Honoring a Beloved Wife
Irv Cowan, a man equally fortunate in business and love, has enjoyed a life well lived.
On two occasions his horses have won the Breeder’s Cup championship for thoroughbred racing. He produced a Broadway play for singing legend Peggy Lee. In the days when A-list talent such as Tony Bennett and Judy Garland regularly performed at Hollywood’s Diplomat Hotel, the Broward County property was one of Cowan’s real estate holdings.
As great as these memories are, they pale next to those generated during 52 years of marriage to Marjorie Cowan, who passed away in February 2009, three years after a debilitating stroke. To pay homage to his late wife and an enduring friendship with UHealth physician Silvina Levis, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the Osteoporosis Center, Cowan is not only extending but expanding a four-decade philanthropic link between the extended Cowan family and the Miller School.
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| Through the charitable foundation he formed with his late wife, Marjorie, Irv Cowan supports the Miller School’s Osteoporosis Center, led by Silvina Levis, M.D., and many other UM programs. |
“My wife was fascinated by medicine,” says Cowan. “Her father, Samuel Friedland, was one of the founders of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach.”
Cowan’s parents moved to Miami Beach from the Newark, New Jersey, area when Cowan was 13. After graduating from Miami Beach High in 1950, he took business courses at UM for a year, followed by a three-year Coast Guard stint.
After leaving the service, Cowan met Marjorie Friedland during a blind date in Miami Beach and was instantly smitten. They married in 1956, around the same time Cowan began running a Bartow, Florida, meatpacking company his father owned. Under Cowan’s direction the business took off, allowing him to segue into real estate and then thoroughbred racing.
“I owned the Diplomat Hotel most of my business life,” Cowan says. “We had a major nightclub in there where all of the greats in show business worked at one time or another.”
Cowan’s three children grew up around stars such as singer Lee, for whom Cowan produced Peg on Broadway. Sammy Davis Jr. was the godfather of Cowan’s son.
In the early part of this decade, Marjorie Cowan began experiencing moderate osteoporosis and came to the Miller School to see Levis. “They were very fast friends,” Cowan says. “Their personalities just clicked.”
“She was a lovely, fun, interesting woman,” Levis recalls of Marjorie Cowan. “We used to talk a lot during her medical visits, and then we started seeing each other socially.”
Grateful to be living such a blessed existence, the Cowans formed the Marjorie F. Cowan Family Foundation. The foundation has been making gifts to the University of Miami since 1969, helping to support everything from important medical research to athletics.
Since the death of his wife, Cowan has continued to donate, directing his gifts to Levis and, more recently, to neurology.
“Through the years Margie and Irv Cowan have been very supportive of the Osteoporosis Center research programs,” Levis says. “Their gifts have not only allowed us to purchase major pieces of equipment, but all of our federally funded grants have been based on the results of the pilot studies they supported.”
Cowan is certain that Marjorie Cowan wouldn’t have it any other way. When he reflects on their union, “I have no regrets,”
Cowan says. “We’ve done things that most people couldn’t really dream of doing in their lives. We had a charmed life together.” |
