LuEsther T. Mertz

LuEsther T. Mertz died in 1991.

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Biographical Details

"Mrs. Mertz became a general partner in Publishers Clearing House, the magazine-subscription business, soon after its founding in 1953 by her husband, Harold E. Mertz, and their daughter, Joyce Mertz Gilmore. She and her husband were later divorced.

"She was the chairman of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival from 1973 to 1987 and underwrote moving several of its productions from the Public Theater to Broadway, including "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "A Chorus Line."...

"In 1961 she founded Choice Magazine Listening in Port Washington for people who are unable to read regular print. The organization selects articles, fiction and poetry from contemporary periodicals, records them on cassette tapes and distributes the tapes free. To endow the organization, she set up a private foundation, the Lucerna Fund...

"She was a major contributor to many New York City cultural and educational institutions, including Lincoln Center and the New York Botanical Garden, and received the Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture in 1983 and the New York State Governor's Arts Award in 1986.

"In recent years, she was chairman of the Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation..."