Just a matter of days before her death, Margie Korshak held a small luncheon in a private room at Miru, inside Chicago’s grand St. Regis Hotel. Silver-haired and decked to the nines, she was in her preferred milieu: her two children, Susan and Steven, were there, alongside a curated collection of her closest friends, most of them decades-standing, bejeweled to the hilt and dressed in their finest attire. All were seated at a single table.
Korshak told war stories of a life in promoting entertainment, of working closely with theater legends like Cameron Mackintosh and Garth Drabinsky, and of wrangling Barbra Streisand. She repeated what she saw as the eternal truth that “Les Miserables” would be the greatest musical of all time, even as she spoke of plans to see the rest of Broadway’s current season.
There was no talk of the birthday honoree’s health, although everyone there knew it was failing and some clearly were struggling with that knowledge. “Isn’t this wonderful?” she said during the lunch, several times, as the chef stopped by to visit. Although her diminutive frame barely reached over the table, she looked fabulous, fully inhabiting her preferred moniker as “the princess of pizzazz.”
Korshak died Sunday morning, following kidney failure and other ailments that had recently arisen, at home on Chicago’s Gold Coast, her son Steven said. She was 86.
Korshak, the silver-haired, glamorous founder of Margie Korshak Inc. public relations and marketing agency, long resident in what was the John Hancock Building, was a throwback to old Chicago.
Her clients included downtown theater owner Broadway in Chicago, and a who’s who of others in the entertainment and restaurant businesses, and her conversation across the years was filled with grand celebrity stories, a few involving her “Uncle Sidney” Korshak, a noted attorney with a reputation for being the Los Angeles-based fixer for the Chicago Outfit.
In Chicago, Korshak, known to all by her first name, prided herself on having worked most every Chicago opening of a Broadway show since 1976.
She was a fierce advocate for her clients, operating on the principle that she who does not ask does not get, and she had no compunction in pushing hard through whatever channel — reporter, critic, columnist, editor, yet more powerful editor — would get the results she wanted, ideally coverage in the Sunday Tribune’s arts section, ideally on the cover. But she did so with charm.
Former Tribune arts and entertainment editor Scott Powers on Sunday called her “a tenacious sweetheart.”
Born in 1939, Korshak married a total of five times, including to such successful spouses as Theodore Ruwitch, a Chicago industrialist; Michael Chernoff, a lawyer for the Indianapolis Colts with whom she had two children and, later in life, Charles “Corky” Goodman, vice chairman of Henry Crown & Co., a Chicago-based private investment firm and a noted philanthropist, especially in Jewish circles and for educational institutions in the State of Israel.
“Corky” was the love of her life; she cared for him intently during his late-in-life health issues prior to his death in 2023. Her friends and family often marveled at the contrast between the two: Margie’s ebullience and the more introverted Corky’s preference for a much quieter life. But the combination clearly worked; Corky, who had a wry sense of humor, was endlessly entertained by his wife.
Margie Korshak Inc. was founded in 1969, once had as many as 50 employees, and for years was a multi-million dollar operation. Her client list once included Bloomingdales and Disney although, in recent years, Korshak had wound down her business and moved its smaller operations inside Broadway in Chicago, its biggest client and the one with the product about which she was the most passionate.
“A legend in her own time, she was the sparkle in my life and in all those that knew her,” said Eileen LaCario, Broadway in Chicago’s vice president and a close friend. President Lou Raizin spoke of the “countless ways” in which Korshak would be missed.
Korshak spoke often of writing a book but worried about her disinclination to name names in a potentially hurtful way, and thus she preferred that they stayed inside the stories she told for her friends.
“She was knocked down a few times but she always got right back up,” said son Steven. “When she started that business in 1969, very few women were doing anything like that.”
True. But then, very few women had a life anything like Margie’s.
A memorial is planned for 11 a.m. March 5 at the Henning Chapel at Rosehill Cemetery, 5800 N. Ravenswood Ave., followed by a private burial. The family will sit Shiva from 1 to 5 p.m. March 5 at the Bryn Mawr Country Club, 6600 N. Crawford Ave., Lincolnwood.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
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