Bernard Spitzer dead; father of ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer was 90

Bernard Spitzer, a developer of exclusive New York City buildings whose wealth fueled the political ascendancy of a son, Eliot, until a call-girl scandal forced his resignation as New York's governor, has died. He was 90.

The Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan confirmed by phone that a memorial service for Bernard Spitzer is scheduled for 10 a.m. today. Details of the time and cause of death weren't immediately available. Spitzer had suffered from Parkinson's disease throughout his son's political rise and quick fall.

Spitzer was an exception to the image of the real estate titan as brash publicity seeker. He preferred to keep a low profile while building the luxury high rises that became his specialty.

His buildings include the 57-story Corinthian condominium on East 38th Street in Manhattan, the distinctively curved 35-story building at 200 Central Park South, and other high-end dwellings along the perimeter of Central Park.

Spitzer found his first profession, engineering, "deadly dull," he told writer Brooke A. Masters for "Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer," her 2006 biography. "What I do, which is to create buildings, is more challenging," he said.

Spitzer and his wife, Anne, directed some of their self-made wealth -- various reports estimated it at $500 million -- toward charities and the Democratic Party, particularly the campaigns of their youngest son, Eliot.

Loans from his father helped to finance Eliot Spitzer's runs for New York attorney general in 1994, when he lost, and in 1998, when he won. Eliot Spitzer also earned hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from managing his father's investments and lived rent-free in an apartment his father owned.

After years of public denials, Eliot Spitzer acknowledged late in the 1998 election that he had, in fact, relied on a loan from his father to fund his 1994 bid. New York City's Board of Elections declined to investigate, in part because election laws had a two-year statute of limitations. Republicans tried to use the issue against Spitzer during his 2006 campaign for governor, which he won in a landslide, and again during his combative first months as governor.

In August 2007, lawyers for Bernard Spitzer made public a profane, anonymous telephone message he had received that threatened he would be forced to testify about his "phony loans."

Private investigators traced the call to Roger Stone, a consultant to the New York Republican Party, who denied making it. The party fired him.

Bernard Spitzer told Masters that he was "flabbergasted" by accusations that the family had violated campaign finance laws: "It never occurred to me that if I were contributing funds to my son that it could somehow be against the law."

Money aside, Spitzer was credited for imbuing his politician-son with the relentless drive that became his trademark as attorney general and, for 14 months until his dramatic downfall, as governor.

Growing up, Eliot and his two siblings would be expected to participate in a nightly discussion at the dinner table about an important topic.

Bernard Spitzer and his wife married in 1945.