Andrew Lanyi

LANYI--Andrew, who rose from modest beginnings in Budapest, Hungary to become one of the top retail stockbrokers in Wall Street history, died from complications from liver cancer at his home in Manhattan on August 4, 2009. He was 84 years old. Andrew's birth in Budapest did not point to a career on Wall Street. During WWII, the Nazis enslaved Hungarian Jews and he endured a forced march building airstrips for the Luftwaffe. He and a friend escaped when Andrew used his ingenuity and lithographic skills to forge travel papers. As they moved from village to village, the local elders added legitimate stamps to their counterfeit pass. Eventually they returned to Budapest and hid in a nook behind brick ovens, the only known survivors of that forced march. After WWII, Andrew focused on a career in the theater in Budapest, directing modern and classical plays, tirelessly driving his cast and crew. He eventually became a director of programs for the radio. He was known as the "Ed Sullivan" of Hungarian radio. One day he met a lovely Doctor in training and shortly thereafter, he and Valery married. At the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution, he and his pregnant wife escaped to Austria, literally crawling across the border avoiding border patrols with shoot to kill orders. Once in Vienna, they applied for asylum to the United States - if they did not receive their papers within a month they would apply to Australia. The approval came through on day 30 and they were off to the U.S. courtesy of the American military. Landing at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, they were picked up by Sutton Place relatives and transported to a new life via a gleaming white Cadillac limo. Andrew commented, "I wonder how many families have to share this?" As opportunities for a theater director with a thick Hungarian accent were limited, Andrew went to work for the New York Times in their "morgue", while his pregnant wife retrained as an Intern and Resident. Their first son George was born in May 1957. As their joint income was insufficient to feed three mouths, Andrew took on selling mutual funds at night. This new endeavor was classic Andrew as he was disciplined, applying new techniques, especially cold calling, almost exclusively (to start) to Hungarian names culled from phone books. Mutual funds led to selling stocks. Over the subsequent 50 years on Wall Street, he developed a passion for finding the right companies. He industriously and aggressively offered them to customers all over the world from Governors to doctors to lawyers. Andrew's pioneering career as a cold-calling stockbroker spanned firms such as Blythe Eastman Dillon, Lehman Brothers, Ladenburg Thalmann and Oppenheimer. He retired in 2007 as Executive Director of Investments of the Lanyi Group at Oppenheimer and Co. Inc. As his career took off, Andrew and Valery's second son Paul was born. Andrew and Valery divorced in the late 1960s and Andrew discovered the joys of New York dating, pursuing it as passionately and imaginatively as he did his work. In 1990, his son George died from complications due to AIDS. Andrew met his true love Diane Bickoff in 1993. Until his death, they had been together every day and night for nearly 17 years except for one night while he was in the hospital. They enjoyed a strong bond working together, holding hands every day, Andrew selling and Diane providing PR expertise and helping Andrew tweak his pitches day in, day out. She laughed at his jokes (even the very off-color ones) even on the twelfth telling. She was the love of his life and he hers. He is survived by Diane (his beloved wife), Paul (his son), Kristi (daughter-in-law), Luke George Lanyi (grandson), Mr. and Mrs. Leon Bickoff (mother-in-law and father-in-law), Laurie Kranz (sister-in-law) and Carl and Michael Kranz (nephews). A brief gathering will be held at The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel at 1076 Madison Avenue (81st Street) from 2 to 3pm on Friday, August 7. Guests are encouraged to wear primary colors or bright clothing in memory of Andrew's colorful style of dressing.