This fascinating article from the now defunct Miami Herold Tropic provides great insight to the actual man behind the persona of “Jack” Horkheimer.
He mixes luxury and austerity. Horkheimer dabbles in bonds, has an American Express Gold Card and belongs to the Playboy Club. He wears a $10 electric watch and a ring set with a second-century BC bronze coin from the reign of Ptolemy VI of Egypt. He has a heavy metal plaque embossed with the word “HUSTLER” on his key ring. He drinks only champagne, which he buys 10 cases at a time, in vintages varying from cheap, oversweet Andre to dry, costly Moët & Chandon. He makes champagne cocktails by pouring the bubbly over a lump of sugar laced with Angostura bitters, and laps them up delicately, cat-like, one after another. He enjoys food and dines out at least four nights a week. He owns a large, old, hand-built stereo system whose amplifier is all vacuum tubes, not a single transistor. He admires Shostakovich symphonies and Peggy Lee.
The article also discusses a raging “doomsday party” that Jack Horkheimer threw on the Crandon Park beach in Miami, Florida back in 1982. An estimated 3,000 people showed up for the bash. Unfortunately the party dissolved into a mass of chaos with four young men stabbed, dozens beaten up and robbed, and around 30 arrested. You can read more at the Archived Miami Herold article about the incident here.
