Toronto Life's June edition has a blistering profile of power couple Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, The Heather & Gerry Show. Ace journalist Marci McDonald delves deep into their backgrounds, without their cooperation.
Needless to say, with the connections this duo has, you'd think some of these revelations -- about their early years together, Reisman's son from a former marriage and other less-than-flattering details -- would never have come to light.
But obviously, some people were more than happy to dish the dirt.
Tossing off breezy ad libs on an assortment of public stages, Schwartz and Reisman seem disarmingly open, unfettered by fusty establishment hauteur. Only gradually does it become clear that their banter can be deceptive—a calculated façade to keep uncontrolled inquiry at bay. They declined to be interviewed for this story, protesting that they like to keep their private lives off limits. Then, weeks after I began research on them, Reisman phoned the editor of this magazine, accusing me of posing nasty questions. “I think I’m a good person,” she said, adding that she could call on “500 thought leaders” across the nation to attest to that perception. Three hours later, a two-page missive was hand-delivered to Toronto Life on the personal letterhead of Gerald Wilfred Schwartz. In more than three decades as a journalist, I have never received such a heavy-handed warning, let alone one from a couple whose net worth is estimated at $758 million. “You and the writer are hereby put on notice,” it said, “that all records, notes and source documentation used in the course of preparing the proposed article must be maintained for litigation should this become necessary.”
Bet some libel lawyers made a pile going over and over this one.
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