In recent times, L.A. leisure and sports activities mogul Casey Wasserman has efficiently striven to be perceived as his personal man. An influence participant in his personal proper — not firstly the well-connected grandson of late Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, the MCA/Common head and political fixer. Together with current {industry} acquisitions, together with Paradigm’s music enterprise and administration agency Brillstein Companions, he led L.A.’s profitable bid for the 2028 Summer season Olympics and now leads the video games’ organizing committee.
However at his fiftieth birthday blowout on June 28, Wasserman reminded everybody of the connection. (He took the surname as an grownup; Lew is his maternal grandfather.)
Company had been photographed in a recreation of industry-favored deli Nate ’n Al’s — he and his grandfather’s weekend bonding spot the place generations of dealmakers first met Casey. The setup included an indication studying “Lew ’n Casey,” within the restaurant’s iconic retro orange typography, which hovered above snapshots of the pair alongside a wall in entrance of a vintage-style sales space. So as to add authenticity, the beloved Nate ’n Al’s waitress Gloria Leon, who’s reminisced about serving the 2, got here out of retirement for tableau vivant functions, pouring espresso right into a mug in a throwback uniform.
Go-to Hollywood occasion planner Ben Bourgeois, who as soon as recreated New York Metropolis restaurant Rao’s for a LACMA fundraiser in producer Steve Tisch’s Beverly Hills yard, was behind the set up. Wasserman, by means of a consultant, declined to remark concerning the occasion.
The get together, which featured a efficiency by rockers Think about Dragons and catering from Nobu and Jon & Vinny’s, was held on the cavernous Barker Hangar on the Santa Monica Airport. Some on and off the roughly 500-person invite checklist discovered the venue inopportune because it invited jokes about how Wasserman’s longtime marriage to Laura Ziffren Wasserman — the music supervisor and daughter of Hollywood heavyweight legal professional Ken Ziffren — ended after he took up with a flight attendant, Jenny Chandler, who’d labored on his personal jet. (The Wassermans at the moment are separated.)
The brand new paramour, now professionally figuring out as a visible artist — she hosted a luncheon at Basel in Miami this previous December — was readily available on the occasion, together with notables in each the sports activities world (Bob Kraft, Lance Armstrong) and the leisure realm (Bob Iger, Jim Gianopulos). Additionally current for Wasserman’s bash: Nationwide Democratic political figures who attested to his pull as a serious get together donor: Invoice Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and Doug Emhoff.