Albert James Tortorella's Obituary
Rome had Cicero. We got the better draw and had Al Tortorella.
“Don Alberto,” Albert J. Tortorella, passed on to the next life on Tuesday, May 5, 2025, after a lengthy illness. He was 83 years old. He is survived by his beloved wife, Karen Riley Tortorella, children John and Anne, and brother James.
Al was born February 11, 1942 in Washington, D.C to Caesar and Rose Tortorella. After serving in the U.S. Army in 1959-1960, he became a William Randolph Hearst scholar in journalism at the University of Maryland and later did postgraduate work at American University in 1971.
He began his career as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and later spent 10 years in corporate communications for the General Electric company in Washington and New York. In 1978, he joined the corporate communications firm Burson-Marsteller, where he spent most of his career, eventually becoming its Vice Chairman. In 1982, Burson-Marsteller client Johnson & Johnson suffered a very public crisis: seven people died in the Chicago area after taking cyanide-laced capsules of Extra-Strength Tylenol, the painkiller that was the drugmaker’s best-selling product. Al was the lead communications counsel to Johnson & Johnson and its CEO, James Burke, throughout the crisis. Because of how Johnson & Johnson responsibly managed that crisis – inventing and introducing, for example, tamper-proof packaging to consumer packaging – a specialty known as “crisis communications” soon emerged in the corporate world and Al soon became its foremost expert worldwide. He never took any credit for the Tylenol case, however, deferring all accolades to Burke and Johnson & Johnson because of the actions they took. Al received Silver Anvils from the Public Relations Society of America in 1982 and 1984. He lectured on his craft at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. Al was very much in demand as a communications counsellor. He eventually found new vistas and challenges with U.S. Tobacco and Ogilvy Public Relations both in New York and in California.
To those who knew him and loved him, Al will remain unforgettable as a beloved, one-of-a-kind personality who loved the English language and mastered it.
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