Gottlieb joined Simon & Schuster in 1955 as an editorial assistant to Jack Goodman, the editor-in-chief.[5] Within ten years he himself became the editor-in-chief.[6] At that publisher, Gottlieb's most notable discovery, which he edited, was Catch-22, by the then-unknown Joseph Heller.[7] It was Gottlieb who suggested the number 22 for the title instead of the original 18; Leon Uris's Mila 18 was to be published around the same time.[8]
In 1968, Gottlieb, along with Nina Bourne and Anthony Schulte, moved to Alfred A. Knopf as editor-in-chief; soon after he became president. He left in 1987 to succeed William Shawn as editor of The New Yorker, staying in that position until 1992. After his departure from The New Yorker, Gottlieb returned to Alfred A. Knopf as editor ex officio.[6]
Gottlieb was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Book Review, and had been the dance critic for The New York Observer since 1999. He is the author of biographies of George Balanchine, Sarah Bernhardt, and the family of Charles Dickens, as well as of a collection of his critical essays. A Certain Style, Gottlieb's lavishly illustrated book about the plastic handbags of which he was a major collector, was published by Alfred A. Knopf. He edited three major anthologies: Reading Jazz, Reading Dance, and (with Robert Kimball) Reading Lyrics.[9][10]
In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Gottlieb described his need to "surrender" to a book. "The more you have surrendered," he said, "the more jarring its errors appear. I read a manuscript very quickly, the moment I get it. I usually won't use a pencil the first time through because I'm just reading for impressions. When I read the end, I'll call the writer and say, I think it's very fine (or whatever), but I think there are problems here and here. At that point I don't know why I think that—I just think it. Then I go back and read the manuscript again, more slowly, and I find and mark the places where I had negative reactions to try to figure out what's wrong. The second time through I think about solutions—maybe this needs expanding, maybe there's too much of this so it's blurring that."[14]
He was the son of Charles Gottlieb, a lawyer, and Martha (née Keen), a teacher.[18] Gottlieb married Muriel Higgins in 1952; they had one child, Roger. In 1969, Gottlieb married Maria Tucci, an actress whose father, the novelist Niccolò Tucci, was one of Gottlieb's writers.[19] They had two children: Lizzie Gottlieb, a film director, and Nicholas (Nicky), who is the subject of one of his sister's documentary films, Today's Man.[20] He had residences in Manhattan, Miami, and Paris.[3]
On June 14, 2023, Gottlieb died in a hospital in Manhattan, at the age of 92.[21]
Legacy
In 2022, a documentary was released about the collaborations of Gottlieb and writer Robert Caro titled Turn Every Page.[22] The film was directed by Gottlieb's daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb.[23] The title comes from advice that former Newsday editor Alan Hathway had given to Caro as a young reporter on his first investigative assignment: "Hathway looked at me for what I remember as a very long time… 'Just remember,' he said. 'Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamn page.'"[24]
October 15, 1996, Bonnie Smothers, review of Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now, p. 395
November 1, 2008, Donna Seaman, review of Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras, p. 20
May 1, 2011, Donna Seaman, review of Lives and Letters, p. 54.
