Saul Steinberg (business) - Background - Family and Personal Life

Family and Personal Life

• Steinberg met his first wife, Barbara Herzog, in high-school, and they would have three children before divorcing in 1974:
  • Jonathan ("Jono") married CNBC host Maria Bartiromo in 1999. Jono is the CEO of mutual fund company Wisdom Tree.
  • Laura married Loews Hotels executive Jonathan Tisch in 1988; they later divorced. In 2001, she married Stafford Broumand, a plastic surgeon.
  • Nicholas owns comic-book stores in Philadelphia.

• Steinberg divorced his first wife after he met Italian American Laura Bordoni Sconocchia Fisher in 1974; Laura converted to Judaism prior to their marriage. They had a son, Julian, before divorcing.

• In 1983, Steinberg married Canadian-born, Gayfryd (McNabb MacLean Johnson) Steinberg, a twice divorced Louisiana businesswoman who once ran her own steel-pipe business. Gayfryd also converted to Judaism prior to their marriage. Steinberg adopted Gayfryd's son from a previous marriage and they also had a daughter together. Gayfryd is a trustee of the New York Public Library.

In 1989 Steinberg hosted an opulent 50th birthday party for himself, that included live models depicting his favorite Renaissance paintings.

Steinberg's brother, Robert or "Bobby" worked as a senior executive at Reliance, helping Steinberg run the company for many years. In 1999, as Reliance encountered severe financial problems, Saul Steinberg fired his brother and the brothers became estranged from one another. In 2000, Steinberg's mother, Anne Steinberg, sued Saul for $5 million that she says he borrowed from her in 1997 and promised to repay on December 1999. She also sued her son Robert for $1.5 million, a debt that also came due in December.

In 2000 Steinberg sold his apartment at 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan to financier Stephen A. Schwarzman of The Blackstone Group for a reported $37 million. The apartment had once belonged to John D. Rockefeller, Jr..

Steinberg died on December 7, 2012 at the age of 73, on the very same day as his mother, Anne Steinberg.