The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIESTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020 Y A25

Andrews, Dan Cohen, Sandra Flicker, Margery

Hendl, Susan Rad, Babak Schneck, Marian Waxman, Bertha

ANDREWS—Dan, passed away on October 12th, surrounded by his loving family. Born and raised in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan,Dangraduated from St. John's University in Brooklyn in 1970 and launched a career in the news business as a photo caption writer at United Press Inter- national. It ultimately led him to a spot as UPI's Bureau Chief in City Hall's hallowed Room 9 press corps, covering Mayor Ed Koch. Dan moved from Manhattan after getting married in 1973 and put down roots in Queens, where he raised his children and went on to serve for 23 distin- guished years as press secre- tary to Borough Presidents ClaireShulmanandHelen Marshall. When he retired in 2013,theNewYork Daily News noted that Dan “may well be the longest serving government spokesperson in the city.” Dan was an es- teemed member of the Silur- iansPressClub,theNew York Press Club and the Nar- rowbacks. He loved his 30 plus years as part of the Inner Circle organization, serving as its program director for two decades. He was also a proud Honorary Battalion Chief of the FDNY. But more

than anything, Dan was a kind and decent man of faith, and a beloved husband of 47 years to the love of his life, Deirdre, an incredible father to Jerry and Alison, loving father-in-law toJohannes and Maura, and doting “Pop- Pop” to Anna, Billy, Matthew and Catherine. A wake for Dan will be held Thursday, October 15 and Friday, Octo- ber 16 (2-4, 7-9) at McGrath's FuneralHome, 20 Cedar Street in Bronxville. A funeral mass will be celebrated Sa- turdayatCorpus Christi Church, 31-30 61st Street in Woodside,Queens.In re- membrance of Dan, the family asks that any charitable donations be made to either St. Patrick's Home for the Aged and Infirmed in the Bronx or the New York Firefighters Burn Center Foundation.

COHEN—Sandra, 86, from the Bronx, Wayne, NJ and Myrtle Beach, SC. Be- loved wife of Sidney Cohen. LovingmotherofBelinda Winkler,DianeSimonand their spouses, Alex Winkler andDougSimon.Grand- mother of Carl Winkler, and hiswife,MayaGoldberg; Russell Simon and Chandler Simon. Sister of Gerald Block. Always loved. Graveside ser- vice, Friday, October 16 at 1pm, Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus, NJ.

FLICKER—Margery Z. Our dear friend and colleague Margery Z. Flicker passed awaySeptember 28th sur- roundedbyherfamilyat Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Margery was a founding partner of Taurus Asset Management in 2004 and an integral part of our development and success. Mar- geryservedasPrincipal, Chief Compliance Officer and SeniorPortfolioManager. Her wisdom, honesty and loy- alty made her a trusted partner and a great friend. Taurus was Margery's second home and her clients were like family. Her intelligent advice and warm personal approach gave her clients confidence and comfort. We will miss her deeply. Above all, Margery was devoted to her beloved family; husband Robert, children Lauren (Julian), Jo- nathan (Fernanda), and Josh-

ua, her grandsons, Lennox and Logan, and her sisters Susan and Jane. May Marge- ry's memory be a blessing for them and all of us who loved her. Taurus Asset Management LLC, Bradford Peck, Managing Principal and Steven Grossblatt, Principal.

HENDL—Susan. The New York City Ballet family mourns the passing of Susan Hendl, a beloved member of the Company for more than 50 years. Susie joined NYCB as a dancer in 1965 and was promoted to soloist in 1972.Uponherretirement from dancing in 1983 Susie began a career as a repe- titeur, generously sharing her extraordinary first - hand knowledge of the works of NYCB's co-founding choreog- raphers George Balanchine andJeromeRobbinswith countless NYCB dancers and numerous ballet companies throughout the United States andEurope.Atreasured friend and colleague, her re- markable contributions to the world of ballet will live on through generations of dancers and teachers. We extend our heartfelt condolences to her extensive ballet family and many friends, she will be greatly missed.

HENDL—Susan. The Trustees of the George Balanchine Trust are very saddened by the loss of their colleague and friend. Susan was the absolute epitome of what a Ballet Master should be. Her unique ability with regard to a choreographer's intent was exceptional. We have lost a valuable inter- preter, and a very special individual. Trustees The George Balanchine Trust

HENDL—Susan. She was my loyal friend and counselor. In every situation she gave me support and criticism. She was honest, but kind. I relied on her profes- sionally, and personally. I will miss her, but will never forget her. Barbara Horgan

HENDL—Susan. Though our dear friend and colleague, Susan Hendl, has left us, her spirit lives on in her work. Susie was loved by and worked closely with Je- rome Robbins on many of his most iconic ballets including The Cage, Dances at a Gath- ering, Opus 19 and Other Dan- ces. Jerry's faith in Susie's im- peccable taste and dedication to ballet was immense. Not only did she act as ballet master for many of his ballets at New York City Ballet

and around the world, but in his will, he appointed her to the Advisory Committee of his Trust. We will miss Susie's elegance, wit, and charm, and she will remain in our hearts forever.

RAD—Babak (Bobby). Babak Rad, AKA Bobby Rad has sadly passed away at 62. His Burial will be held at west Chester Hills cemetary, at 400 Saw Mill River Rd., NY on Fri- day, October 16, 2020 at 11 am.

SCHNECK—Marian. A daughter of the Bronx, Ma- rian Kleinfeld Schneck passed away October 12 in Minneapolis. May her memory be a blessing to her beloved family. We'll miss her more than we can say.

WAXMAN—Bertha Lilly.

Born August 5, 1926 in NYC. Third child (second daughter) of Eastern European immigrants. Grew up on Eldridge St. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Longtimeres- ident of East River Housing, Grand St., Manhattan. Dan- cer, artist, sculptor, beloved wife of Benjamin, dear mother of Andrea (John) Cam- pion, Michael (Tracie) Wax- man, and Elizabeth Waxman; Grandmother of Paul (Deep- ti), Gabriel, and Camille Cam- pion,andSarahWaxman; Great-grandmotherofAvi Campion;ArtsandCrafts counselor for many years at Quaker Hill Day Camp, Mon- roe, NY; Pottery teacher at Muddy Fingers on the Upper West Side; Volunteer at Greenwich House Senior Center, Manhattan. Peaceful- ly of natural causes at home in Fresno, CA on October 6, 2020, surrounded by family

andfriends.Internmentat Old MontefioreCemetery, Queens, NY next to her loving husband. Memorials may be sent to Greenwich House Senior Services, NYC, greenwichhouse.org/donate; MoMA, NYC, moma.org/support; and Valley PBS, Fresno, CA, valleypbs.org/support.

EDLIS—Stefan T.

1925 - 2019 Today, October 15th, it will be 12 months since I lost my beloved Stef. I would like to thankallmyfriendswho have expressed gratitude at havingknownhim,loved him, and, like me, are missing hiswitandwisdomand smiling face. May his love continue to light our hearts. Your wife and partner, Gael

Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths

In Memoriam

Mario Molina, who shared a No-
bel Prize for work showing the
damage that chemicals used in
hair spray and refrigerators
wreak on the ozone layer, which
led to one of the most successful
international efforts to combat en-
vironmental risk, died on Oct. 7 at
his home in Mexico City. He was
77.
The cause was a heart attack,
said Lorena Gonzalez Villarreal, a
spokeswoman for the Mario Moli-
na Center for Strategic Studies on
Energy and the Environment, the
environmental research and pol-
icy center he founded in Mexico
City in 2004.
Dr. Molina, a United States citi-
zen born in Mexico, was a “trail-
blazing pioneer of the climate
movement,” former Vice Presi-
dent Al Gore said by email, adding
that Dr. Molina’s efforts “to under-
stand and communicate the threat
to the ozone layer changed the
course of history.”
Dr. Molina and F. Sherwood
Rowland of the University of Cali-
fornia, Irvine, found that chemi-
cals known as chlorofluorocar-
bons, or CFCs, would deplete the
ozone layer in the upper atmos-
phere. Their discovery reshaped
global environmental policy.
The implications of their find-
ings were dire: Without the pro-
tective ozone, an increase in ultra-
violet radiation would put the
health of many species, including
humans, at risk. The two scien-
tists pushed for a ban on CFCs, be-
ginning for both of them a lifetime
of science-based environmental
advocacy through congressional
testimony and interviews.
Their work was attacked by in-
dustry; the president of one com-
pany said that the criticism of his
products was “orchestrated by
the Ministry of Disinformation of
the K.G.B.”
Their work led to the 1987 Mont-
real Protocol, a landmark interna-
tional environmental treaty to
phase out the production of the
compounds. That treaty had a un-
anticipated beneficial effect: It
would later turn out that many of
the ozone-destroying gases are
also potent greenhouse gases.

Without the treaty, climate change would have progressed even more rapidly than it has. In 1995, the two men shared the Nobel Prize with Paul J. Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute in Ger- many. The Royal Swedish Acad- emy of Sciences said in its an- nouncement of the award that “the three researchers have con- tributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic con- sequences.” In congressional testimony in 2010, Dr. Molina said that those who attack climate science focus on the areas of uncertainty as if it were a house of cards, which col- lapses if one card is removed. He compared it instead to a jigsaw puzzle, which reveals its image even before all the pieces are in place. With global warming, he said, “there is little doubt that the overall image is clear — namely, that climate change is a serious threat that needs to be urgently addressed.” José Mario Molina-Pasquel y Henríquez was born on March 19, 1943, in Mexico City to Roberto

Molina Pasquel and Leonor Hen- ríquez Molina. His father was a lawyer and judge who served as Mexican ambassador to Ethiopia, the Philippines and Australia. His mother was a homemaker. He was fascinated by science from his youngest days, as he wrote in a memoir that appears on

the Nobel site: “I still remember my excitement when I first glanced at paramecia and amoe- bae through a rather primitive toy microscope.” He converted a little- used bathroom in his home into a laboratory for his chemistry sets, guided by an aunt, Esther Molina, who was a chemist. His family, following their tradi- tion, sent him abroad for his edu- cation, and at 11 he was in a board-

ing school in Switzerland, “on the assumption that German was an important language for a prospec- tive chemist to learn.” He decided that of his two pas- sions, chemistry and the violin, science was what he would devote himself to, and in 1960 he enrolled in the chemical engineering program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. After studying in Paris and Germany, he began graduate studies at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, in

He received his doctorate in
physical chemistry there in 1972.
The experience of studying at
Berkeley was not just important
to his development as a scientist,
he would recall; he arrived in the
wake of the free-speech move-
ment, and political awareness was
part of everyday life. He initially
worked in the young field of chem-
ical lasers, but he found himself
“dismayed” to find that some re-
searchers at other institutions
were developing high-powered la-
sers to use as weapons.
“That was important,” Felipe
José Molina, Dr. Molina’s son and
an assistant professor of medicine

at Harvard Medical School, said in an interview. Thanks to Dr. Moli- na’s experiences at Berkeley, his son said, he felt driven to do work “that had a benefit to society, rather than just pure research, or things that could potentially be harmful.” 1n 1973, Dr. Molina joined Dr. Rowland’s laboratory group at the University of California, Irvine, where they developed their the- ory of ozone depletion. Dr. Rowland and Dr. Molina re- alized that, as the CFCs reached the upper atmosphere, where they could be destroyed by solar radiation, the chlorine atoms produced in the process would de- stroy ozone. “We were alarmed,” Dr. Molina recalled. They published their findings in the journal Nature in 1974. He would later work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasade- na, Calif.; the University of Cali- fornia, San Diego; and the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology. At the Molina Center in Mexico City, he focused on alleviating that city’s choking pollution. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presi- dential Medal of Freedom.

While at Berkeley, Dr. Molina met a fellow chemist, Luisa Tan. They married in 1973 and divorced in 2005. She currently heads the independent Molina Center for Strategic Studies in En- ergy and the Environment in San Diego. In 2006, Dr. Molina married Guadalupe Álvarez. She and his son survive him, as do three step- sons, Joshua, Allan and Asher Ginsburg; four of his six siblings, Roberto, Martha, Luis and Lucero Molina; and two grandchildren. Dr. Rowland died in 2012. In his New York Times obituary, Dr. Mo- lina was quoted as saying that the two scientists had not been sure they would succeed in their efforts to ban CFCs, “but we started something that was a very important precedent: People can make decisions and solve global prob- lems.” Mr. Gore, who shared a Nobel Prize in 2007 for his own work to warn the world about climate change, said Dr. Molina “never backed down from political pres- sure, always speaking truth to power, grounded in science and reason.” “The world,” he added, “is a bet- ter place because of Mario.”

Mario Molina, 77, Scientist Who Sounded Alarm on Ozone Layer, Dies

JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mario Molina spoke to reporters in 1995 after it was announced that he was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on climate change. Left, President Barack Obama presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to him in 2013.

ELISE AMENDOLA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

Showing the dangers

to climate caused by

everyday products.

Faith Stewart-Gordon, an ac-
tress who traded Broadway for
blini when she married the owner
of the Russian Tea Room in Man-
hattan and then spent nearly
three decades as its owner, greet-
ing the glitterati who dined there
in her incongruous Southern lilt,
died on Friday at her home in New
Preston, Conn. She was 88.
Her death was confirmed by
her daughter, the singer Ellen
Kaye.
Ms. Stewart-Gordon owned the
storied restaurant on West 57th
Street from 1967, when her hus-
band, Sidney Kaye, died, until
1995, when she sold it to the
restaurant impresario Warner Le-
Roy.
She promoted it as “slightly to
the left of Carnegie Hall,” which
was geographically accurate if
metaphorically less so, since it
was founded in the late 1920s by
White Russian expatriates who
had fled the Bolsheviks.
Under Mr. Kaye and Ms. Stew-
art-Gordon, the Russian Tea
Room became the de rigueur
lunch, dinner and after-show
gathering and gossiping spot for
anyone who was associated with
the performing arts, or wanted to
be.
Ms. Stewart-Gordon had her
first meal there as a teenager in
1949 with her mother and a cousin,
who was making her singing de-
but at Town Hall that night; vis-
ited several years later with an ac-
tor who, she wrote in “The Rus-
sian Tea Room: A Love Story”
(1999), “brought me there for
drinks hoping the free hors d’oeu-

vres would substitute for dinner”; and stopped by in 1955 for a third time, after a boring dinner at a Chinese restaurant with another date who suggested they stop by and meet a friend, Mr. Kaye. Mr. Kaye, a chemist, had in- vested $400 saved from his Army pay to buy the Russian Tea Room with partners in 1946. He became the sole owner in 1955. The Russian Tea Room was where Dustin Hoffman first appears to his agent in drag in the film “Tootsie” (1982); where Leonard Bernstein scrawled the first bars of “Fancy Free” on a napkin; where Madonna was fired as a coat-check clerk after stuffing her demo tapes in the pockets of potentially helpful pa- trons. It was where Elizabeth Tay- lor flaunted her 33-carat engage- ment ring from Richard Burton and where scenes from “Sweet Smell of Success” (1957), “When Harry Met Sally” (1989) and Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” (1979) were filmed. George Balanchine, Salvador Dalí and the talent agent Sam Cohn were regulars. Rudolf Nure- yev told Time magazine that the Russian Tea Room was what he liked most about America. It is said that the impresario Sol Hurok, who occupied the first ta- ble in the alcove on the left, once entered weeping, explaining that he had just attended a screening of the most affecting film he had ever seen: “The Sol Hurok Story.” Although the restaurant at- tracted an insider clientele, Ms. Stewart-Gordon said she always felt like an outsider: as a woman,

as a child of divorced parents, as a Southerner in New York. But she was never overly impressed by all the celebrities she encountered, Clark Wolf, a restaurant consult- ant who worked for her, told The New York Times in 1995. Shortly before he died, she recalled, Mr. Kaye told her: “I’ll give you three months after my death to decide if you want to keep it. My advice is to take the money and run.” But, she added, “I felt the Tea Room had to continue. It was a cause. It had to do with him, of course. I’d be letting him down otherwise. This was my destiny.” Faith Courtney Burwell was born on May 14, 1932, in Spartan- burg, S.C., to Ernest Burwell, a Chevrolet dealer who had been a lieutenant commander in the Of- fice of Naval Intelligence during World War II, and Faith (Court- ney) Burwell, a homemaker. Two great-uncles fought in the Confederate Army. Her nickname was Plum, short for “sugar plum.”

She attended Converse College in Spartanburg and graduated in 1953 from Northwestern Univer- sity in Illinois, which she attended on an acting scholarship and where she studied with the director Alvina Krause. She was admit- ted to the Yale School of Drama,

she later recalled, but chose instead to accept a part in a touring production of the musical revue “New Faces of 1952” with Eartha Kitt and Carol Lawrence. She also appeared in the film version. She made her Broadway debut in 1954, delivering two lines in a production of “Ondine” directed by Alfred Lunt and starring Aud- rey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer.

When she married Mr. Kaye in 1957, they may have seemed an unlikely couple: He was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, she was a Presbyterian Southern- er. But their marriage lasted until his death, 10 years later. In 1970 she married James Stewart-Gordon, a roving editor for Reader’s Digest. They divorced in 1991. In addition to Ms. Kaye, her daughter from her first marriage, she is survived by a grandson. For years, Ms. Stewart-Gordon resisted huge windfalls for the property and even for the air rights, which is why the 20-foot- wide building still separates two residential behemoths, Metropoli- tan and Carnegie Hall Towers. But she finally accepted Mr. Le- Roy’s offer of $6.5 million. After a four-year, $36 million renovation, the restaurant reopened, but it closed again shortly after Mr. Le- Roy died in 2001. It reopened in 2006 under new management. After writing her memoir (she had already published two cook-

books), Ms. Stewart-Gordon retired to Bridgewater, Conn., where she lived with the literary agent Helen Brann, whom she married in 2004, and resumed her avoca- tion of painting (she had begun studying art when she was 6 with Grace Annette DuPré, a portrait artist who lived in Spartanburg). Ms. Brann died in 2015. In the epigraph of her memoir, Ms. Stewart-Gordon wrote: “I am growing old and frivolous. I miss the seriosity of my youth.” That youthful seriousness in- cluded transforming a dreary tea- room where aging Russian mon- archists pined for the Romanovs, as Mr. Kaye had received it, into an incandescent destination deco- rated with samovars and Art Deco chandeliers festooned with gold tinsel and red balls so that, as the restaurant critic Frank Bruni wrote in The Times, “every day is Christmas.” Her goal, said Mr. Wolf, the con- sultant, was “to make the restaurant look the way people remem- bered it, not the way it was.”

Faith Stewart-Gordon, 88,

Russian Tea Room Owner

Faith Stewart-Gordon at the Russian Tea Room, at left in 1977 and at right in 1995 after she sold the restaurant. Before her husband died, in 1967, he had advised her to sell. But she waited. “I’d be letting him down otherwise. This was my destiny,” she said.

DON HOGAN CHARLES/THE NEW YORK TIMES KATHY WILLENS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By SAM ROBERTS

The doyenne of a

festive Manhattan

gossiping spot.

The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

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