QUEENS NATIVE DEUTSCH STAYS In YOUR FACE; Adman/media star uses public school social skills; some wonder about the substance.(Twentieth Anniversary Issue)

Crain's New York Business, June, 2005 by Sanders, Lisa

Byline: lisa sanders The evening of march 8, one of New York City's ugliest storms of the winter raged outside Lincoln Center. Inside, Donny Deutsch took the podium at the annual fund-raiser for the New York City Opera and promptly admitted: "This was my first opera. I was going to watch the Knicks.'' Muffled laughter rose from the audience.

In a stroke of public relations genius, "the people's opera'' had teamed up with Queens-born and -raised Mr. Deutsch, the enfant terrible who built an advertising powerhouse and is rapidly becoming a media star. "The New York City Opera is a scrappy, innovative organization, and Donny personifies that,'' says Jane Gullong, executive director of the opera company. In addition to his role as chairman and chief...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.