Remembering Howard Bragman, Who Always Made Things Memorable

Howard Bragman
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So Howard Bragman has died.

I will miss him–not because we were especially close, but because he had a gift for making every encounter kind of fun, and, often, more memorable than it was supposed to be.

The last time I spoke with Howard was some months ago. He had called, apropos  of nothing much, to marvel at the way Disney CEO Bob Chapek had managed to offend almost everyone with his back-and-forth approach to the company’s sex-and-real estate problem in Florida. This was a thing of wonder to a professional crisis manager like Bragman. Usually, you manage to make someone happy.

At the time, Howard said he, personally, was happy enough. Having weathered a domestic crisis of some sort, he was living in Toluca Lake and having an unexpectedly good time. I didn’t ask, so I can’t tell you more.

But the encounter that really sticks with me had occurred more than a decade earlier, in 2011. I was working for The New York Times. Howard, for some reason, took it into his head to corner me into writing a Sunday Business column about a forthcoming book by his friend/client Peter Guber.

The book, called Tell To Win, was a smart, anecdote-heavy disquisition on the gentle art of using storytelling—artfully designed and executed narrative—to get what you want. And I think Howard, who had an impish streak, knew it would provoke me.

Guber, whom I like a great deal, is pure Hollywood. He is all about using story to maneuver, manipulate and perhaps hypnotize an audience, large or small, into seeing things his way.

Unfortunately, I’m a more prosaic sort. In a lifetime of reporting on people as interesting as Peter Guber, I’ve become stuck with an unhappy conviction that facts are facts, whether they serve our ends or not.

Inevitably, Guber and I wrangled in a sometimes loud two-hour interview that came to a stalemate over the issue of truth. I was shocked that the book, about using story to achieve business ends, never seemed to bother with the truth. Peter, in what became a kicker to the Times column, responded with an aphorism.

“Truth is a point of view,” he said. “But authenticity can’t be faked.”

Howard wasn’t present, but, by my recollection, he set it all up, then got out of the way. And I’m sure he intended sparks to fly.

Later, he told me the column had landed Guber’s book on the best-seller list for about “fifteen minutes,” to use a favorite phrase, and the name of his erstwhile company.

It was all he wanted, plus some fun. He was that kind of guy. I will miss him.