Margaret Ferraro, Council President’s Wife, Dies

Margaret Hart Ferraro, the wife of Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro and a celebrated burlesque-era showgirl turned savvy investor, died late Wednesday after a long illness.

At her request, her family refused to disclose her age.

Known as Margie Hart in the 1940s, Ferraro was the “toast of Broadway,” appearing as a striptease dancer in New York. After moving to Los Angeles, she gained added fame and fortune by fixing up old buildings in the Hancock Park area and selling them at a profit.

She and John Ferraro dated for years before marrying in 1982. Shortly after they wed, she suffered an aneurysm and a stroke that left her partially paralyzed. But Margie Ferraro, who was known for her determination and quick wit, never let her medical difficulties slow her down.

She insisted on leaving her wheelchair at home, relying instead on a fashionable cane and the steady arm of her onetime football hero husband to make her way to numerous social events.

Her health, however, continued to deteriorate. She was hospitalized last week at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she died late Wednesday. Friends said she had been suffering from respiratory problems. The cause of her death was not released.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony will celebrate requiem Mass at St. Brendan’s Catholic Church at 10 a.m. Monday. Burial services will be private.

Ferraro was born in Edgerton, Mo., and raised in an Irish-Catholic family with seven sisters and one brother. While still in her teens, she struck out on her own for a career in show business.

By 1939, Ferraro was in New York City, where she appeared in a number of burlesque shows on Broadway, including the controversial “Wine, Women and Song.” She made national news in 1942 when a judge ordered that show closed, claiming that it was indecent.

By 1946, she had abandoned her career as a striptease dancer, obtaining a part in the play “Light Up the Sky” at the Ford Theater in Baltimore.

She moved to Los Angeles a few years later with her then-husband, Seaman Block Jacobs, a scriptwriter who was once her agent. The two divorced in 1955.

Ferraro quickly joined the Los Angeles social circuit, spending afternoons at Hollywood Park and holding large parties at her Bel-Air house.

Red Buttons, who performed with Ferraro during her burlesque days, called her the “poor man’s Garbo.”

“She was magnificent,” said Buttons, 81. “We became fast friends. I just loved her right through life.”

Margaret Hart met John Ferraro at a party in the 1970s.

“Margaret was a joy to be around,” John Ferraro said in a prepared statement Thursday. “She had a strong personality; she loved people and they loved her.

“She was very intelligent, enjoyed her own, unique views of Los Angeles and the world of politics, and didn’t mind sharing those views. She was very special.”

After the two began dating, Margaret Ferraro was embraced by her beau’s colleagues in the political establishment.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime friend who lives nearby and served with Margaret’s husband on the City Council for more than two decades, recalled his last meeting with her, which occurred at a dinner a few weeks ago.

In her typical cut-to-the-chase manner, she asked Yaroslavsky, “When are you going to announce you’re running for mayor?”

“She was a great personality, totally uninhibited,” said Yaroslavsky, a perpetually rumored candidate for mayor who has been resolutely silent about his political plans.

“She told you what she thought; she couldn’t care less who you were or what your station was. She was known for giving you a piece of her mind, and usually she was right about it.”

Yaroslavsky recalled Margaret telling him to lay off her husband in council debates, and chiding him for gaining weight--then praising him for shucking extra pounds.

After her stroke, Ferraro’s husband was a constant helpmate, Yaroslavsky said. He recalled numerous social functions at which the council president would stay at his wife’s side, walking slowly with her rather than schmoozing in the halls.

In recent years, he often has arrived at council meetings appearing tired because he had sat up all night with his ailing wife.

“She was always the center of his attention,” Yaroslavsky said. “When he was around her, he was a pussycat.”

“Los Angeles was very blessed to have her around all these years. She made it a classier place,” Yaroslavsky said.

In a prepared statement, Mayor Richard Riordan, who spent part of the day Thursday at the Ferraro home, said he was deeply saddened by the death. “Margaret was one of the funniest, most outrageous and loving women I ever met,” he said. “She was a personal friend and I will miss her very much.”

She is survived by her husband, two children, five grandchildren and a sister.

Visitation hours will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at Callanan Mortuary, 1301 N. Western Ave. Services will be at 10 a.m. Monday at the church at 310 S. Van Ness Ave.

The family asked that any memorial donations be made to the Margaret and John Ferraro Chair in Effective Local Government at USC’s School of Policy, Planning and Development.

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Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.