Orvil Dryfoos

Orvil Eugene Dryfoos (November 8, 1912 – May 25, 1963) was the publisher of The New York Times from 1961 to his death. He entered the Times family via his marriage to Marian Sulzberger, daughter of then-publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger.

Early life Dryfoos was born to Jack A. Dryfoos and the former Florence Levi. The elder Dryfoos was a wealthy hosiery manufacturer who was also the treasurer of a paper novelty manufacturing company. Orvil Dryfoos attended the Horace Mann School in New York City and Dartmouth College. He majored in sociology and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1934.

Upon graduation he began work as a runner on Wall Street at the firm Asiel & Co. In 1937 he moved to the firm Sydney Lewinson & Co. as a partner and purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Dryfoos belonged to Congregation Emanu-El of New York. Dryfoos was prevented from serving in World War II due to a diagnosis of rheumatic heart disease. He worked instead for the New York Red Cross Chapter's blood donor committee through the war.

Dryfoos immediately appointed veteran editorial board member, writer, and iconoclast John Bertram Oakes editorial page editor. Another of Dryfoos's first orders of business was launching the Western Edition of The New York Times, which was announced on October 31, 1961.

Newspaper strike The defining struggle of Dryfoos' tenure at The Times was a lengthy newspaper strike,

Personal life Dryfoos and his wife, the former Marian Sulzberger, had three children: Jacqueline Hays Dryfoos (born 1943), a psychotherapist divorced from Stuart Greenspon;

Death Following the protracted, and draining, 112-day newspaper strike of 1962-63, Dryfoos went to Puerto Rico to recover, but while there he checked into a hospital. He returned to New York and immediately went to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. He died there on May 25, 1963, from heart failure at the age of 50.

He was succeeded as publisher by Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, the son of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and younger brother of Marian Sulzberger Dryfoos.