Floria V. Lasky (April 24, 1923 – September 21, 2007) was an American lawyer in the theater world, who represented some of the biggest names in American entertainment.

Career

Lasky was born in the Bronx,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. She was named for the eponymous heroine of the opera ''

Tosca ''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1 ...

''. She was the younger sister of American journalist

Melvin J. Lasky Melvin Jonah Lasky (15 January 1920 – 19 May 2004) was an American journalist, intellectual, and member of the anti-Communist left. He founded the German journal '' Der Monat'' in 1948 and, from 1958 to 1991, edited ''Encounter'', one of many ...

. She entered

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

at the age of 14 and graduated first in her class at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

's law school in 1945, after which she joined the law firm of Fitelson & Mayers, where she would stay for the next 62 years, eventually becoming a principal partner. Her clients over the years included

Jerome Robbins Jerome Robbins (born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz; October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was an American dancer, choreographer, film director, theatre director and producer who worked in classical ballet, on stage, film, and television. Among his nu ...

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

Burl Ives Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, actor, and author with a career that spanned more than six decades. Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own rad ...

David Merrick David Merrick (born David Lee Margoulis; November 27, 1911 – April 25, 2000) was an American theatrical producer who won a number of Tony Awards. Life and career Born David Lee Margulois to Jewish parents in St. Louis, Missouri, Merrick gradua ...

Gypsy Rose Lee Gypsy Rose Lee (born Rose Louise Hovick, January 8, 1911 – April 26, 1970) was an American burlesque entertainer, stripper and vedette famous for her striptease act. Also an actress, author, and playwright, her 1957 memoir was adapted into ...

Jule Styne Jule Styne (; born Julius Kerwin Stein; December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was an English-American songwriter and composer best known for a series of Broadway musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became s ...

Frederick Loewe Frederick Loewe (, originally German Friedrich (Fritz) Löwe ; June 10, 1901 – February 14, 1988) was an Austrian-United States, American composer. He collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including ''Br ...

and

Carson McCullers Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...

. As their lawyer, she was one of the first women to break into the legal sphere of Broadway and beyond. Her law firm, Fitelson, Lasky, Aslan & Couture, continued to represent the estates of many of her clients even after their deaths. She was married to David R. Altman, an advertising executive, for over 52 years. Widowed since 2000, Floria Lasky Altman died aged 84 from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

. She was survived by two daughters, two grandchildren, Asher and Davi, and a sister Joyce Lasky Reed, who married and divorced

Anatole Shub Anatole Shub (May 19, 1928 in The Bronx, New York City – July 2, 2006 in Washington, D.C.) was an American author, journalist, researcher, editor, news director and Russian public opinion analyst. Shub attended Townsend Harris High School a ...

and later married

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...

broadcast journalist Leonard Reed (1918-2008).

References

1923 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American lawyers Hunter College alumni New York University School of Law alumni People from the Bronx Deaths from cancer in New York (state) 20th-century American women lawyers 21st-century American women {{US-law-bio-stub