Edward A. Miller, 93, died September 10, 2024. He passed away in his bed, surrounded by his wife, two children, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and their spouses and partners.
Ted, as he was known, was born May 4, 1931, in New York City and grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. In the fourth grade, his parents discovered that he did not know how to read and had been reciting books back to them from memory. It didn't take him long to learn, eventually attending Yale University, graduating from the college in 1953 and the law school in 1956.
After law school, he served in the Navy and was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, where he fell in love with the culture—often getting lost looking for Japanese zen gardens and the most hidden Kaiseki restaurants—and fell in love with Sachiko Makishima. At a time when tensions between their respective countries were still high, they married with the blessing of their parents in 1959.
Returning to the United States, he began work at the law firm Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam & Roberts in New York City. He lived with his wife and two small children, Juliet and Janet Miller, in Brooklyn Heights, so that he might walk from his Wall Street office across the Brooklyn Bridge to have dinner with his family. And he did most nights, even when that meant walking back across the bridge to the office to work deep into the night. Later, the family moved to Greenwich Village, but Ted missed the exercise and took up running. He ran six miles a day for decades until an old wrestling injury finally forced him to get a new knee.
He taught his daughters to ski and golf and took them to Central Park to play catch most weekends, helping them put baseball gloves on their small hands. He often said that, if he didn't have a wife and two children to support, he would have moved to Colorado to be a ski bum. For all of the many hours of work he put in every week, and as much as he loved the work, he never brought it home with him. When his daughters were asked in school what their father did, Janet, then in first grade, said he sold newspapers on Wall Street, and Juliet, in second grade, answered that he gave them piggyback rides to bed.
After leaving the law firm, Ted went on to become general counsel of Harper & Row for nearly two decades. There, in addition to handling all legal issues facing one of the largest book publishers (and a publicly traded company), Ted argued and won Harper & Row v. The Nation in the US Supreme Court in 1984, a famous copyright case establishing authors' ability to control publication of their work even on matters of intense public interest. After Harper & Row was acquired by News Corp., Ted served as general counsel of Kodansha International (the New York–based arm of a Japanese book publisher) for two more decades, only fully retiring late in 2010.
Ted spent the remainder of his years between Venice, Florida, East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, and Fort Lee, New Jersey. He played many rounds of golf with friends and family at Great Bear Country Club, even making par on the first hole two weeks before his death.
Ted loved many things—among these, reading, running, and eating Japanese food—but most of all he loved his wife and his family. In the end, he was with his large family who were all able to say goodbye. He is survived by his wife of 65 years; his two daughters; Juliet's wife, Ann Matier; his grandchildren Mark McDonald, Jack McDonald, Kevin Lang McDonald, and Caitlin McDonald; their spouses and partners, Tiffany McDonald, Valerie Steinberg, Nicole Lang McDonald, and Divya Sharan; and two great-grandchildren, Henry McDonald and Eloise (Ellie) McDonald. He was predeceased by his parents, Paul and Tess Miller, and sister Helen Rosenthal.
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