In Wendy and the Lost Boys bestselling author Julie Salamon explores the life of playwright Wendy Wasserstein's most expertly crafted character: herself. Wife of Morris W. Wasserstein and George Wasserstein. [7], Wasserstein's first production of note was Uncommon Women and Others (her graduate thesis at Yale), a play which reflected her experiences as a student at, and an alumna of, Mount Holyoke College. Wendy's oldest siblings, Sandra and Abner, were actually her half-siblings/cousins, offspring of her mother's first husband, George Wasserstein, who died … From 1988 until 2000, Bruce continued to run Wasserstein Perella, which was one of the leading investment advisory firms specializing in M&A. Young Bruce Wasserstein, who had been trained in law at Harvard Law School and Cravath Swaine & Moore, in business at Harvard Business School and by Morris Wasserstein at home, and in press relations on the Michigan Daily, had the ideal background for this kind of work. Probably the high point in this series was “The Heidi Chronicles,” first performed in 1989, about Heidi Holland, a 40-year-old art professor and strong follower of the women’s movement who finds that despite her significant professional success, she is somewhat stranded socially and emotionally. [4], A graduate of the Calhoun School (she attended from 1963 to 1967),[5] Wasserstein earned a B.A. In addition to her daughter, Ms. Wasserstein is survived by her mother, Lola Wasserstein; her … [13], She wrote the libretto for the opera Best Friends, based on Clare Boothe Luce's play The Women, but it was uncompleted when she died. Her father was a textile manufacturer, her mother an amateur dancer. in history from Mount Holyoke College in 1971, an M.A. When Wendy died, her daughter was adopted by Bruce, and when he died, in 2009, his ex-wife Claude Becker became her guardian. As he was involved in more and more major deals, his reputation as one of the premiere — if not the premier — experts in this area grew, and increasingly more business came to him and Perella. Terrific article, very informative and well written! Miami, written in collaboration with Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman, was presented at Playwrights Horizons in 1985–1986, and starred among others, Marcia Lewis, Phyllis Newman, Jane Krakowski, and Fisher Stevens. Wendy was the youngest of five siblings, including brother Bruce Wasserstein, a well-known investment banker. Wendy Wasserstein died … Ms. Wasserstein was born in Brooklyn in 1950 to a successful Jewish family, the youngest of four children. Wasserstein was determined to control her own narrative, seldom an easy task for any public figure. and a full version of the play was produced in 1977 Off-Broadway with Glenn Close, Jill Eikenberry, and Swoosie Kurtz playing the lead roles. In 1996 she appeared as the guest caller "Linda" on the Frasier episode "Head Game". These efforts were invariably resisted by the existing corporate management, who frequently heretofore had felt invulnerable to attack. Wasserstein, who was not married, never publicly identified her daughter's father. But that was only the beginning. Like most successful prominent figures, Bruce and Wendy Wasserstein were a product of the times and place in which they grew up and lived — in their case New York City from 1950 to 2009. Wasserstein was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, the daughter of Morris Wasserstein, a wealthy textile executive, and his wife, Lola (née Liska) Schleifer, who moved to the United States from Poland when her father was accused of being a spy. The late 1960s and early 1970s, when Bruce and Wendy’s family lived on the Upper East Side and they attended college and graduate school, was a period of considerable social and economic upheaval. [16] The baby was three months premature and is recorded in Wasserstein's collection of essays, Shiksa Goddess. Required fields are marked *. Bruce Wasserstein, the financier and corporate takeover adviser, and his sister Wendy Wasserstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author, were among the most accomplished and famous New Yorkers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It was subsequently completed by Christopher Durang, set by Deborah Drattell, and is in development with Lauren Flanigan.[when?]. She grew up in a close-knit, competitive New York Jewish family of high achievers (her brother Bruce became a Wall Street titan). The deal made Bruce — who had previously been only well-to-do — a very rich man. Masland, R.L. Sandra, who died at the age of 60 in 1997, was a highly-successful marketing executive. In the early 1990s he divorced Chris Parot, his second wife and the mother of his three children, and then married Claude Becker, a film producer 20 years younger than he was. When Morris was Bruce’s age, a firm like Cravath would likely not have hired a Jewish boy like Bruce, who would have been consigned to the family textile business or strictly Jewish law firms. [11], Wasserstein also wrote the books to two musicals. Parmelee, E. (1969). Her wealthy and sophisticated grandparents on her mother’s side came from a Polish resort town. [2] Lola Wasserstein reportedly inspired some of her daughter's characters. Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 – January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. However, this professional success was not without a significant cost in terms of their personal lives. Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: art, Economic History, Financial History, Manhattan, New York City, Theatre. As Julie Salamon observes in her penetrating new biography of the dramatist, Wendy and the Lost Boys, Wasserstein “became a celebrity by turning her life over to the public domain.” When it came to her wide social circle, however, At the time Bruce joined Cravath, Wall Street, like the rest of New York’s economy, was in the doldrums. At the time Cravath was representing First Boston Corporation, an investment bank that had just hired Joseph Perella to head up an investment advisory service to do mergers. She gave birth to her daughter Lucy in 1999. Even more importantly, it soon became clear that he had the ideal personality and the ideal analytical mind for such work. When her daughter was 2, a terrible chronology began: Wasserstein became ill in 2001. Bruce and Wendy Wasserstein were born in Brooklyn in 1948 and 1950 to Morris and Lola Wasserstein. Birthplace: Poland. Your email address will not be published. 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