Obituaries - Miami-Dade

DEATHS

Martin Zweig, Wall Street wiz, dies in at Fisher Island home

 
 

Martin E. Zweig, a Coral Gables High School graduate, went on to become a Wall Street superstar. He died on Feb. 18 at his home on Fisher Island, three years after a liver transplant. He was 70.
Martin E. Zweig, a Coral Gables High School graduate, went on to become a Wall Street superstar. He died on Feb. 18 at his home on Fisher Island, three years after a liver transplant. He was 70.
Zweig-DiMenna Associates

ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com

His memorabilia collection includes the dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy in 1962; a pair of JFK’s pajamas; suits worn in performances by Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles; Super Bowl rings, Heisman Trophies, Oscar statuettes and Gold Records; a Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide motorcycle that actor Peter Fonda rode in the film Easy Rider; the booking sheet from one of Al Capone’s arrests; and a letter written by baseball legend Mickey Mantle describing a sexual encounter at Yankee Stadium.

A passionate salsa dancer and lifelong poker player, Zweig was “the kind of guy who enjoyed life and was the life of the party,’’ said Fisher Island friend Stan Smith.

Zweig met his first wife at Wolfie’s 21, the famous Miami Beach deli. They married in 1965 at Temple Beth Sholom, had son Zachary, now a New York jazz musician, in 1979, and son Alex, studying for an M.B.A. at New York University, in 1982.

They remained friends after divorcing in 1997.

“I thought he was going to be a professor,’’ said Mollie Zweig, which he was, at several colleges in New York State, before devoting himself to finance. “He had a lot of ambition, was very bright, very focused on the market.’’

With success came a Park Avenue apartment and a weekend house in the Hamptons, where Zweig began collecting. It started with Americana, Mollie Zweig said: vintage gas pumps, oil-company signs, juke boxes and a “fabulous’’ red 1976 Cadillac El Dorado convertible.

Zweig married Barbara, another Wall Streeter, on Valentine’s Day in 1998. The following year, they bought the Pierre penthouse, at $21.5 million, the most expensive residence in New York at the time.

They added the Fisher Island place in 2002, because “he loved it down here,’’ his wife said, then a 187-foot luxury yacht for round-the-world cruises.

Zweig called the boat The BAD Girl — for Barbara Ann Digan.

Childhood friend Carlton Cole, a Miami real-estate appraiser, said that despite his success and wealth, Zweig was “a regular guy’’ who attended high-school reunions and kept up with his classmates.

“He always stayed just the same,’’ said Cole. “He was always nervous about his investments, always worked hard. He never got a swelled head at all.’’

“He was incredibly generous and kind,’’ Barbara Zweig added. “But more than anything, he was one of a kind.’’

In addition to his wife and sons, Marty is survived by his Yorkshire terrier, Murphy. The family suggests memorial donations to the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, or the American Cancer Society.

Services will be private.

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