Lyle Stuart was an American author and independent publisher of controversial books. Born Lionel Simon on August 11, 1922, Stuart worked as a newsman for years before launching his publishing firm, Lyle Stuart, Incorporated. A former part-owner of the original Aladdin Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Stuart was also a noted gambling authority, who advised casinos on how to protect themselves from cheats and cons. A garrulous raconteur, he had a wide circle of friends, freely admitting to a lively sex life and, as expected of a gambling authority and a former partial casino owner, he was fond of gambling, with baccarat and craps being his games of choice. His gambling bestsellers were Casino Gambling for the Winner,Winning at Casino Gambling, and Lyle Stuart on Baccarat. He boasted, in Casino Gambling for the Winner, of having won $166,505 in ten consecutive visits to Las Vegas.
Stuart had first gained national notoriety by taking on the powerful newspaper columnist Walter Winchell in a series of scathing magazine articles, collected in book form in 1953. After serving with the United States Merchant Marine and the Air Transport Command in World War II, he worked for William Randolph Hearst's International News Service, Variety, Music Business, and RTW Scout. In 1951, he launched a monthly tabloid named Exposé designed to publish those stories and articles that others would not have dared publish because they might have offended subscribers or advertisers. Contributors included Upton Sinclair, Norman Mailer, George Seldes, Ted O. Thackrey and John Steinbeck.
In the early 1950s, he was the business manager of the EC Comics line published by Bill Gaines, a close friend. In 1956, with $8,000 of the money he collected from libel actions against Walter Winchell, Confidential, ABC-TV, and Editor & Publisher, he began his publishing company, Lyle Stuart, Inc., of which, as noted above, Kensington Books subsequently acquired ownership.
Lyle Stuart, Inc.
The publishing firm for which Stuart was best known, Lyle Stuart, Inc., was founded in 1955 with the proceeds of a lawsuit settlement. It was known for publishing books such as The Sensuous Woman. The company was sold in 1988 to developer Steven Schragis, who started Carol Publishing. In 2000, Carol Publishing filed for bankruptcy and was itself sold to the Kensington Publishing Corporation.
Stuart made headlines in 1997 with his then-current Barricade Books, by reissuing The Turner Diaries, a novel thought to have been the inspiration behind Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Murrah building. He was a strong advocate of freedom of the press, and believed it was important for people to be able to read and make up their own minds. Lyle Stuart stated he was a firm proponent of the First Amendment which he felt should always be challenged. Also in the 1990s, casino mogul Steve Wynn sued Stuart over catalog copy. The copy on Running Scared, a biography of Wynn, made reference to a New Scotland Yard report that tied the Las Vegas tycoon to the Genovese Crime Family. Stuart lost the libel case and was ordered to pay three million dollars in defamation, forcing him into bankruptcy. This judgment was overturned on appeal by the Nevada Supreme Court in 2001 and sent back for a new trial, which Wynn chose not to pursue.
Personal life
Stuart's first wife, Mary Louise Stuart, died in 1969. They are the parents of famed jazz guitarist Rory Stuart. Later Stuart married Carole Livingston Stuart in 1982 and they were married until his death on June 24, 2006 at age 83. Stuart, especially in his last years, was a resident of Fort Lee, New Jersey, where he died on June 24, 2006, at the age of 83.
