G David Schine

G. David Schine had been an unpaid consultant of the Senate Permanent Investigations sub‐committee under the late Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin. Schine had accompanied a committee counsel, Roy M. Cohn, on investigative trips until he was called into service as an Army private. The then Secretary of the Army, Robert T. Stevens, accused Mr. Cohn of seeking to exert undue influence to gain favorable treatment for Private Schine. Senator McCarthy and Mr. Cohn then counter‐charged that the Army principals in the dispute had tried to “blackmail” them to halt an investigation of alleged subversion in the Army Signal Corps establishment at Fort Monmouth, N. J. The episode ended with the condemnation of the Senator by the Senate in a censure proceeding. In 1957 David Schine took over the family holdings - Schine Enterprises - from his father J. Myer Schine. David Schine, his wife and his 35 year old son Berndt died in a plane crash in June, 1996. Gerard David Schine, born in Gloversville, N.Y., in 1927, was a graduate of Andover and Harvard (class of 1949) and the languid-looking heir to a hotel fortune when Mr. Cohn brought him to work for the investigations committee, headed by Senator McCarthy, in the spring of 1953. For a time he served as president of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, part of the $150 million coast-to-coast theater, hotel and real estate empire of his father, J. Myer Schine. After some of the properties had been sold, Mr. Schine continued to maintain ties with the remaining enterprises. He became involved in film making, achieving success in 1971 as the executive producer of the Oscar-winning thriller "The French Connection." He also produced records. In 1957, Mr. Schine married Hillevi A. K. Rombin, a native of Aofta, Sweden, who was a Swedish national decathlon champion before becoming Miss Universe of 1955. The couple leave five children: Mark, the twin of Berndt; Vidette Perry, Kevin, Axel and Lance. Also surviving are four grandchildren.