. He was 94 years old.
“Our father's first love was journalism, and as much as he was an incredible and dedicated father, we knew perfectly well that we were growing up with a journalist,” Cotliar-Zweifach told The Times on Wednesday. “He set the bar high in terms of honesty, integrity and treating people with respect. We understood that this was how he operated: in his work, with his colleagues and with us.”
George Cotliar was born on January 16, 1932 in the Bronx, the son of Russian immigrants. When he was five, his family moved to Los Angeles and settled in what he liked to jokingly call the “slums of Beverly Hills.” He attended Beverly Hills High School, Los Angeles City College, and finally Cal State Los Angeles, where he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism.
In 1953, near the end of the Korean War, Cotliar was drafted into the U.S. Army. Two weeks before the war ended, he was sent to Korea, where he served as a staff sergeant and ran the base newspaper.
Cotliar went on to work at several local Los Angeles newspapers and then learned that The Times had an opening. He took a $13-a-week pay cut to get his foot in the door and one step closer to the goal he had set for himself while working the newspaper route at age 11: running the Los Angeles Times.
He was hired as a reporter for the Westside section and a year later was promoted to editor of the Times' suburban section; After another year, he took over as editor before becoming editor-in-chief and then special sections editor of the newspaper. He worked in the Metro and National departments, spent two years as editor-in-chief of the Times' Orange County edition and, after 21 years of familiarizing himself with countless roles at the newspaper, landed the title he had been working toward since grade school: editor-in-chief.
Under his direction, the newspaper's coverage won 10 Pulitzer Prizes and many other honors.
“He was an excellent manager dedicated to the newspaper's readers, specifically how the paper presented the news on Page 1,” former Times national editor Roger Smith said Tuesday. “He always strived for the best stories and the best balance possible every day, and when I say every day, I mean every day. He was an L.A. person. He knew the city and the county.”
As notorious as Cotliar was for his precise election night decisions, his impressive memory, his love of college basketball and the Los Angeles Times, he was also known in the newsroom for his occasionally almost buffoonish temperament. There was the time he called former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan a “moron” without realizing he was still on the phone. When Riordan called back in outrage and called out a reporter for the hit, Cotliar spoke up in his colleague's defense: “It was me.”
On another occasion, Cotliar hit the return key on his typewriter so hard that the carriage went flying. There was never a dull moment with Cotliar at the helm.
LA Times editor-in-chief George Cotliar, right, greets King Hussein of Jordan at a reception at the newspaper's building in downtown Los Angeles in the 1980s. Robert W. Gibson, editor of the Times' foreign affairs section, is seen in the background.
(Los Angeles Times)
When Cotliar retired from his position in 1997, Jack Nelson, the Times' Washington bureau chief, wrote a tribute on a mock Page 1 given to Cotliar. Nelson wrote that the retiring journalist was a man without hobbies, which Cotliar-Zweifach said was a fair statement.
In retirement, he traveled with his wife, née Pearl Ruth Gottlieb. The two enjoyed plein air art and purchased paintings by artists from California, France and Russia. But in addition to watching sports on his new big-screen TV, Cotliar (once a journalist, always a journalist) spent much of his time reading and watching the news, starting at five in the morning.
“One thing that really stood out to me at his retirement party was that there were 400 or 500 people there and they all shared the same feeling: that he was a man who told the truth and protected his reporters. They were very fond of him,” his daughter said.
“When he started, the paper was very different, much more conservative. He rose through the ranks out of pure love of journalism, covering two generations of big headlines (from the astronaut program to the presidential election) and deciding what happened on page 1. He took that responsibility very seriously. Watching our father love his job, love his colleagues and always pay attention to the news made it exciting to sit at the table with him. It gave me immense respect for him.”
Cotliar and Pearl were married on August 24, 1958, and remained together for 53 years until his death in December 2011. According to the couple's daughter, like Pearl, Cotliar loved being a grandfather and kept folders of his grandchildren's photos and accomplishments.
He is survived by his son, David Cotliar, and his wife, Kenneth Wang; his daughter, Sharon Cotliar-Zweifach, and her husband, Dr. Eric Zweifach; and two grandchildren, Abigail Zweifach-Coles and Joshua Zweifach.
