Bart Lytton

Lytton was not only politically influential but also made his mark in the art world. Together with Howard F. Ahmanson, Sr. (the prominent Republican who had reportedly introduced him to Unruh), and Anna Bing Arnold, Lytton was first a principal patron of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the largest art museum west of the Mississippi when it opened in 1965. Lytton later withdrew his promised support in disagreement with Museum planners, and a Museum gallery named for him was eventually renamed in honor of oil magnate Armand Hammer. Lytton retaliated by creating his own “Lytton Center for the Visual Arts” in one of his bank buildings, which also housed an invaluable European collection he had purchased for a future Hollywood Film Museum, another of his pet projects that was stillborn.

1965 also marked the beginning of Lytton’s financial decline. In 1967, his corporate empire collapsed. He lost much of his personal wealth, and two years later, while planning to begin a new career as a movie producer, he died of a heart attack at age 56 in 1969. His widow later reported to a court that, at his death, he was heavily in debt and virtually insolvent.

Lytton, who contributed significantly to the John F. Kennedy presidential campaign in 1960, was “brash, colorful and controversial” and called himself “the most successful businessman in this decade in the U.S.”, declaring “The only ism for me is narcissism”.

As a delegate to the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, Lytton angered both Kennedy and Governor Brown by his mystifying support of former Connecticut Governor and Ambassador Chester Bowles for the presidency, though Bowles had no other support on the delegation and had publicly endorsed Kennedy. Apart from casting his lone half-vote for Bowles, Lytton not only printed and distributed a Bowles “newsletter” to the delegates, but even tried to “crash” a caucus reserved for delegates committed to Kennedy. Thomas Lynch, the Brown stalwart who chaired the caucus (and later became Attorney General of California), took great satisfaction in having Lytton bodily thrown out of the room.

A lavish political contributor, Lytton served as Finance Chairman of the California Democratic Party from 1958 to 1962, during the first administration of Governor Pat Brown, and was a major donor to the presidential campaign of President John F. Kennedy.

Lytton formed his first savings and loan association in California in 1954, but his rapid financial rise began in Las Vegas, Nevada, two years later. By 1958, when he became active in Democratic politics through a connection with Jesse Unruh, the “boss” of the California State Assembly.

Then he became a home builder and real estate developer, his occupation in 1953, when, at the height of the Cold War, he publicly testified to the House Committee on Un-American Activities about his Communist experiences in New York and Hollywood.

After graduating from the University of Virginia in 1934, Bernard became a writer in New York City, where he worked as a playwright and briefly joined the Communist Party. In 1940, he moved to Hollywood and, maintaining his Communist connections, wrote magazine articles before breaking into the movie industry, writing scripts or story treatments for four films produced between 1942 and 1945. During this time, he adopted the name Bart, as well as his wife’s stepfather’s last name, and became Bart Lytton.

Bart Lytton (born Bernard Shulman; October 4, 1912 – June 29, 1969) was an American financier, Democratic Party fundraiser and philanthropist largely remembered for his flamboyance. A self-made man, he was a founder of one of the largest savings and loans in the United States only to lose it all a few years before his death.

Lytton was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, the son of Benjamin Otto Shulman, an emigrant from the Russian Empire, and Ina (née Rabinowitz), who married in 1911. His father was an attorney who was murdered in 1915 in Youngstown, Ohio, where he was shot in the head by an enraged butcher who lost a lawsuit.