LONGTIME PR GURU BARRY EPSTEIN DIES AT 76
Boca fixture seemed to know everyone, represented many.
Barry Epstein was a vanishing species. He was a schmoozer.
The longtime public relations man, who lived west of Boca Raton, died at 76 Tuesday at a suburban Boca Raton rehabilitation center following a long neurological illness, longtime friend Howard Appell confirmed Thursday.
“This has been a long process, and we are grateful he’s finally at peace,” wife Joanne posted Tuesday afternoon on her Facebook page.
For a good half-century, Epstein represented hundreds of clients: county commissioners and congressmen, political advocates and firebrands, barbecue joints, yacht-makers and jilted wives.
He also started several groups that brought in public speakers, including the Gold Coast Tiger Bay Club. He also wrote online blogs with the latest doings and gossip.
“I’ve got 20 balls up in the air at one time,” he said for a 1997 profile in The Palm Beach Post, sitting behind his desk, scattered with papers, at his Boca Raton office. His walls were plastered with photographs of him with movie stars, politicians and presidents. He had numerous Rolodexes, those round card files that, before computers and cellphones, were the go-to for contact information.
He used various gimmicks to attract attention to his businesses. He had a car license plate that said “C ME 4 PR.” He spelled his name in lowercase letters on his business cards. He set up phone numbers at his home and businesses that ended in the rare “0-0-0-0” to make them easier to remember.
In his prime, he’d rise before 5 a.m. and — before the dominance of the internet — read eight newspapers at his kitchen table. His home had numerous TVs, each with a video recorder, and he owned several phone lines.
He’d have a breakfast meeting with a client, lunch with one of the many organizations he represented — some for free — and often not get to sleep before midnight.
“If there was an event going on, Barry wanted to be there. Barry knew about it. He was somehow involved in it,” Appell, president of the Gold Coast Tiger Bay Club — which Epstein helped found — said Thursday.
“He loved entertainment, he loved networking, and above all, he loved politics,” Appell said.
He started his own firm in 1979.
Epstein, born during World War II in Mount Vernon, near New York, graduated from Kent State University in Ohio and started at small chambers of commerce. He was heading a chamber for a small Pennsylvania county in 1971 when a cold call recruited him to the chamber in Hollywood, Fla.
After a stint in Orlando, he returned to southern Broward County to start his own firm in July 1979. He moved up to the Boca Raton area on New Year’s Day 1988.
After the son of a Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s deputy was beaten, Epstein rapidly assembled a task force of politicians, lawyers and cops to fight gangs.
When then-Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson and others wanted to mount a challenge to a proposed bullet train, they hired Epstein to crank out press releases, set up media events and help lobby the government to kill the project.
And when former schools Superintendent Art Johnson sued his bosses, alleging they conspired to fire him, Epstein set up a “photo op” at a hotel conference room.
Reporters saw an elaborately produced video showing Johnson walking the halls of Spanish River High School when he was principal and supporters singing his praises and maligning Superintendent Joan Kowal, whom Johnson says forced him out.
He is survived by his wife, Joanne Epstein, his son, Jaret Epstein, two grandsons, and a daughter by a previous marriage, as well as brothers Ira and Lenny Epstein. Larry Epstein, a son from his first marriage, died at 45 in Orlando of a heart condition in 2010.
On Thursday, at a funeral in Fort Lauderdale, friends were “to honor, and ROAST, the life of public relations guru Barry Epstein,” friend Eric Golinko wrote Wednesday in an email.
“We’re putting the FUN in funeral, in a service that seemed the only appropriate one for a person as colorful and vibrant as Barry,” Golinko wrote. “Please join us in colorful, casual attire for laughter, stories, and memories to celebrate his life.”