Free Spirit Brought Joy to All Near Him

By Richard J. Dalton Jr | STAFF WRITER

September 19, 2001

Always the prankster, Larry Polatsch donned a tuxedo and crashed the wedding of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas at the swanky Plaza Hotel in Manhattan last fall.

He even ate with Jack Nicholson before security guards caught on and forced him to leave.

As the paparazzi waited outside, Polatsch left the hotel beside Anthony Hopkins. He sneaked in again and left beside Dennis Miller. Then again with Quincy Jones.

He demonstrated the same determination combating an illness earlier this year, surviving a potentially fatal blood clot in his lungs.

"You just figure, it's not [his] time to go," said his cousin Bryan Schwartzman.

Formerly an attorney, Polatsch, 32, changed careers six years ago so he wouldn't have to "fight with people the rest of his life," said his father, Bernard Polatsch, 64, of Woodbury.

The Upper East Side resident worked as a partner in equities sales at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of One World Trade Center. The family has presumed he died in the terrorism attack.

Polatsch attended Syosset High School, the University of Michigan and Syracuse Law School.

"He once flew home from Michigan with flowers for me on my birthday," said his mother, Linda Polatsch, 60, of Brookville. Last October, he threw her a birthday party with 70 guests at an upscale Manhattan restaurant. He often returned to Syosset to visit his former teachers.

"Everyone should have the sons that I have," she said. "It's just the worst thing in the entire world" to have lost Larry.

Though he once asked Julia Roberts on a date and even appeared on "Entertainment Tonight" re-enacting the proposition, his true love was Marni Wasserman, 32, whom he knew since seventh grade. Just months ago, they rekindled their romance and, by all accounts, expected to marry.

"He was the one," Wasserman said. "I felt 100percent secure, 100 percent happy. I've never felt that way.

"He profoundly changed my life all through the years, but in the end it was so special," she said.

In one discussion, he told her: "Marni, I don't get down. I don't get sad. I don't get depressed.... You can count on me to always make you in a good mood."

His brother, Danny, 30, said, "In the last several months, when he was with Marni, he was really happy."

As children, the two brothers went to sleepaway camp together. Then Danny entered the University of Michigan when his older brother was a senior. The two belonged to the same fraternity.

Two of Danny's friends from the fraternity were also in the World Trade Center. He has already attended a funeral for one friend and plans to attend another Thursday.

Larry had a personal Web site, www.larrypolatsch .com, which the family plans to convert into a memorial where people can post their memories of him.

"There are hundreds of stories because he was a character," Danny said. "He lived his entire life as if each day was really his last day. It's as if he knew that his life was going to end early because he packed in so much in 32 years."

The family will hold "a celebration of his life" Friday at 2 p.m. at Gutterman's Inc., 8000 Jericho Tpke., in Woodbury.