Howard Gittis, 73; Longtime Adviser to Billionaire Investor

Howard Gittis, 73, vice chairman of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc. and the closest adviser to billionaire financier Ronald O. Perelman, died of a heart ailment Sept. 16 at his home in New York City.

MacAndrews & Forbes, a closely held company headed by Perelman, its chairman and chief executive officer, has investments in consumer products and entertainment companies, including Revlon. Mr. Gittis, who spent 22 years at the firm, supervised all legal, financial and administrative affairs as chief administrative officer.

Mr. Gittis was a director at MacAndrews & Forbes as well as at Jones Apparel Group, M&F Worldwide, Panavision, Revlon, REV Holdings and Scientific Games.

He also served for 27 years on the board of trustees at Temple University in Philadelphia, including six as chairman. The university named the student center after him in 2006. Under Mr. Gittis, Temple's enrollment increased 17 percent and undergraduate applications rose by 40 percent. Temple's endowment grew by more than 45 percent.

His donations to Temple included a $5 million pledge to create the Ronald O. Perelman Professorship in Entrepreneurial Finance at the Fox School of Business and Management in 2004; three matching grants, called Gittis Challenges, to Temple's annual fund in 2004-05 and 2005-06; and other unrestricted contributions to support the university's general operations.

Mr. Gittis was a national finance co-chairman for Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) current presidential campaign. In the mid-1970s he was the attorney for Philadelphia Mayor Frank L. Rizzo during a recall attempt.

Mr. Gittis was a Philadelphia native. He received a bachelor's degree in economics and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

He was a member of the board of overseers at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where Gittis Hall and the Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Studies are named in his honor.

Before joining MacAndrews & Forbes in 1985, Mr. Gittis was a partner at the Philadelphia law firm of Wolf, Block, Schorr and Solis-Cohen, where he served as the chairman of the executive committee.

His tenure at Wolf Block lasted more than 25 years and focused on general litigation, real estate, and corporate acquisition and divestiture work. In 1985, the National Law Journal listed Mr. Gittis as among the 100 top lawyers in the United States.