Actress Ellen Burstyn is 77. Famed financier Michael Steinhardt is turning 69. Musician Tom Waits turns 60. MIT linguistics professor, author, and activist Noam Chomsky is 81. Actor Jeffrey Wright is turning 44. NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens turns 36. Retired basketball great Larry Bird is 53. And actress Jennifer Carpenter turns 30. And singer, actor, and Dancing with the Stars reject Aaron Carter is turning 22.
• Bob Weinstein and his wife Annie Clayton are reportedly looking for a buyer for their five-bedroom apartment at the Beresford. The 6,500-square-foot duplex is "quietly" being offered for "around $34 million" by Brown Harris Stevens broker Ileen Schoenfeld. No need to worry about the couple being homeless if they manage to unload the apartment: In addition to a townhouse on West 70th Street, which they picked up for in May for $15 million, the Weinsteins also own a one-bedroom on West 67th Street and a condo at Astor Place. [NYO]
• Retired hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt has sold his two-bedroom apartment at the Museum Tower. He and wife Judy won't be moving, however: The Steinhardts split their time between an apartment at 1158 Fifth Avenue and a massive estate in Bedford. [Cityfile]
• Charles Martin Jr., the CEO of Vanguard Health Systems, has picked up a pied-à-terre. The Nashville-based exec purchased a four-bedroom duplex at 155 West 15th Street for $6.675 from Blackstone senior managing director Neil Simpkins and his wife Miyoung Lee. [Cityfile]
It's Amanda Lepore's birthday today! At least we think it's her birthday and we think she's 41, but she's been known to fool people before. Others celebrating today: Margaret Cho is 40. The New Yorker's Calvin Trillin is 73. Novelist Joan Didion is turning 74. Little Richard is 76. Knicks center Eddy Curry is 26. Child star Frankie Muniz turns 23. Actor Nick Stahl is turning 29. And model Shalom Harlow is 35. Weekend birthdays after the jump.
"Not once did we consider asking Washington to bail out the Sun," proclaimed the conservative New York newspaper in a deathbed editorial this morning that cited the importance of adhering to its highminded free-market "principles." But it turns out that they did almost precisely that kind of! See, some of the Sun's capitalist backers had a bunch of money invested in the private equity firm Cerberus, which controls the auto financing firms Chrysler Financial and GMAC. (And also, owns Chrysler itself, which was also a bad idea.) Auto financing firms are sitting on truckloads of car loans gone bad in no small part because people can't get home equity loans to pay them off like they used to, which is (a major reason) why the whole auto industry has gone to shit. So…guess which struggling private equity firm was about to get some major R-O-L-A-I-D-S from that big communist bailout bill all those ideological comrades of the Sun just voted down?Yup! Cerberus! Oh well, that's the free market! Says a source: "[Sun Editor Seth] Lipsky gave up trying to raise money after the bailout failed to pass." So it turns out it is not only middle-class social conservatives in Kansas who will vote Republican against their economic self-interest. Zionist New York plutocrat neoconservatives will too. Even if it means silencing their mouthpiece forever! Don't worry, Seth, Republicans will continue doing the talking (out of both sides of their mouths) for you, as conservative columnist David Brooks did today:
Last night, word emerged that The Sun, the right-leaning daily founded by Ira Stoll and Seth Lipsky in 2002, may end up shutting down at the end of the month if the company doesn't find additional investors willing to step in. The Sun has had financial problems since day one and it never made much headway in the circulation department. This time, though, it looks like it could be the end of the line: The paper even posted an account of its problems on its website. (Perhaps in the hope that another super-conservative, Jewish billionaire will turn up with his checkbook.) So why are the Sun's current backers—including Bruce Kovner, Tom Tisch, and Michael Steinhardt, left—giving up? They've got plenty of other stuff to worry about, that's why.
A hedge fund legend, Michael Steinhardt started his first fund in 1967. Now retired, he wiles away the time tending to his mammoth art collection and various philanthropic endeavors.
