Jean Stein Was Worth $38M When She Plunged To Death From Manhattan Building
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Talya Zax May 15, 2017
Jean Stein, the Upper East Side oral historian who recently jumped to her death at 83 years old, was worth $38.5 million, the New York Post has reported.
The Post found details of Stein’s holdings in court papers. Her assets included her $10 million co-op apartment on the Upper East Side, $13.5 million in security investments, and $15 million worth of personal property.
Stein’s 25-page will notably includes bequeathments to Diane Keaton — “my pair of French mirrors in the shape of butterflies that belonged to Truman Capote” — and the New York Public Library, which will receive her correspondence with William Faulkner, with whom she once had an affair.
Stein, whose father, Jules Stein, founded the Music Corporation of America, wrote acclaimed oral histories of Robert F. Kennedy, Edie Sedgwick and Hollywood. Twice married and twice divorced, she is survived by her daughters Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, and actor-producer Wendy vanden Heuvel, as well as their children.
The majority of Stein’s wealth will be donated to the JKW Foundation, a cultural charity she founded.
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