Harold Sills, lawyer and socialite, dies at 97

HAROLD SILLS was still a charmer at 90.

At a party observing his birthday, 50 Philadelphia women celebrated him with cocktails - before their husbands were allowed to join the group for dessert.

"Men admired his thinking; women raved about his charm," his daughter, Judith Sills, wrote in an obituary.

Harold Sills, a prominent lawyer who also was popular in Philadelphia social circles, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 97 and lived in Bala Cynwyd.

As his daughter put it, Sills was a "ridiculously proud" graduate of Lehigh University, Class of 1934. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1937.

"He died with his alumni cards in his wallet," his daughter said.

Bob Hall, chief operating officer of the company that is purchasing the Daily News, Inquirer and philly.com, said he remembers Sills' 90th birthday party well.

"He invited a number of couples," said Hall, a longtime friend. "For the first hour-and-a-half, he was upstairs with all the women and the men stayed downstairs until he let them come up.

"He was a real gentleman, a great person. He cared about other people. He was incredibly sharp and always well-dressed. He enjoyed life."

A testament to how valued Sills' legal services could be was his experience as general counsel of Confab Corp., of King of Prussia.

In 1998, Tyco Corp. bought Confab and, as usually happens when a new owner takes over a company, all the senior executives were terminated.

However, two weeks later the new chief executive officer called Sills into his office, "acknowledged he had made a mistake in judgment," his daughter wrote, and rehired him as Tyco general counsel. He was 85.

Sills served in World War II as a military intelligence officer on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb.

"He kept the confidentiality of his war efforts throughout his lifetime, except to reminisce from time to time about his years spent with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist for security purposes," his daughter wrote.

In 1942, he married Gerry Adelman.

"A successful professional man, Harold Sills was also an enormously socially popular man," his daughter wrote. "He had the gift of the common touch, numbered his friends from judges to janitors, and enjoyed unusually deep and longlasting friendships."

He will be buried in the suit he had fitted to wear last New Year's Eve.

Besides his wife and daughter, he is survived by a granddaughter, Spencer Hoffman, who will be following granddad to Penn Law School in the fall.

Services: 2 p.m. today at the Bringhurst Funeral Home, 225 Belmont Ave. Burial will be in West Laurel Hill Cemetery.