by Len Lear

Ed Eisen once posed as a terrorist. The Mafia made him an offer ($48,000 to do public relations for a convicted murderer for one year) that he could – and did – refuse. Comic Jackie Gleason showed him the door. He dated Christine Jorgensen, the Katelyn Jenner of her day. And Mother Teresa changed the course of his life.

Eisen, an award-winning journalist, has been a radio DJ, TV producer, talk-show host, the first Jewish spokesman for a Pope and more. Now, in his new memoir, “Front Row Seat,” Eisen, 83, who also has his Chestnut Hill stories, tells the tale of a remarkable transformation and how he acquired a front row seat to Philadelphia area history over the last half-century.

After the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin went out of business in January of 1982 after 135 years in business, Eisen was hired by the Chestnut Hill Community Association to do publicity over an environmental issue the CHCA was involved in.

And when Eisen worked for the Gray & Rogers public relations firm in the mid-1970s, he came up with the idea for “The Great Train/Car Chase,” a promotion he created for SEPTA to publicize a then-new train station in Valley Forge.

In the promotion, Eisen had Chestnut Hill icon Thatcher Longstreth, the late City Councilman, leave the Valley Forge Train Station on the train at the exact same time that the late Jack Kelly, also a City Councilman and the brother of Grace Kelly, left the station in a sports car with a blonde passenger. The idea was to see who could get to a center city train station first.

“Thatcher won by three minutes,” said Eisen. “The story made the front page of both the Inquirer and Bulletin. That’s the kind of crap you find in public relations. I was basically a Barnum & Bailey promoter. Meaningless fluff. I even hired an Indian to do a rain dance so it would rain on Jack Kelly’s convertible.

“I had broken the Pennhurst story (horrific conditions at a facility for the mentally ill), which ran for one year in the Inquirer along with lots of other important stories, but I transferred my love and passion for journalism to public relations (because of the low pay at the Inquirer), a silly thing I came to hate, and then it took a long time to work my way back to journalism because p.r. people are like defense attorneys. You only tell one side of a story over and over again, so editors are skeptical about hiring someone who has done that for years.”

Eisen did eventually get back into journalism, however, which he credits to Mother Teresa. He actually interviewed the world-famous humanitarian in 1975 after he became the first Jewish person ever to do public relations for the Vatican.

Eisen was working for Gray & Rogers when the company was selected to represent Pope Paul VI for an event called the 41st Eucharistic Congress, which took place in Philadelphia in 1976, bringing to the city more than one million Catholics from all over the world. Eisen was asked to be the point man to handle worldwide publicity for the event.

“But I’m Jewish,” Eisen told his boss, Dave Ferrell. “I’ve never been to Mass, never sat in a Confessional, never attended an infant baptism.”

“Don’t worry,” said his boss, reminding him that Jesus was Jewish. “You’ll learn. You won’t have to kiss the Pope’s ring. I’ll do that next week in Rome. You just handle the news media in Philadelphia.”

As a part of that assignment, Eisen did get to interview Mother Teresa, which he insists changed his life. (Eisen’s father’s job was cleaning offices during the workweek, but on weekends he served as a cantor in synagogues all over West Philadelphia.)

During the interview, Eisen told the nun who would be canonized as a saint in 2016 that his move from journalism to public relations had been a mistake and that getting back into journalism would be challenging, if not impossible.

“Nothing is impossible for God,” she said, adding that “You need not be a nun to have a purpose, but without a mission life can be very empty. What is your purpose?”

The interview prompted Eisen to re-examine his purpose, whereupon he decided to get back into journalism if that was possible. After several failed attempts, by a fortuitous circumstance he was hired to be a business writer for the Philadelphia Bulletin after a candidate the paper really wanted backed out.

After the Bulletin went out of business in January 1982, Eisen became an entrepreneur by starting his own public relations firm, Eisen & Associates, which lasted until he retired in 2010.

Since then, Eisen has become a motivational speaker. He speaks to retirement homes and other organizations and institutions about his experiences with a mass murderer, Jackie Gleason, Joe Frazier, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Christine Jorgensen, members of the Philadelphia Mafia and more. His programs range from politics to religion, from history to philosophy, to the lessons he has learned on a road often less traveled. These experiences are also recounted in his book.

"Ed Eisen has received high client acclaim here for his bi-monthly current events program called Sound-Off!” according to Ceil Krajewski, of the Pine Run Retirement Community in Doylestown. “Our people tell me they look forward to his onehour Friday get-togethers, where anything can be discussed and everything is on the table!”

Eisen’s next presentations will be on Monday, Dec. 9 at 10:30 a.m. at Brittany Farms Estates, North Wales, Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 10:30 a.m. at Normandy Farms Estates, Blue Bell and Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 1:30 p.m. at Rydal Park, Abington. Visit EdEisenShow.com for more information.