Sydney Mark Taper

S. Mark Taper, the financier and philanthropist who was a major donor to the Los Angeles Music Center, which named one of its theaters for him, died on Thursday at his home here. He was 92 The cause was a heart attack, said Gordon Davidson, the artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum. Mr. Taper gave $1.5 million to the Music Center, a complex of three performing-arts spaces for musicals, experimental plays and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Mark Taper Forum opened in 1967. He also financed the first gallery for modern works at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a memorial to his wife, Amelia, who died in 1958, and was a major donor to the University of California at Los Angeles. Mr. Taper was born in Poland and began his business career in England with five shoe stores. In 1929, he began investing in real estate. He became a successful home developer and investor in savings and loans. In the late 1930's, he decided to retire and moved his family to California. He later became an American citizen. The Tapers settled in Long Beach, Calif., devoting some of their wealth to transporting hundreds of Catholic and Jewish children out of Nazi Germany. During Southern California's postwar housing boom, Mr. Taper began to develop real estate, building suburban housing for returning soldiers in Long Beach, Norwalk, Compton and the Los Angeles neighborhood of Lakewood. In all, he built 35,000 houses for low- and middle-income people. Mr. Taper also founded the First Charter Financial Corporation of Beverly Hills, of which he was president and chairman. He is survived by a son, Barry, of Los Angeles, and two daughters, Carolyn Kleefeld of Northern California, and Janice Lazaros of Los Angeles.