Edie Wasserman

Edith “Edie” Beckerman grew up in a mansion in suburban Cleveland Heights in Ohio, the daughter of a politically connected lawyer tainted by legal troubles likely of his own making and by increasing money trouble. She ended up taking a job as a department store clerk. Edie and Lew met while he was publicity director for a Cleveland casino. They were married in 1936, exactly after a week after her father’s acquittal on charges of conspiracy in an attempted arson. They lived briefly in New York, then moved in 1938 to Los Angeles, where Lew was a young agent at MCA. During WWII Edie did the scheduling and booking for the Hollywood Canteen, where servicemen got to meet and dance with movie stars; there she began a long-term friendship with Frank Sinatra. She also spent time on the road at bond rallies. Edie was already on the board of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, had set up a scholarship fund for Cal Arts students when that institution was founded in 1977 and was a key supporter of the Los Angeles Musi Center. Her Wasserman Scholars program aids not only at CalArts but at UCLA, Brandeis U., Georgetown U., Caltech and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Survivors include daughter Lynne Kay Wasserman, a lawyer who worked for producer Jerry Weintraub; grandson Casey Wasserman, who runs the Wasserman Foundation, established by Lew and Edie in 1952, as well as sports and entertainment agency the Wasserman Media Group; granddaughter Carol Ann Leif, a standup comedian; and three great-grandchildren.