Power Marriage Has Its Privileges

By John Greenwald

When James Robinson III needs a little informal advice on how to polish the image of American Express, he has only to turn to his wife Linda. As president of the Manhattan p.r. firm Robinson, Lake, Lerer & Montgomery, she ranks among the most powerful -- and controversial -- publicists in America. Her clients range from Texaco, which she helped to fend off a takeover bid staged by raider Carl Icahn, to junk-bond king Michael Milken, whose infamy she tried to % subdue. Together the Robinsons are a nonpareil power couple who cut a broad swath through the toniest boardrooms and ballrooms of the corporate elite.

Their marriage, the second for both, unites two overachievers whose days are so crowded that it takes his-and-her secretaries to get them together for lunch. Linda, 38, the daughter of Freeman Gosden, who played Amos on the Amos and Andy show, was a deputy press secretary in Ronald Reagan's first presidential campaign. A quick study, she had risen to senior vice president for corporate affairs at Warner Amex Cable, a joint venture of Warner Communications and American Express, by the time she married Robinson in 1984. Two years later she launched Robinson Lake, which has since been acquired by the giant advertising firm Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt.

Robinson's aggressive p.r. tactics have sometimes misfired. In the tangled fight for RJR Nabisco, she failed to soften the reckless bravado of client Ross Johnson in his abortive attempt to buy the food and tobacco company he headed. The defeat was a setback for her husband too. American Express's Shearson Lehman unit had bankrolled Johnson, and Jim Robinson had worked closely on the deal. More recently, she sought to portray Milken as a misunderstood benefactor of the poor. But the campaign had little impact on perceptions of the junk man, who is serving a 10-year sentence for violating securities laws.

Despite their evident mutual admiration and shared passion for business, the Robinsons remain a bit of an odd couple in the eyes of some observers. "Linda's sort of Hollywood," says author Michael Thomas, a former investment banker. "I just don't think Jimmy's cut out for that. He is a man perfectly fitted to have been Eisenhower's Secretary of the Treasury."

Jim Robinson's drive and determination have never been in doubt. A dedicated weight lifter who bulked up from 125 lbs. to more than 200 lbs. in college, he rises at dawn and begins each day with a workout, sometimes following along with a video called Buns of Steel. (Robinson's exercise routine has become the stuff of legend. Business Week reported three years ago that he did 300 sit- ups each morning; FORTUNE said at least 600 in a 1989 story; Vanity Fair put the number last year at 900.)

The scion of an Atlanta banking family, Robinson, 55, maintains a courtly manner and has donned the mantle of corporate elder statesman by frequently testifying before Congress and speaking out on pet issues like the benefits of free trade. Chairman since 1977, he has managed to portray himself as a leader above the fray of day-to-day problems, which has earned him a reputation as a Teflon-coated executive.

But that nonstick substance could be wearing thin. "Jimmy Robinson has been asleep at the switch," alleges an executive of a rival credit-card firm. "He's not what you call a hands-on manager. He spends too much time out having fun schmoozing with clients at golf dates." Robinson angrily denies such charges, arguing that outsiders have no idea of his schedule or how he spends his day. "Let them use an 80-hour week as a denominator," Robinson says. He knows it will take that much time, well spent, to retrieve the cachet that American Express has left home without.

With reporting by Thomas McCarroll and Susanne Washburn/New York