William Arrott ’47

Bill died July 18, 2021, in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 95.

He was the son of Charles R. Arrott 1918. He was also the great-grandson of George Goldie, the iconic first director of Princeton’s athletic program who changed the face of collegiate athletics throughout the country. 

It was wartime when Bill started at Princeton, and the path to his degree in electrical engineering was interrupted by his enlistment in the Marines. 

Years later, as senior vice president of Hill & Knowlton, then the largest public relations firm in the world, he used his scientific understanding and PR skills to introduce in medicine the MRI and the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. In the 1970s, when two major gas crises had imperiled the automotive industry, Bill guided public relations of an automobile-rebate program that shifted the industry back into a strong position.

Bill won major awards and traveled extensively for business and for pleasure. He was a formidable adversary at the bridge table; excelled in ballroom dancing; took up golf at 70; and loved his life and lived it well.

Bill is survived by his wife of 25 years, Elizabeth Rann Arrott; his son, William Arrott Jr.; three grandchildren; two great-grandsons; a great-great-grandson; brother Anthony Arrott; sister Lyde Longaker; and many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by grandson William Scott Arrott.