Bernard Cornfeld
Encyclopedia
Bernard "Bernie" Cornfeld (Istanbul
, 17 August 1927 – London, 27 February 1995) was a prominent businessman and international
financier
who sold investments in US
mutual fund
s, and was tried and acquitted for orchestrating one of the most lucrative confidence games of his era.
. His father was a Romania
n-Jewish actor; his mother was from a Russia
n-Jewish family. They moved to America when Bernard was four years old – his father dying two years later. The young Brooklyn
-raised Cornfeld worked after school each day in fruit stores and as a delivery boy. Although he suffered from a stammer
, he had a natural gift for selling
and when a schoolfriend's father died, the two of them used the US$
3,000 insurance
money to purchase and run an age and weight guessing stand at the Coney Island
funfair. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and Brooklyn College
.
During the Second World War he joined the U.S. Maritime Service. Afterwards he went to Brooklyn College, graduating with a degree in psychology
, and then did an MA in social work at the School of Social Work
at Columbia University
. He initially worked as a social worker, but then switched to selling mutual funds for an investment house. In 1955, he left New York
for Paris
and started his own company selling mutual funds, using his savings of a mere few hundred dollars. The company was named Investors Overseas Service
s (IOS). By selling the mutual funds, mostly to American servicemen in Europe
, Cornfeld was able to avoid both American and European tax regulations. As a US citizen he did not avoid US taxes, and the funds sold to US servicemen were US registered and based funds. In the early years the fund sold was mostly the Dreyfus Fund
, which was small then, with assets of less than US$2 million. He had a close and friendly relationship with Jack Dreyfus
, the founder, and when the management company of the Dreyfus Fund went public, IOS bought an almost 10% ownership in it. Cornfield and IOS fueled the early growth of the Dreyfus Fund from very small to several hundred million dollars, due to his marketing acumen, with brilliant advertising of a lion strolling down Broadway, and deft management of the fund.
s (IOS), with principal offices in Geneva, Switzerland, although its legal place of incorporation was Panama
. He also set up mutual funds in various jurisdictions, as noted below. Although the executive headquarters were in Geneva, the main operational offices of IOS were in Ferney-Voltaire
, France
, a short drive across the French border from Geneva.
In 1962, IOS launched its "Fund of funds
," which meant investment in shares of other mutual funds, including some other IOS vehicles. The offering was very popular in the bull market times, and Cornfeld's one-line pitch, "Do you sincerely want to be rich?" became a by-word for its success. During the next ten years, IOS raised in excess of US$2.5 billion, bringing Cornfeld a personal fortune which has been estimated as more than US$100 million. Cornfeld himself became known for conspicuous consumption with lavish parties. Socially, he was generous and jovial, and generally surrounded by a bevy of beautiful young women, including for example Victoria Principal
, later widely known as a star in the TV series "Dallas".
At its peak, IOS employed around 25,000 salesmen, who sold a series of mutual funds door-to-door all over Europe, especially in Germany
, to small-time investors. He originally targeted US expatriates and servicemen who had no access to US investing, but the main growth of the business came from the public in countries such as Germany and Italy, who had until then had no other easy access to investment vehicles of this kind. Cornfeld called it "people's capitalism
."
There were several reasons for the eventual rapid downfall of IOS, and there is no widely-accepted agreement as to the cause. But it may be true to say that, had the parent company not made a public share offering in 1969, it might have survived for much longer. The pressure to make the public offering came from the salesmen-stockholders, who were eager to cash in their paper fortunes, but the money raised by the company was used by the management to diversify in a number of ways that created a cash shortage. The domicile (but not the offices) of IOS was switched to Canada, and the public offering took place there in the summer of 1969.
Bernie decided that mutual funds should take their fees from the profits they made for their investors, not just a percentage of the money invested. That is the way the IOS Investment Program was structured. Unfortunately no other provision was made for operating funds and international stock markets suffered a bear market in late 1969. The value of the IOS mutual funds took a serious fall, eliminating income for IOS. By March 1969, IOS was running out of operating money.
At this point, a little-known American financier named Robert Vesco
, head of International Controls Corporation
, offered his help with $5MM. Vesco managed to take control of IOS and eventually evicted Cornfeld from the management. Having placed his men in key positions in IOS, Vesco succeeded in transferring over $ 200 million of cash belonging to the IOS funds into his own ventures, mostly in Costa Rica and other parts of Latin America. When the SEC issued a public complaint, Vesco fled to exile in a number of Caribbean hideaways, and was finally reported as having died in Cuba in 2008.
Following the SEC complaint, the Canadian authorities arranged for the IOS entities to be placed in liquidation.
in France, not far from Geneva, villa
in France, a house
in [West Halkin Street]Belgravia
, London
, and a mansion
Grayhall, Carolyn Way, Beverly Hills, as well as a permanent suite
in a New York City
hotel
and his own fleet of private planes
. He is quoted as saying, "I had mansions all over the world, I threw extravagant parties. And I lived with ten or twelve girls at a time." He had romances with Victoria Principal
; Heidi Fleiss
; Alana Hamilton
(née Collins - a model and former spouse of George Hamilton
who subsequently married Rod Stewart
); and Princess Ira of Fürstenberg
.
Cornfeld settled in Beverly Hills
and moved in a circle of movie
industry people. He lived in the Grayhall mansion, built in 1909 and at one time leased by Douglas Fairbanks
. Known for his playboy lifestyle, Cornfeld numbered among his acquaintances Victor Lownes
, Richard Harris
, Tony Curtis
, and Hugh Hefner
, at whose Playboy Mansion
he visited and attended parties.
finally acquitting Cornfeld.
Realising that his "good time" friends had left him during his 11 months in jail, Cornfeld began to seriously start thinking about his life and decided for the first time that he wanted a wife and children. In 1976 he married a model, Loraine, at his Beverly Hills mansion Grayhall. However, he had difficulty settling down. Polygamy
was "considerably simpler than monogamy and a lot more fun," he insisted. He was still worth an estimated US$1.85 million.
s and vitamins, renounced red meat
and seldom drank alcohol
. In his last years he was a chairman of a land development firm in Arizona
and also owned a real estate
company in Los Angeles
. His marriage ended in divorce
, and he is survived by a daughter. His daughter, Jessica Cornfeld, wrote an article about her father in the The Mail on Sunday
on June 29, 2003, entitled My father, the playboy who could never get enough lovers, where she suggests that he maintained a close friendship with Heidi Fleiss
until his death in 1995.
Bernard Cornfeld suffered a stroke and died of a cerebral aneurysm
on February 27, 1995 in London, England
.
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, 17 August 1927 – London, 27 February 1995) was a prominent businessman and international
International
----International mostly means something that involves more than one country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries...
financier
Financier
Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...
who sold investments in US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mutual fund
Mutual fund
A mutual fund is a professionally managed type of collective investment scheme that pools money from many investors to buy stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities.- Overview :...
s, and was tried and acquitted for orchestrating one of the most lucrative confidence games of his era.
Early life
Bernard Cornfeld was born in TurkeyTurkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. His father was a Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n-Jewish actor; his mother was from a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-Jewish family. They moved to America when Bernard was four years old – his father dying two years later. The young Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
-raised Cornfeld worked after school each day in fruit stores and as a delivery boy. Although he suffered from a stammer
Stammer
A stammer, or stammering, is a speech disorder typified by the involuntary repetition of a sound or sounds.Stammer, Stammers and Stammmering may also refer to:* Notker of St Gall "Notker the Stammerer" * Steven Stamkos A stammer, or stammering, is a speech disorder typified by the involuntary ...
, he had a natural gift for selling
Selling
Selling is offering to exchange something of value for something else. The something of value being offered may be tangible or intangible. The something else, usually money, is most often seen by the seller as being of equal or greater value than that being offered for sale.Another person or...
and when a schoolfriend's father died, the two of them used the US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
3,000 insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
money to purchase and run an age and weight guessing stand at the Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
funfair. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
.
During the Second World War he joined the U.S. Maritime Service. Afterwards he went to Brooklyn College, graduating with a degree in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, and then did an MA in social work at the School of Social Work
Columbia University School of Social Work
The Columbia University School of Social Work is a professional program within Columbia University. With an enrollment of over 900, it is one of the largest social work programs in the United States. It is also the nation’s oldest, with roots extending back to 1898, when the New York Charity...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He initially worked as a social worker, but then switched to selling mutual funds for an investment house. In 1955, he left New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
for Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and started his own company selling mutual funds, using his savings of a mere few hundred dollars. The company was named Investors Overseas Service
Investors Overseas Service
Investors Overseas Services, Ltd. was founded in 1955 by financier Bernard Cornfeld. The company was incorporated outside the United States with funds in Canada and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. In the 1960s, the company employed 25,000 people who sold 18 different mutual funds...
s (IOS). By selling the mutual funds, mostly to American servicemen in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Cornfeld was able to avoid both American and European tax regulations. As a US citizen he did not avoid US taxes, and the funds sold to US servicemen were US registered and based funds. In the early years the fund sold was mostly the Dreyfus Fund
Dreyfus Corporation
Dreyfus, established in 1951 and headquartered in New York City, is one of the nation’s leading managers of investment products and strategies. The company merged with Mellon Financial in 1994, and then became a subsidiary of Bank of New York Mellon when Mellon Financial and The Bank of New York...
, which was small then, with assets of less than US$2 million. He had a close and friendly relationship with Jack Dreyfus
Jack Dreyfus
John J. "Jack" Dreyfus, Sr. was an American financial expert and the founder of the Dreyfus Funds.Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Dreyfus was a graduate of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania...
, the founder, and when the management company of the Dreyfus Fund went public, IOS bought an almost 10% ownership in it. Cornfield and IOS fueled the early growth of the Dreyfus Fund from very small to several hundred million dollars, due to his marketing acumen, with brilliant advertising of a lion strolling down Broadway, and deft management of the fund.
Investors Overseas Services
In the 1960s, Cornfeld formed his own mutual fund selling company, Investors Overseas ServiceInvestors Overseas Service
Investors Overseas Services, Ltd. was founded in 1955 by financier Bernard Cornfeld. The company was incorporated outside the United States with funds in Canada and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. In the 1960s, the company employed 25,000 people who sold 18 different mutual funds...
s (IOS), with principal offices in Geneva, Switzerland, although its legal place of incorporation was Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
. He also set up mutual funds in various jurisdictions, as noted below. Although the executive headquarters were in Geneva, the main operational offices of IOS were in Ferney-Voltaire
Ferney-Voltaire
Ferney-Voltaire is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France.It lies between the Jura mountains and the Swiss border and forms part of the metropolitan area of Geneva.-History:...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, a short drive across the French border from Geneva.
In 1962, IOS launched its "Fund of funds
Fund of funds
A "fund of funds" is an investment strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing directly in shares, bonds or other securities. This type of investing is often referred to as multi-manager investment...
," which meant investment in shares of other mutual funds, including some other IOS vehicles. The offering was very popular in the bull market times, and Cornfeld's one-line pitch, "Do you sincerely want to be rich?" became a by-word for its success. During the next ten years, IOS raised in excess of US$2.5 billion, bringing Cornfeld a personal fortune which has been estimated as more than US$100 million. Cornfeld himself became known for conspicuous consumption with lavish parties. Socially, he was generous and jovial, and generally surrounded by a bevy of beautiful young women, including for example Victoria Principal
Victoria Principal
Victoria Principal is an American actress, best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the CBS nighttime drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987.-Early life:...
, later widely known as a star in the TV series "Dallas".
At its peak, IOS employed around 25,000 salesmen, who sold a series of mutual funds door-to-door all over Europe, especially in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, to small-time investors. He originally targeted US expatriates and servicemen who had no access to US investing, but the main growth of the business came from the public in countries such as Germany and Italy, who had until then had no other easy access to investment vehicles of this kind. Cornfeld called it "people's capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
."
There were several reasons for the eventual rapid downfall of IOS, and there is no widely-accepted agreement as to the cause. But it may be true to say that, had the parent company not made a public share offering in 1969, it might have survived for much longer. The pressure to make the public offering came from the salesmen-stockholders, who were eager to cash in their paper fortunes, but the money raised by the company was used by the management to diversify in a number of ways that created a cash shortage. The domicile (but not the offices) of IOS was switched to Canada, and the public offering took place there in the summer of 1969.
Bernie decided that mutual funds should take their fees from the profits they made for their investors, not just a percentage of the money invested. That is the way the IOS Investment Program was structured. Unfortunately no other provision was made for operating funds and international stock markets suffered a bear market in late 1969. The value of the IOS mutual funds took a serious fall, eliminating income for IOS. By March 1969, IOS was running out of operating money.
At this point, a little-known American financier named Robert Vesco
Robert Vesco
Robert Lee Vesco was a fugitive United States financier. After several years of high stakes investments and seedy credit dealings, Vesco was alleged guilty of securities fraud. He immediately fled the ensuing U.S...
, head of International Controls Corporation
International Controls Corporation
International Controls Corporation was an American holding company incorporated in 1965. Before being taken private in 1997, its subsidiaries included Checker Motors Corporation and Great Dane Trailers...
, offered his help with $5MM. Vesco managed to take control of IOS and eventually evicted Cornfeld from the management. Having placed his men in key positions in IOS, Vesco succeeded in transferring over $ 200 million of cash belonging to the IOS funds into his own ventures, mostly in Costa Rica and other parts of Latin America. When the SEC issued a public complaint, Vesco fled to exile in a number of Caribbean hideaways, and was finally reported as having died in Cuba in 2008.
Following the SEC complaint, the Canadian authorities arranged for the IOS entities to be placed in liquidation.
Personal life
Cornfeld owned a 12th century chateauChâteau
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
in France, not far from Geneva, villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
in France, a house
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
in [West Halkin Street]Belgravia
Belgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and a mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
Grayhall, Carolyn Way, Beverly Hills, as well as a permanent suite
Suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
in a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
and his own fleet of private planes
Business jet
Business jet, private jet or, colloquially, bizjet is a term describing a jet aircraft, usually of smaller size, designed for transporting groups of up to 19 business people or wealthy individuals...
. He is quoted as saying, "I had mansions all over the world, I threw extravagant parties. And I lived with ten or twelve girls at a time." He had romances with Victoria Principal
Victoria Principal
Victoria Principal is an American actress, best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the CBS nighttime drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987.-Early life:...
; Heidi Fleiss
Heidi Fleiss
Heidi Lynne Fleiss is an American former madam, and also a columnist and television personality regularly featured in the 1990s in American media. She is often referred to as the "Hollywood Madam"....
; Alana Hamilton
Alana Stewart
Alana Hamilton Stewart is an American actress and former model. She has also used her maiden name, Alana Collins, and her names from her first marriage, Alana Collins-Hamilton and Alana Hamilton, professionally....
(née Collins - a model and former spouse of George Hamilton
George Hamilton (actor)
George Stevens Hamilton is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Hamilton was the youngest son of bandleader George "Spike" Hamilton and his first wife, Ann Stevens . He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and lived in Blytheville, Arkansas...
who subsequently married Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
); and Princess Ira of Fürstenberg
Ira von Fürstenberg
Princess Virginia of Fürstenberg is a European socialite, actress, jewelry designer, and a former public relations manager for the fashion designer Valentino Garavani.-Background:...
.
Cornfeld settled in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
and moved in a circle of movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
industry people. He lived in the Grayhall mansion, built in 1909 and at one time leased by Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
. Known for his playboy lifestyle, Cornfeld numbered among his acquaintances Victor Lownes
Victor Lownes
Victor Aubrey Lownes III An executive with Playboy Enterprises in various capacities, various vice-presidencies, always a close confidant of Hugh Hefner. Headed Playboy Europe and the UK Playboy Clubs from the mid-sixties until his dismissal in the early eighties...
, Richard Harris
Richard Harris
Richard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....
, Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
, and Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
, at whose Playboy Mansion
Playboy Mansion
The Playboy Mansion is the home of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Located in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles, California, the mansion became famous during the 1970s through media reports of Hefner's lavish parties.-History:The house is described as being in the "Gothic-Tudor" style...
he visited and attended parties.
Cornfeld's decline
A group of 300 IOS employees complained to the Swiss authorities that Cornfeld and his co-founders pocketed part of the proceeds of a share issue raised among employees in 1969. Consequently he was charged with fraud in 1973 by the Swiss authorities. When Cornfeld visited Geneva, Swiss authorities arrested him. He served 11 months in a Swiss jail before being freed on a bail surety of US$600,000. Cornfeld always maintained his innocence, blaming the fraud on other IOS executives. His trial did not take place until 1979 and lasted three weeks, with Judge Pierre FournierPierre Fournier
Pierre Fournier was a French cellist who was called the "aristocrat of cellists," on account of his elegant musicianship and majestic sound....
finally acquitting Cornfeld.
Realising that his "good time" friends had left him during his 11 months in jail, Cornfeld began to seriously start thinking about his life and decided for the first time that he wanted a wife and children. In 1976 he married a model, Loraine, at his Beverly Hills mansion Grayhall. However, he had difficulty settling down. Polygamy
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
was "considerably simpler than monogamy and a lot more fun," he insisted. He was still worth an estimated US$1.85 million.
Final years
He returned to Beverly Hills, living less ostentatiously than in his previous years. He developed an obsession for health foodHealth food
The term health food is generally used to describe foods that are considered to be beneficial to health, beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition. However, the term is not precisely defined by national regulatory agencies such as the U.S...
s and vitamins, renounced red meat
Red meat
Red meat in traditional culinary terminology is meat which is red when raw and not white when cooked. In the nutritional sciences, red meat includes all mammal meat. Red meat includes the meat of most adult mammals and some fowl ....
and seldom drank alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
. In his last years he was a chairman of a land development firm in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
and also owned a real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
company in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. His marriage ended in divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
, and he is survived by a daughter. His daughter, Jessica Cornfeld, wrote an article about her father in the The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
on June 29, 2003, entitled My father, the playboy who could never get enough lovers, where she suggests that he maintained a close friendship with Heidi Fleiss
Heidi Fleiss
Heidi Lynne Fleiss is an American former madam, and also a columnist and television personality regularly featured in the 1990s in American media. She is often referred to as the "Hollywood Madam"....
until his death in 1995.
Bernard Cornfeld suffered a stroke and died of a cerebral aneurysm
Cerebral aneurysm
A cerebral or brain aneurysm is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel.- Signs and symptoms :...
on February 27, 1995 in London, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Sources
- The Bernie Cornfeld Story by Bert Cantor, (Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1970). ISBN 0-8184-0013-7
- With title quoting Cornfeld's celebrated pitch – Do You Sincerely Want To Be Rich? by Charles Raw with Godfrey Hodgson and Bruce Page (Originally published André Deutsch, 1971, ISBN 0-233-96328-6; reprinted by the "Library of Larceny", 2005, ISBN 0-7679-2006-6 )