Tulane Athletic Booster Ben Weiner
Submitted By N.O.V.A. July 2005
Times Picayune 09-9-1997


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Ben Weiner, a millionaire New Orleans businessman and bon vivant, was remembered
Monday as a man whose lifelong love affair with his alma mater was instrumental in
keeping Tulane University's athletic program afloat.

"Ben Weiner was a force for good in our community and for our university," Tulane
President Eamon Kelly said. "His dedication to Tulane intercollegiate athletics
was extraordinary. An open and friendly man, he will be missed and remembered by
all those who knew him."

Mr. Weiner died Saturday at Touro Infirmary of complications from diabetes and
heart failure. He was 87.

A funeral will be held today at noon at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100
Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m. Burial will be in Beth Israel
Cemetery.

A lifelong bachelor who played host to entertainers and athletes at the gin rummy
games he held in the Fairmont Hotel suite where he lived for a half-century, Mr.
Weiner made his fortune by transforming his family's New Orleans retail furniture
store into the cornerstone of the largest player in the $650-million-a-year
furniture rental industry.

What is now Cort Furniture Rental, which boasts a 25 percent share of the nation's
furniture rental market, sprang from the union of Mr. Weiner's store and similar
chains that operated in Houston, Baton Rouge and Washington, D.C.

After his father's death in 1930, Mr. Weiner took over his store near the ferry
landing in Algiers. With the opening in the 1950s of the Greater New Orleans
Bridge, however, many of his regular customers stopped visiting the store.

Searching for a way to stay in business, Mr. Weiner stumbled upon the concept of
leasing home furnishings, from sofas and chairs to stoves and bedding, to people
in temporary housing.

In 1972, Mohasco Corp., a publicly traded home furnishings company, bought out Mr.
Weiner's business. He stayed on to manage the local stores, in Algiers and
Carrollton, until retiring in 1987.

A diminutive man who could only dream of scoring touchdowns for the Tulane
football squad while earning a degree in business administration, Mr. Weiner
became a star player on the school's fund-raising team.

Employing a style that was both affable and tenacious, he became known as the
philanthropic sparkplug and catalyst behind Tulane athletics. Among Green Wave
donors, he earned a reputation as a man who wouldn't take no for an answer.

"When it comes to person-to-person salesmanship, Ben has a way of mixing soft sell
and hard sell. He's in a class by himself," former Tulane Athletic Director
Hindman Wall said in 1995.

While serving as president of the Green Wave Club from 1974 to 1988, Mr. Weiner
pushed fund-raising efforts from $30,000 a year to more than $1 million.

The Ben Weiner Foundation, which he formed in 1977, has raised more than $11
million for the Tulane athletic department's endowment.

As Mr. Weiner became more involved in athletic fund-raising, he often had to allay
the fears of some Tulane officials that his efforts might have a negative effect
on general university fund-raising drives.

"I promised them we would not take 5 cents away from the school," Mr. Weiner said
several years ago. "And it hasn't. The reverse has been true. In many cases,
athletic contributors have become university contributors."

Mr. Weiner's passion for Tulane sports was legendary.

From 1924 through 1995, he didn't miss a Tulane home football game except for the
two years he was in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

Each year he provided summer employment for dozens of Tulane students, many of
them athletes on scholarship. A street on the Tulane campus, Ben Weiner Drive, is
named for him.

A lifelong resident of New Orleans, Mr. Weiner reveled in his role as the Fairmont
Hotel's unofficial after-dark host, boasting that he was a nightly fixture for
nearly 40 years of performances at the Blue Room during the supper club's heyday.

Among the entertainers who regularly dropped by his third-floor suite after shows
for the gin rummy games he inaugurated in 1935 were comedians Jimmy Durante and
Joe E. Lewis and bandleader Xavier Cugat.

Mr. Weiner once described his residency at the Fairmont as a perfect way to live.
"You can't beat this life," he said. "You need a button sewed on, they do it. Room
service, you order food when you want it. They take your messages, they do
everything."

Horse racing was another sport that Mr. Weiner enjoyed. The walls of his suite -
even his bathroom - were covered with photos of horses from the successful
thoroughbred racing stable he ran for 30 years.

Survivors include a brother, Elias Weiner of Hallandale, Fla., and a sister,
Miriam W. Glynn.