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Mr. Snyder thrived under Simon & Schuster’s ownership by Gulf and Western Industries, which bought the company in 1975. But when the owner’s founder and chairman, Charles G. Bludhorn, died in 1983 and was succeeded by Martin Davis, an executive at Paramount Pictures, a Gulf and Western subsidiary, Mr. Snyder feuded with him. At one point Mr. Davis rejected his advice to invest in an educational publisher being offered at a fire sale price.
After he was fired by Viacom, Mr. Snyder formed an investment group that, in 1996, acquired Western Publishing and its children’s publishing division, Golden Books. But turning the company around proved problematic, and it was sold.
At the request of Norman Mailer, Mr. Snyder was instrumental in reviving International PEN, which promotes literature and free expression, and helped establish the foundation that presents the National Book Awards.
Mr. Snyder never denied that he was a tough taskmaster, but, he said, he did not demand more of others than he did of himself.
“Ninety‐nine percent of the people in this industry are highly intelligent, so that quality doesn’t distinguish anyone,” he told The Times in 1979. “The people who succeed are those who have the greatest commitment. Maybe it’s a neurotic commitment I look for, the person who will spend the last five minutes doing a task. You want someone who does something that is impossible and then is worried the next day that he can’t duplicate it.”
Amplifying his self-analysis, Mr. Snyder revealed another aspect of his balky behavior, which he attributed to his upbringing as a hyperactive only child and sketchy student raised in a home devoid of books by parents whose primary passion was playing gin rummy.
“I was quite rebellious, and think my parents felt I was going on the wrong track,” he said. “They were very permissive, and guess I kept wishing they had exercised more authority. I can remember going to ‘Annie Hall’ with Joni when it opened. There was that great line when Woody Allen gets a ticket from a cop, rips it up and says, ‘It’s not your fault, I just can’t deal with authority.’
“I poked Joni and said, ‘That was me.’”
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Sam Roberts
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