Judith Giuliani

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judith Ann Stish Giuliani (born 1954 or 1955^[1][2][3]) is the wife of former New York City Mayor and 2008 U.S. presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

Born Judith Ann Stish^[4], she is a native of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Her family is Roman Catholic; the Stish family name was originally Sticia and of Northern Italian heritage. ^[5] Her father, Donald Stish, is a retired circulation manager for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and her mother, Joan, is a homemaker. ^[6] She has one older sibling. Her parents still live in Hazleton and have been married over 50 years.^[4][6]

Judi Stish grew up in a small town, coal mining-oriented culture. She graduated from Hazleton High School in 1972, participating in academic clubs and athletics while there.^[4] Interested in both the human and scientific aspects of the field,^[7] she attended St. Luke's School of Nursing in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and graduated with a nursing degree on September 1, 1974.^[8][9]

After graduation Stish worked for less than a year as a registered nurse^[2][7] at Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania.^[3] Then in 1975^[3] she took a job with U.S. Surgical Corporation in Charlotte, North Carolina;^[5] selling medical supplies and showing doctors in operating rooms a new surgical stapling method.^[3] At U.S. Surgical she met Jeffrey Ross, also a medical supply salesman.^[8] The two went to Las Vegas in order to marry at the Chapel of the Bells on December 8, 1974.^[10][2] The couple returned home and sold supplies together travelling in the North Carolina region.^[11] She and Ross separated amicably^[12] after four years, and their marriage ended in divorce^[13] which was finalized on November 14, 1979.^[8] The couple had no children.^[11]

Five days later,^[8] she married wealthy businessman and wallpaper salesman Bruce Nathan on November 19, 1979;^[2] Judith Nathan stopped working at that time and they moved to Atlanta, Georgia.^[5][6] The couple adopted a daughter, Whitney, around 1985.^[14][5] The family moved to Manhattan in 1987 and Los Angeles in 1991.^[5] During all these years, Judith Nathan led a "Junior League"-type life of socializing and volunteering.^[6][5]

The Nathans' marriage fell apart during the early 1990s and led to a bitter divorce case and custody battle that gained press attention at the time.^[6] The Nathans' divorce was finalized in 1992.^[15] Judith Nathan moved back to New York, enrolling her daughter (of whom she won primary custody^[5])at the Spence School in Manhattan and often living with friends.^[6] Now a single mother, after going to school at night and on weekends (sometimes taking her daughter with her)^[7] she received a New York nursing license^[5] and began working in 1994 as a pharmaceutical sales representative with Bristol-Myers Squibb,^[8] selling surgical supplies in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn;^[6] her specialty was infectious diseases.^[16] She eventually became one of Bristol-Myers' top sales managers. ^{[17] [6]}

Judith Nathan met Mayor Giuliani in Spring 1999^[14] by accident in circumstances she prefers to keep private.^[7][18] Giuliani was still married at the time to his second wife, Donna Hanover, although that marriage had become publicly distant since 1996.^[19] By early 2000 Giuliani and Nathan's relationship had become visible and was the subject of considerable media attention and scrutiny upon Nathan, especially in the New York press. Giuliani and Hanover separated in May 2000. Later in 2000, nurse Nathan was credited with greatly helping Giuliani in his difficult treatment for prostate cancer.^[17] In March 2001, desiring less travel and reduced public visibility, Nathan left Bristol-Myers and became a fund raiser and later Managing Director of Changing Our World^[6] a national fundraising and philanthropic services company headquartered in New York.

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Nathan coordinated the efforts of the Family Assistance Center at Pier 94. She became a Founding Member of the Board of Trustees of the Twin Towers Fund which raised and distributed $216 million to over 600 families and individuals.^[7] Contributions to the Fund also created the TTF Scholarship Fund and America’s Camp for victim’s children.

She married Rudy Giuliani on May 28, 2003. The wedding was held at Gracie Mansion and was one of only two performed, to date, by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The couple share a summer home on The Hamptons and like to play golf together.^[16] Since their marriage, Judith Giuliani has worked to raise funds for St. Vincent's Hospital and Cabrini High School for Girls in New York and for Hurricane Katrina relief in New Orleans.^[16]

As Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign began in earnest in 2007, Judith Giuliani came in for a new round of intense media attention. Her first marriage to Jeffrey Ross was revealed in the press for the first time,^[8] she appeared in a Barbara Walters interview on 20/20,^[7] and she was accused by animal rights group Friends of Animals as having participated in cruel and unnecessary demonstrations on dogs of U.S. Surgical's stapling technique when she worked there in the late 1970s.^[20]

[edit] Footnotes