Bernard J. Geis (August 30, 1909 – January 8, 2001) was an American editor and publisher who founded the now-defunct Bernard Geis Associates, which published and promoted several best-sellers in the 1960s and 70s, including Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls and Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl and David Wilkerson's The Cross and the Switchblade.
[1] Simon & Schuster's Michael Korda described Geis's use of Hollywood-style publicity tactics a "shameless blend of column plants, celebrity appearances, and Hollywood gossip that was new to publishing but was old hat for theater and movies.
"[3] Geis published Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, which went on to spend 65 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.
[1] His partners withdrew from backing the company in 1967 after Geis began publishing novels featuring highly sexual content and characters resembling real celebrities.
Random House discontinued distribution over the book The King by Morton Cooper, whose main character was rumored to be based on Frank Sinatra,[4] and a number of partners including Linkletter, Groucho Marx, Goodson and Todman backed out over The Exhibitionist by Henry Sutton (a pseudonym for novelist David R.
[5][6] Time Inc. sued and then lost a lawsuit against Bernard Geis Associates, Random House and author Josiah Thompson in 1968.
The book included sketches of pictures in Life Magazine which were photos of stills taken from the Zapruder film which Time, Inc. owned.
The judges ruled in favor of Thomson and Geis saying that "There is public interest in having the fullest information available on the murder of President Kennedy.