Legendary restaurateur, entrepreneur and showbiz insider Warner LeRoy, whose Hollywood lineage and business savvy brought glamour and pizzazz to renowned eateries such as Tavern on the Green and the Russian Tea Room, died Thursday of complications from lymphoma at New York Presbyterian Hospital-New York Weill Cornell Medical Center. He was 65.
LeRoy was the son of producer-director Mervyn LeRoy — who produced 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz” and many others as well as directed “Gold Diggers of 1933” and “Quo Vadis” plus dozens more — and Doris Warner, daughter of Warner Bros. exec Harry Warner. He grew up around movie stars and soundstages and viewed Hollywood from the top, which helped form his personal credo on what a restaurant should be: “A restaurant is a fantasy, a kind of living theater in which diners are the most important members of the cast,” LeRoy said in a 1976 interview.
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He studied drama at Stanford and had minor success as a director and producer under the tutelege of Garson Kanin. He leased the York Theater in 1957 and is credited with being a founder of the Off Broadway movement.
But LeRoy found his true calling when he turned an ordinary corner coffee shop into a New York icon — Maxwell’s Plum, decorated with his personal and vast collection of Tiffany glass. The list of in-crowd celebs at the eatery, which opened in 1966 and closed in 1988, included Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.
His next venture opened in 1973, when he took over the financially troubled Tavern on the Green, located in a former sheep pen in Central Park. After three years of renovations, LeRoy turned the money-losing pub into a crystal-and-glass-bedecked palace that in the 1990s became the highest-grossing restaurant in the United States.
He worked his magic again after buying the Russian Tea Room in 1995. He closed the beloved meeting spot for musicians, actors and publishers in 1996 and reopened it three years later after pouring an estimated $30 million into it.
LeRoy also created the 1,500-acre Great Adventure amusement and Safari theme park in Jackson Township, N.J. He sold his interest in the park to Time Warner in 1993.
Some of his entrepreneurial endeavors didn’t fare as well. A second Maxwell’s Plum opened in San Francisco in 1981 but folded after a brief run. His $9 million Potomac restaurant in the historic Georgetown section of Washington closed after just a year.
LeRoy made headlines of a different kind in the 1990s when his second wife, Kay, sued for divorce, claiming he abandoned her and their three children for an aspiring singer. Despite a costly settlement, the couple reconciled, and he is survived by her, two daughters and a son, and a daughter from his first marriage. He is also survived by his sister, Linda Janklow, chair of the Vivian Beaumont Theater; two half-brothers, Brian Vidor and Quentin Vidor; and three grandchildren.
