It was very complex. . It was almost time for Shayna to go home, too. This stuff just rolled off his back. Log In. James Lapine and Heidi Ettinger arrived at Mount Sinai in the morning to take Lucy Jane and me home. Theyre always sending people like John Glenn or Sally Ride into space. Then a hospital social worker came into the room. I went home, got into bed, and cried. He didnt circulate a lot among the troops, and he had no business. I looked at my mother. I go through these cycles. He first encountered the young, disheveled, and brilliant Bruce Wasserstein in 1976, when Wasserstein was an energetic associate at Cravath Swaine & Moore, the white-shoe Wall Street law firm. But when we stopped seeing each other I felt there was no reason to abandon the project. I knew that it had caused the death of Jacqueline Kennedys third child, Patrick. And so, if you believe that, youre not bound by common morality, and youre just incredibly ambitious and impatient and not held back by that.. Miss Hutchinson turned away. Twenty minutes later, Dr. Laurie Goldstein came into the room. Would you like to hold Lucy? Catherine asked me that morning. I hear your blood pressure is high, she said, wrapping the Velcro cuff around me again. Two weeks after Lucy Jane arrived, Catherine told me that my daughter was being promoted out of the critical nook. In his New Republic eulogy, Grafstein recalled how Wasserstein used to laugh about one particularly bungled meeting. I wasnt crying for Sandra exactly, or for fear that this last effort would again prove to be futile. The arrhythmia caused him to lose consciousness. I spoke at a funeral this morning. I held up Cindys pregnancy photos. I realized now that I was finally willing to give that up. In all my years in pursuit of fertility, the possibility of having a premature child had never occurred to me. First of all, its a massive hit to the compensation pool for a guy who contributed nothing. After my return home, one afternoon two weeks later, there was a message on my answering machine from a lab: Congratulations. ''I'm just bursting with joy,'' Ms. Wasserstein told the crowd. Shes very little, my mother said. Her dark eyes were shining as if she were still a girl playing by the Vistula River in Poland. Her next play in But if you dont want me to go I wont go., I want you to go, Mother, I said. Perella, who is elegant, tall, and thin, believes that, underneath the bravado, his former partner was inherently very, very shy. He laughingly remembers how, when the two of them posed together for pictures, Wasserstein was always sensitive to his height in relation to Perellas. I left a message on my mothers machine: Hello, Mother. Hes fine. Lola is my fathers official spokesperson. She had lost around fifty grams after the transfusion, and now she had a respirator tube taped over her nose and mouth. The bells in the N.I.C.U. Your blood pressure is a little high, she said. The last time my mother, Lola Wasserstein, had been in a hospital, she had watched her oldest daughter die of cancer. Im O.K., and Ive given up on that other thing., Thats why I came over, he said, his voice cheerful and, as always, a little too quick. Rob Phillips. After the sonogram, I ran into a young woman who had recently taken home one of her twins on a heart-and-lung monitor while the other remained in the N.I.C.U. I couldnt really take it all in. Biography: Wendy Wasserstein was born on October 18, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York to Morris Wasserstein Andrs brother George, an Oxford-educated minister, presided over the service wearing a white robe with gold vestments. WebAmerican playwright. Wasserstein and Perella met while working a corporate acquisition, and within 20 minutes of their first encounter, Wasserstein had taken control of the meeting. (Wasserstein and his first wife, Laura Lynelle Killin, had divorced in 1974, after six years of marriage.) I quickly became obsessed with the disparity between Angelas paycheck and Demi Moores. I ran down the corridor in search of Dr. Green, a large Southerner who was covering for Ian Holzman. Wasserstein had left his second wife, Christine Parrott, and their three children for Ash and then summarily dismissed her after he met Claude Becker, a tall, dark-haired French beauty. The crooner has come across the ocean to give our subway singers free concert tickets and spend money at our Irish bars. 19 (approx.) The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. I had called my brother Bruce just before the delivery, and at nine that night he approached the desk at the N.I.C.U. After word of the deal leaked out at the firm, his partners were dumbstruck by his selfishness and greed, especially as they considered him to be well past his sell-by date and even a liability with some clients. My father, in a gray suit, sat silently beside her. Are you pumping? an ultra-thin woman demanded from my doorway. of Morris Wasserstein (textile manufacturer) and Lola Scheifer; Mount Holyoke College, BA, 1971; Yale Drama School, MFA, 1976; ''My parents used to call me three times a week at 7 a.m. to ask me, 'Are you thin, are you married to a root-canal man, are you a root canal man?' I opened my sweater and put her inside. It's quite emotional. But you should know.. He sees poultry. Or maybe I was starring in a pro-life Christian docudrama warning young girls not to grow up into self-centered heathens: Marry young and procreate! He left all the day-to-day work up to [newly appointed C.E.O.] Rohatyn had heard that Wasserstein had been out of the office for several months and wondered why Lazard hadnt disclosed that fact to the market. is, but he is one smart guy. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. I recognized Shaynas mother, Miss Hutchinson, from our time at the back of the room, when our babies were still critical. Ms. Wasserstein would have juice and the two would ''sit around and vote for Best Supporting Actor in the Birth of Lucy Jane'' among the nurses and doctors. ''She's very competitive.''. (I learned a few weeks later that his group had been accepted to advise on missions to outer space. '', Ms. Wasserstein has always been big on ''to do'' lists. On behalf of the firm, Judi Mackey issued this statement: Bruce was a visionary leader of the firm from January of 2002 until his untimely passing in October 2009. Of course shell survive!. Cindy never has swollen fingers and legs. In the front, on the left, are the long-term tenants, preemies who will be staying a month or two, roughly until their natural due date. Mother of. I had never been hospitalized before, and hadnt realized that the experience was a non-stop meet and greet. It will still own 4.1 million shares, worth approximately $150 million. Im just warning you. Holzman said there was no reason to worry, I said. The guy was just so different than most people that you and I know. Would you like to feed Lucy Jane in the nesting room? Catherine asked me. I believed in the collaboration between the firm will of my one-pound-twelve-ounce daughter and the expertise of modern medicine. Well follow it up next week.. She never identified the father. I dont think I really connected lying on that brightly lit table with bringing new life into the world. Competitively, wed all check out each others babys weight. He also received $41 million in compensation for 2007. And this time Ms. Wasserstein got pregnant. And what a production it was! Mother: Pulitzer-prize winning playwright, Wendy Wasserstein. The writer James Lapine (''Passion,'' ''Sunday in the Park With George'') and the set designer Heidi Ettinger (''Big River,'' ''The Secret Garden'') brought mother and baby home. Say hello to Lucy Jane Wasserstein. We are from Slovenia. The way Bruce told it, the room went silent, with ashen faces around the table. redefined a multicultural neighborhood. Because she had been ill the previous Christmas, we had cancelled our lunch, but I had called to wish her well. Even at thirty, she takes Broadway dance classes every day. Then theres Lucys schooling, which has begun at the Barnard Toddler Center. ''Peter at the end of 'The Heidi Chronicles' says, 'In our lives our friends are our families. Lucy Jane Wasserstein weighed less than two pounds when delivered by Caesarian section in September 1999. Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. He was just given over to complete narcissism. ''As far as I know, all premature babies are brain surgeons. Im Catherine, the nurse said. Shayna had achieved that goal; Lucy was still working on it. While being a stunningly original thinker and very forceful in business, he was always tender and caring with his family and certainly was in reaching out to embrace Lucy [Wendy Wassersteins daughter] when his sister passed away in a very untimely way. It was a surreal cross between PBSs Nature and the Food Channel. I think there are very few people who from a business perspective had such an impact on our business over 30 years, spanning four decades, he says. Ironically, many of the firms partners didnt even realize he was gone. Holyoke College, which recently awarded her an honorary doctorate, Wasserstein wrote her first play, "Any Woman Can't" in 1973. Facebook. Were sending her for another sonogram tomorrow.. We were a newly public company, says a Lazard partner. But its not as interesting as this!. My cesarean lasted approximately an hour. So it was the exact opposite of what is alleged. (In the end, Kraft increased its original bid by just 10 percent to prevail, according to Weiss.) I will never forget this place.. His success in building firms was his success in building people. The next day, while I was calculating how I would inform the Princeton Theatre Department that I would not be teaching playwriting that fall, Dr. Richard Berkowitz, the hospitals head of obstetrics, came in. Lets keep our fingers crossed, he said when the procedure was over. Wassersteins daughter, Lucy Jane, was born three-months premature, and the mothers health continued to deteriorate. Its wonderful having my daughter home, but the other one being here is very hard. (In December, I learned that the twin in the N.I.C.U.had not survived.). With no information about Lucy, I couldnt bring myself to go back inside to the fluorescent lights, the ringing bells, and Mrs. Kaur endlessly knitting afghans for her twins. Howve you been? he asked. hog n bones nutrition menu. When I called my friend Jane Rosenthal to tell her about my new fall plans, she immediately swung into action. While I was being injected with hormones that could make a tyrannosaurus give birth to a foldout couch, my oldest sister, Sandra Meyer, who was an advanced breast-cancer patient, was having monthly chemotherapy treatments. Lucy Jane Wasserstein Age. Wasserstein hated the nickname and felt betrayed by the presswhich had previously fawned over himbut there was no disputing the storys main premise, especially after both Allied Stores Corporation and Federated Department Stores Inc. filed for bankruptcy following a protracted takeover battle won by Wassersteins client Robert Campeau, a little-known Canadian real-estate developer, who offered much more than other bidders using primarily borrowed money that he was unable to pay back. Youd better get the crib ready.. His condition was initially stabilized in the hospital. We were there, I hoped, for the long haul. Thank you. I decided to take this as a compliment. I had no idea where the grouper came from. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Born. As I began to gather my memories of Fay that morning, I felt a tingling from my left elbow to my hand. The mysteries start with where his grave is. As Lucy Jane entered kindergarten at the Brearley School a the firm would now be a shadow of its former self, assuming it was even still around. After splitting up with the glamorous and stunning Claude, he fathered a child, in 2008, with a recent graduate of Columbia Business School. Call me. You need a laugh on the third line, I said. She has the earnestness of a science jock, but its offset by a skating-rink-size diamond from her hematologist husband. Nothing about his health, nothing about his diet, nothing about his personal lifewe never even knew he was married to someone before Chris [Parrott, his second wife] until I read it in your book The Last Tycoons. He seems genuinely shocked. My anxiety level, however, was mounting for a different reason. what happened to deidre on rock 92. David-Weill left the firm in May 2005, after Wasserstein had crafted a clever strategy to get rid of him by taking public the longtime private partnership. Its higher now! She seemed to be irritated with me. Im working on it, I told him. A lot of doctors wear them. It was their most public meeting since Perella had left, in 1993. Lucy was attached to at least six wires and was the size of my outstretched hand. I brought something for Shayna, I said, and handed her a package. But apparently this is privileged information. Sign Up. Joan Allen, who played Heidi in the original ''Heidi Chronicles,'' came, and the director Daniel Sullivan. I held her closeall ten pounds of herand told her not to be frightened. Your mother called me, crying, my agent told me just after Labor Day. However, Antonio Weiss, Lazards global head of investment banking, who worked with Wasserstein closely on the deal and led it after Wasserstein died, couldnt disagree more: Bruces last deal was specifically designed to acquire the target company at the lowest possible price, he says. A kiss on the kepele, Lucy Jane, I whispered. Shes doing much better. He made a knock-on-wood gesture. Get the food,' '' Ms. Wasserstein said. His condition was initially stabilized in the hospital. I check on Lucy whenever I see Shayna, Miss Hutchinson said, laughing for the first time. Two weeks later, Lucy was born, at about 27 weeks gestation. That morning, Ian Holzman and his neonatal residents came in to see me at eight oclock. Someone who spoke with him then at a New York restaurant described him as looking frail and shaky from having lost so much weight. Another person who saw him that same evening said that he looked like a sickly 70-year-old, instead of the once invincible conqueror, and added, He is in bad shape. Felix Rohatyn, the longtime Lazard partner and former U.S. ambassador to France, and his wife, Elizabeth, saw Wasserstein at an East Side brasserie around that time and remarked to themselves that he looked terrible. Everyone else there loves me. The light was heating up her capillaries and tracking her blood pressure. Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. Im competing against doctors from Stanford and Penn, he told me. We thought you didnt want to see us, but your father had an appointment here at Gerontology.. Looking down at Becky and Michele, with their intelligent, professional faces and perfectly coiffed heads, I imagined that they were having a heated conversation in the Neiman Marcus shoe department. NEW YORK Say hello to Lucy Jane Wasserstein. ''We just want to raise a glass to our beloved Wendy,'' Ms. Rosenthal said. Add a bio, trivia, and more. Born Oct 18, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York; died Jan 30, 2006, in New York, NY; dau. These parents were satisfied customers. Wendy Wasserstein is survived by her He has spoken at every type of College gathering from orientation to commencement, read scripture at Christmas Vespers, chaired Winter Forums and was part in creative writing from City College of New York in 1973, and an M.F.A. He was not recovering, nor did he have any prospect of recovering. I felt ashamed of envying themafter all, I was alive, and so was Lucy. Even in her Isolette-brand incubator, my daughter was elegant. Linda Janklow, chairwoman of Lincoln Center Theater, and Lynn Nesbitt, the agent, attended. I had never known that the Fruit of the Month Club was the road to salvation. Shayna was Lucy Janes first roommate. Miss Hutchinson began to cry. The room, formerly a beige netherworld, became the decorator showroom of the second floor. Date of birth. Together, they made First Boston a leader in M&A, and then, in 1988, they left the firm after Wasserstein made a dramatic, failed gambit to become C.E.O. You need to punch it up., Yeah, sure. One of them, Robert Phillips, an M.D./Ph.D. Duly intimidated, I tried to sit up and attach two plastic bottles to my now Hindenberg-size breasts. The director Gerald Gutierrez (''The Heiress,'' ''A Delicate Balance'') was in the delivery room. Meryl Streep, Ms. Wasserstein's friend from the Yale Drama School, sneaked in to see the baby, incognito. Ken Jacobs and [vice-chairman] Steve Golub, says one Lazard banker, and he left all the leadership stuff to the two of them. The trick had been to get pregnant. Well, pick something. ''I just assumed I would have no trouble, being a big, hearty girl,'' she said. Every year, at cocktail time, Fay presented me with a purse suitable for the Queen Mother. Bruce and Kathleen had a very, very animated discussion about politics and the present state of political affairs. Some marriages end in divorce. I had never been asked to be the opening act at an Episcopal service before. When I was in college, there was a popular aphorism: Smith to bed, Holyoke to wed. That sums up why my mother had been glad when I decided on Mount Holyoke. So far, our contact had been through the incubators porthole. The city seemed to be in Technicolor. As he left, I noticed that he was wearing clogs. ''Everyone called and said, 'My brother was premature and a brain surgeon,' '' Ms. Wasserstein said. Her mother was 48 years old; her father remains unknown. But then he wouldnt allow you to capitulate, so the negotiation cycle would begin anew., Myerson thinks all these contradictions made his friend extraordinary. When I was in college, there was a popular aphorism: Smith to bed, Holyoke to wed. Lucy Jane Wassersteins see-through mobile home was rolled to the front left Manolo Blahnik. Michele passes Becky an instrument. As far as I can make out, relaxing and lying on your left side is the treatment for preclampsia. Most forty-eight-year-old women dont. So I shouldnt front-run them., Indeed, the story that lots of people are telling is that Wasserstein was living an unhealthy lifestyle. Cindy was having a ball. I think I need to sleep., You must pump every three hours! she announced. This episode explores Sweet Briar's Women's Leadership Core Curriculum. It was almost like part of his grand strategy, explains Joseph Perella, who founded the investment bank Wasserstein Perella & Co. with him in 1988. Within a week, she had gained a pound, although, Ms. Wasserstein noted, ''weight gain runs in my family.'' Nobody in corporate America particularly cared about what he had to say, and he wasnt particularly good about saying it. Ms. Wasserstein has no husband, or a steady boyfriend, for that matter. Felix is a legend in our industry, and I am honored that he is returning to the firm that he helped to create, Jacobs said in January. (Years earlier, it is said, he suffered from a heart condition and had quadruple-bypass surgery.) Two hours later, I was lying on a gurney awaiting a cesarean. I knew it would be impossible for me to lie on my left side and to keep my blood pressure down with my mother sitting by, weeping and seeing Sandra in me. At 8 a.m., I stood by my daughters Isolette. The nurse returned in five minutes and wrapped the cuff around my arm again. I love Lucy, too, I told her. My friend Gerald Gutierrez, the Broadway director, pulled back the curtain. Gender. (Rosenfeld declined to be interviewed about Wassersteins role.). A week later, I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and strangers smiled at me. Your daughter had a bad night, he informed me gently. Before the preclampsia, I had decided to let the babys gender be a surprise. I remembered my last conversation with her. Her two daughters, in little silk dresses, looked like children in a Sargent painting. Youve got a very sick little girl. The nurses there call every mother Mommy.. Many of Wassersteins former partners there think he then pressed his advantage at the firm in an unfair way, even as they acknowledge that had he not engineered the I.P.O. As I was absorbing my new schedule, a nurse came in and told me to clean up my room because I was expected to be out by 11 a.m. For the first time, I didnt care about being voted Miss Mount Sinai Congeniality. As I rocked her, I whispered to her, We are so lucky!. ( 1999-09-12) September 12, 1999 (age 23) New York City, New York, USA. On the holiest night of the year, after Yom Kippur services at Temple Emanu-El, I took a taxi back to the Klingenstein Pavilion. I thought 'I hate you!' As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Yes. James Lapine and Heidi Ettinger, friends from drama school, had come to take me home. nurse told me. Ms. Ettinger asked as she waited outside Mount Sinai's intensive care unit for Lucy Jane to come out in her car seat for the cab ride to Ms. Wasserstein's apartment on the Upper West Side. Born on Oct. 18, 1950, Wasserstein grew up first in Brooklyn in what she has called a nice, middle-class Jewish family, and later in Manhattan. Thats not to say its inevitable. He smiled at me with a comforting familiarity. On August 2, 2006, after Lazard reported its second-quarter earnings, the Financial Times asked Steve Golub, who had been acting as the firms C.E.O. Itd be the best thing that could happen to the firm! (Lazard declined to make any of its board members available to be interviewed or to comment on any part of this story. ''I want to know when you're going to write the play about this,'' Pat Schoenfeld, the wife of Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of the Shubert Organization, asked Ms. Wasserstein. There is even debate inside the firm about the role he had in Krafts prolongedand ultimately successful$21.4 billion acquisition of Cadbury, the British chocolate company. '', Last week Ms. Rosenthal held a baby shower at her home in the Dakota. The Nipple Nazis attacked the next day at dawn. One rumor that would become a particular favorite of mine was that I had been pregnant and hadnt known it. The day after I delivered, the news that I had had a baby flashed through the theatre community. I won.. When I reached Catherine McCarron, she told me that the hospital had moved quickly because Lucy had become anemic. Dr. Drews entered the room with the magic tube, which was the width of a pipe cleaner. until at least December 14th, my original due date. ', ''And that has been very true in my life. My mother sat next to my hospital bed wearing black leather pants, a multicolored sweater, and a bright knit cap. Dr. Berkowitz joined us to explain. Ive never been good at asking for help. Leaving the N.I.C.U. Can you tell me about her brain sonogram?. Lazards apparent obfuscation of Wassersteins health issues is nothing new, however. Ad Choices. I sat there among them, wanting my daughter to see a full moon and eat a peach. Bruce was a consummate gentleman, a man of his word whose handshake was the same as a written agreement, said Marty Lipton, the senior partner at Wachtell Lipton. Your mother is here, she said. I arrived at the church looking like an extra from Yentl.. [After such negotiations] you were always off-balance and exhausted, Perella recalls. On Sunday morning, sixteen days after I was admitted, Michele K. Silverstein came to see me. Marcy, from Alaska, flew in to be implanted with embryos created out of my eggs and donated sperm. Dr. Goldstein is deeply committed to womens-health issues, and she still wears the insignia of her activist generation: dangling earrings, little makeup, and evolved-graduate-student attire. dog razor burn after surgery. Theres her hand, she said, moving an ultrasound mouse over my stomach. If you look at the success of the firms with which Bruce was associated, says Rosen, I believe that what made his life remarkable was the impact he had on people: the people in whom he believed, the people who he supportedand obviously there were those who he didntand the effect that he had on the professional and personal development of those people over a long period of time. WebWasserstein's daughter Lucy Jane was born three months premature, weighing in at one pound twelve ounces. Dr. Explaining my sisters career to my high-school friends, Id simply say that she sent Tang to the moon with the astronauts. But I was panicking, and not just about my platelets. Ive asked Ian Holzman, who runs the neonatal unit here, to talk to you about premature babies.. She raised the baby with the help of friends and Wasserstein and Becker were married in 1995 and moved into a duplex at 927 Fifth Avenue. I dont think I want to try to characterize his reasons for it., Wasserstein promptly moved back to New York, as the head of Lazard, in early 2002. How One Mothers Love for Her Gay Son Started a Revolution. I dont really care if you lost. Ill be back.. Dr. Holzman came over to me as I looked at my baby from my wheelchair. on Lucy Janes last night. Bruce always maintained it was a lifestyle choice and other things, a friend recalls. Listen to Episode 2: At the Core from Sweet Stories in the Dell. A concierge at the Parker Meridien hotel stopped me to say, I think your having that baby is just great! Suddenly, I felt as if I were in a millennial version of Its a Wonderful Life. Hester Prynne had become the most popular girl in town. '', Finally, just before Thanksgiving, Lucy was doing well enough to go home for the holidays. The Same Ole Line Dudes Are Waiting for You. Just after a midnight feeding recently, Lucy Jane and I settled in to watch television. But when I was too ill to make it to the bathroom, Angela, the night nurse, who wore a medallion around her neck that said Girl Power, would bring me a pan for the nausea. '' So, she decided, ''Once more, with feeling.''. And you can see those people throughout Wall Street today. Rosen then recites a list of people who once worked with Wasserstein and Perella and now are leaders on Wall Street, among them Raymond McGuire, head of global banking at Citigroup; Hugh Skip McGee, global head of investment banking at Barclays Capital (and previously at Lehman Brothers); Gary Parr, a deputy chairman at Lazard; Jimmy Elliott, the global head of M&A at J. P. Morgan Chase; and Brian Finn, president of investment banking and head of alternative investments at Credit Suisse. You know, its impossible to lie on my left side and to be out of this room at 11 a.m. Im a person, not a grouper!. We were now in the company of white professional couples who had conceived twins after taking fertility drugs. As he inserted it into my uterus, he said, So, Wendy, are you writing?, Yes. It is a fact that he moved to London. Jacobs considered getting rid of Lazards fractionally owned corporate jet, which had ferried Wasserstein almost everywhere he went, but ultimately couldnt bring himself to.