George J. Cotliar, who served as managing editor of the L.A. Times for 19 years during a 40-year career at the paper, has died.
Cotliar’s daughter, Sharon Cotliar-Zweifach, confirmed that Cotliar died in his sleep early Monday at his home in Newport Beach. He was 94.
“Our dad’s first love was journalism, and as much as he was an incredible, dedicated father, we very much knew we were growing up with a newspaper man,” 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’s how he operated — in his work and with his colleagues and with us.”
George Cotliar was born Jan. 16, 1932, in the Bronx to Russian immigrants. When he was 5, his family moved to Los Angeles and settled into what he liked to joke were the “slums of Beverly Hills.” He attended Beverly Hills High School, Los Angeles City College and, ultimately, Cal State Los Angeles, where he earned a 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 personnel sergeant heading up the base newspaper.
Cotliar went on to work at an assortment of local papers around Los Angeles, then caught wind 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’d set for himself while working a newspaper route at 11 years old: to run the Los Angeles Times.
He was hired as a reporter for the Westside section and promoted a year later to editor of The Times’ suburban section; after another year, he took on a copy editor role before becoming a copy chief and then editor of special sections at the paper. He worked assignments in the Metro and National departments, spent two years as managing editor of The Times’ Orange County edition, and after 21 years of becoming well-acquainted with myriad roles at the paper, he nabbed the title he’d been working toward since grade school: managing editor.
Under his watch, the paper’s coverage won 10 Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other accolades.
“He was a terrific manager devoted to the readers of the paper, specifically in how the paper presented the news on Page 1,” former Times National Editor Roger Smith said Tuesday. “He was always striving 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 he knew the county.”
As notorious as Cotliar was for his accurate calls on election night, impressive memory, love for college basketball and the Los Angeles Times, he was also known around the newsroom for his occasional near-slapstick temper. There was the time he called former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan an “a—,” not realizing he was still on the phone. When Riordan called back incensed and called out a reporter for the jab, Cotliar spoke up in his colleague’s defense: “It was me.”
Another time, Cotliar slammed the return key of his typewriter so hard that the carriage flew off. There was never a dull moment with Cotliar at the helm.
L.A. Times Managing Editor George Cotliar, right, greets King Hussein of Jordan at a reception at the newspaper’s downtown Los Angeles building in the 1980s. Robert W. Gibson, editor of The Times’ Foreign section, is seen in the background.
(Los Angeles Times)
When Cotliar retired from his post in 1997, Jack Nelson, the Washington bureau chief for The Times, penned a tribute on a mock Page 1 gifted to Cotliar. Nelson wrote that the retiring newsman was a hobbyless man, which Cotliar-Zweifach said was a fair statement.
In retirement, he traveled with his wife, née Pearl Ruth Gottlieb. They two enjoyed plein air art and bought paintings from California, French and Russian artists. But aside from watching sports on his new big-screen TV, Cotliar — once a newsman, always a newsman — spent much of his time reading and watching the news, starting at 5 every morning.
“One thing that really struck me at his retirement party was that there were 400 or 500 people there, and everyone shared the same feeling: that he was a truth teller who protected his reporters. They had such great affection for him,” his daughter said.
“When he first started, the newspaper was a very different, much more conservative paper. He rose through the ranks out of a sheer love for journalism, spanning two generations of major headlines — from the astronaut program to presidential elections — and deciding what went on Page 1. He took that responsibility very seriously. Watching our dad love his work, love his colleagues, and always pay attention to the news made it exciting to sit around the dinner table with him. It gave me such immense respect for him.”
Cotliar and Pearl were married Aug. 24, 1958, and remained together for 53 years until her death in December 2011. According to the couple’s daughter, like Pearl, Cotliar loved being a grandparent and kept folders with photos and accomplishments of his grandchildren.
He is survived by his son, David Cotliar, and his spouse, Kenneth Wang; his daughter, Sharon Cotliar-Zweifach, and her spouse, Dr. Eric Zweifach; and two grandchildren, Abigail Zweifach-Coles and Joshua Zweifach.
