Her "combination of sweetness and wit is true, and people embrace her for that," theater critic Robert Brustein, who got to know Wasserstein as dean of Yale's drama school, said in a 1997 New Yorker profile of her. "Being with Wendy, you feel like you're having a bubble bath or an ice cream soda."
Those qualities attracted a glittering roster of friends from the worlds of theater and media. At Yale, she made lasting connections with Streep, Sigourney Weaver and playwright Christopher Durang. Charlie Rose repeatedly had Wasserstein as a guest on his late-night PBS show. She dedicated her most overtly political play, "An American Daughter," (1997) to columnist and former Los Angeles Times Editorial Page Editor Michael Kinsley, and another friend, Frank Rich, now a political and cultural columnist for the New York Times, who recused himself from reviewing her plays when he was the paper's theater critic.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday February 16, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 37 words Type of Material: Correction
Wasserstein obituary -- An obituary of playwright Wendy Wasserstein on Jan. 31 in Section A stated that she dedicated the play "An American Daughter" to columnists Michael Kinsley and Frank Rich. It was dedicated only to Kinsley.
"We are all losing her way too soon," Durang said in a statement. "I'm reminded of the line in her 'Heidi Chronicles' in which Peter says to Heidi, 'I want to know you all my life.' That's what I wanted, too, and indeed expected it. And I'm so, so sad that fate, or whatever, called her away so soon."
Wasserstein was born Oct. 18, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York, to two Polish-Jewish immigrants, Morris and Lola Wasserstein -- her father an inventor and manufacturer of gift wrapping and decorative items, her mother a larger-than-life personality who relished daily dance lessons. Going to Saturday matinees on Broadway was a weekly childhood ritual, Wasserstein recalled in a 1997 article for the New York Times in which she detailed a program she had created to interest New York youngsters in theater.
Her brother, Bruce Wasserstein, is a well-known power on Wall Street, an investment banker whose specialty is mergers and acquisitions; he also owns New York magazine and other periodicals. Her eldest sister, Sandra Meyer, became a high-ranking bank executive before her death from breast cancer in 1997 at the age of 60. Another sister, Georgette Levis, operates a Vermont inn with her psychiatrist husband. She is also survived by her daughter, Lucy Jane Wasserstein, and her mother, Lola Wasserstein, both of New York City.
Wasserstein told the New Yorker that as "the youngest in a family of very large personalities," humor became her niche -- and her defense mechanism. "I've always been funny," she said.
