After making a fortune on Wall Street, he bought The Nation magazine and founded The New York Observer, which one writer called a “maypole of…

A prolific journalist and author, he wrote the only authorized biography of Alfred Hitchcock and heaped early praise on the future Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.

He was a watchdog over casinos when they were introduced in New Jersey. He went on to run the nation’s most profitable one, in Connecticut.

With her husband, Dan, she ran four theaters in Manhattan and a company that distributed foreign and independent classics.

The scion of a New York family of builders, he rescued the Fontainebleau hotel from bankruptcy, spurring a real estate boom.

A former N.Y.P.D. detective, he rejuvenated properties on the Brooklyn waterfront and restored a historic village in upstate New York.

As the city’s corporation counsel under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he defended stop-and-frisk policing and a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.

As a longtime Washington Post reporter and an author of 10 books, he held corporate America accountable for safe pharmaceuticals and cars.

His work was seen in “Angels in America” and Victoria’s Secret runway shows. He also made outlandish ensembles for Heidi Klum and Marc Jacobs.

As an award-winning actor and director, he appeared in scores of stage plays, movies and TV shows over six decades, most often as unsavory characters.