Jeremy Tarcher | Book publisher, 83
Jeremy Tarcher, 83, a maverick publisher who specialized in books about health and human consciousness, died Sept. 20 at his home in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles of complications from Parkinson's disease. His death was confirmed by his companion, Harriet Stuart.
Jeremy Tarcher, 83,
a maverick publisher who specialized in books about health and human consciousness, died Sept. 20 at his home in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles of complications from Parkinson's disease. His death was confirmed by his companion, Harriet Stuart.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Tarcher packaged book deals for celebrities, which resulted in such comical titles as Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints and Johnny Carson's Happiness Is a Dry Martini.
He might have continued in that vein if he hadn't made a stop at the Esalen Institute, the Northern California hub of "New Age" thinking about human potential, where figures like Carlos Castaneda and Rollo May were challenging conventional ideas about the workings of the mind and body.
Undaunted by New York publishers who thought such ideas had marginal appeal, Mr. Tarcher went on to mine California's counterculture for bestsellers, bringing out such consciousness-expanding works as Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards and The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson.
Mr. Tarcher had boundless curiosity that "led him to discover the most innovative and exciting voices in the field of human potential," Joel Fotinos, who heads the imprint that began in the early 1970s as J. P. Tarcher and is now part of Penguin, said this week. "Jeremy's instinct for upcoming trends in the personal development genres was unequaled."
In 1957 he met Shari Lewis, who was, by his recollection, already "the queen of New York television" with Lamb Chop, her beloved puppet sidekick. He and Lewis were married in 1958, and he went on to produce her Saturday morning TV show for several years.
Mr. Tarcher could have profited from publishing the authors in his family. Besides Lewis, a prolific writer of children's books, his sister, Judith Krantz, was a queen of the bestseller lists with her novels Scruples and Princess Daisy.
Lewis died in 1998. Besides Stuart, he is survived by Krantz; a daughter; and a grandson. - L.A. Times