Biography

Robert Gottlieb was born on April 29, 1931 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Maria Tucci and Muriel Higgins. He died on June 14, 2023 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.

American writer & editor.

Graduated from Columbia University (1952).

Editor of The New Yorker (1987-1992).

[on his years of editing the writer, Toni Morrison] Our only clashes have been about commas, because I like commas, and Toni doesn't... And it's because Toni... hears her prose. So that, when she's writing she hears what she's writing. I believe that she hears the pauses that commas suggest to a reader. But the reader isn't hearing her speak it, so we don't know where those pauses are, without those vital, adorable little commas.

I was editing [writer] Len Deighton...who couldn't be more eager for suggestions...[yet is] one of those writers for whom, once a sentence is down on paper, it takes on a reality that no amount of good will or effort can change. So you can say to him,...'On page 37 this character is killed but on page 118 [he's] at a party'...Len says, 'This is terrible...I'll fix it...' Then you get the manuscript back,...turn to page 37, and he'll have changed it to, 'He was *almost* killed'.