Whether it was about advertising, Republican politics, football, or going public with his bedroom stories, Dick McDonald had a flair for the dramatic.
"I once watched him present a hospital campaign where, in his setup, he quoted Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and Vince Lombardi in five minutes," said Gary Mueller, McDonald's former business partner.
McDonald rose to prominence in Milwaukee as co-founder and president of McDonald Davis & Associates, which he built into one of the area's largest advertising and public relations agencies.
The award-winning company grew to become an industry pioneer and leader, especially in health care, and was acquired by advertising giant BVK in 1995. After leaving the merged agency, McDonald formed an independent consulting business in 2003.
"He was definitely a pioneer - he basically changed the way hospitals market themselves," said Mueller, BVK's creative director.
Richard Edmund McDonald died Nov. 20. He was 77. Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about 12 years ago, he moved into an assisted-living facility 21/2 years ago, according to niece Heidi Byerly.
A Milwaukee-area native, McDonald attended elementary and high school in Whitefish Bay and studied sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He later operated his own public relations firm in Dallas.
In 1963, he started McDonald Davis & Associates in Milwaukee with Charles Davis.
He married Paula Ann Palangi in 1959 in Pittsburgh and had four children before their high-profile divorce in 1990.
"His passion was business, and he had very little life outside business," said Paula McDonald, who remarried and is now a writer and photojournalist in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Paula was the creative director and vice president of McDonald Davis from 1980 to 1990.
"Dick was a very successful man who went after whatever he wanted and usually pursued it very vigorously," she said. "He was active in Republican politics for quite a while."
He was marketing adviser to the state primary campaign of presidential candidate Richard Nixon, among other contributions to Republican candidates in the 1960s and '70s.
He was also known as the producer and anchor of "The Bart Starr Show" with the longtime Packers quarterback.
Dick McDonald's biggest brush with fame came when he and Paula emerged as the bestselling authors of "Loving Free," a 1973 bare-it-all guide to marriage, family relations and sex. The book made national headlines.
The explicit contents of the book's section on sex became controversial in their hometown despite the couple's efforts to avoid media attention in Wisconsin at the outset.
In one story from the time, it was reported that two Whitefish Bay families went as far as to prevent their children from playing with the McDonald kids in school.
"We were shunned at school events. We were subtly exiled," Dick McDonald said in a 1978 interview.
More than 1 million copies of the book were sold, and the couple became fixtures on local and even national television, as well as on radio and in newspapers.
The book was even used as classroom material in some universities and colleges.
He made the news again in 2001 over a canine brouhaha with Linda McDonald, his second wife. Their Mequon neighbors said the McDonalds' two dogs "terrorized" them - 49 signed a petition supporting the city, which sought a court order to have the animals destroyed.
But the dogs, a pair of boxers, survived after an Ozaukee County judge ruled they could remain at the McDonalds' home with tighter restrictions. Linda and Dick McDonald later divorced.
Beyond his colorful life in the media, former colleagues, friends and family remember him as an exemplary mentor.
"I learned a lot of what I do today from Dick," BVK's Mueller said.
Former McDonald Davis employee Nancy McDowell said he was a very outgoing individual who enjoyed talking to all kinds of people.
"He was a family friend who gave me opportunities that were very meaningful," said McDowell, who worked at the agency for 27 years.
According to a paid death notice, McDonald is survived by his children Eric McDonald and Shain Rutten, Kelly and John Barry, Randi and Rob Nielson and Mike and Rosanne McDonald.
He is also survived by nieces Lisa Haupt Glassman, Jennifer Haupt Engstrom, Heidi Haupt Byerly and nephew Mark Bellini. Visitation will be held from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday at Feerick Funeral Home, 2025 E. Capitol Drive.
© 2011 , Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.
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