After years of battling illness, restaurateur extraordinaire Warner LeRoy succumbed to complications from cancer yesterday at the age of 65.
The colorful owner of the Russian Tea Room and Tavern on the Green had been in declining health for a number of years.
LeRoy’s spokeswoman, Shelley Clark, recalled how he vowed last summer to walk down the aisle to give away his daughter, Carolyn, at her wedding in January.
“When he did, Lauren Bacall and other guests stood and applauded as he walked into the room,” she said.
Clark said members of LeRoy’s family will continue to run the restaurants.
Sirio Maccioni, owner of Le Cirque 2000, described LeRoy as a man of “intelligence, generosity and courage,” adding, “He had a creative vision that added to the quality of life of the city.”
Warner Lewis LeRoy was born in Los Angeles on March 5, 1935 with show business in his blood: he was the maternal grandson of Warner Bros. movie mogul Harry Warner and the son of film director/producer Mervyn LeRoy.
He gravitated toward the magic of Hollywood. When he was only 4, he spent hours on the set of “The Wizard of Oz,” which was directed by his father, and kept Dorothy’s dog, Toto, as a memento of the film.
LeRoy was so taken by the 1939 blockbuster he later named his daughter Jennifer Oz LeRoy.
His parents divorced when he was 7.
LeRoy graduated with a degree in drama from Stanford in 1956, then headed to Manhattan. A year later, he bought an off-Broadway theater on the Upper East Side.
He had abandoned his theatrical aspirations in the mid-’60s and entered the restaurant business, transforming a building on First Avenue that housed a theater into Maxwell’s Plum.
Maxwell’s Plum was a vision right out of Oz with its jewel- and Tiffany glass-laden interior and celebrities and politicians rubbing elbows over dinner.
It’s where LeRoy became friends with Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty, Cary Grant and Bill Blass, among others. During Maxwell’s heyday, the portly host earned his glitzy reputation by wearing flashy sequined and bejeweled clothes to match the decor.
He reopened the 1930s-era Tavern on the Green in 1976 and it has, for years, been the country’s top-grossing eatery with annual sales at nearly $35 million.
His most ambitious project, the $22 million Russian Tea Room, reopened in the fall of 1999.
LeRoy was married twice. Both marriages ended in divorce.
His divorce from his second wife, Kay, made headlines in 1998 because of the bitter fight over his vast fortune.
He leaves a sister, two half-brothers, four children and three grandchildren. Services will be held at 10:30 am Monday at Temple Emanu-el on Fifth Avenue.