Linda Stein murder trial: When Celeb worship goes bad…

New York Daily News
Linda Stein murder trial: Celeb worshipper Natavia Lowery’s lifeline to stars snubbed
Joanna Molloy

Linda Stein’s accused killer wanted to meet famous people. Natavia Lowery wanted to meet Denzel Washington so badly she took $4,000 out of the rock ‘n’ roll Realtor’s account to do so.

“If you donated to the Boys & Girls Club,” prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon explained, “you’d get two tickets to the premiere of ‘American Gangster.'” Lowery did, and she went.

The irony was that Stein could have introduced her to virtually everyone in show biz.

“She was America’s conduit to the stars,” said Sylvester Stallone, one of her best friends.

Another pal was Elton John. “I remember one New Year’s, when she had people at her apartment watching the fireworks,” said Susan Blond, who reps Akon and Matt Morris. “She had broken her leg, and Elton John was pushing her around in a wheelchair.”

Lowery wanted famous? How about a singer you may have heard of – Madonna? Stein’s record executive hubby, Seymour Stein, discovered her in a downtown club. He was printing money, but Linda was touring Europe as manager of The Ramones, and they had a bitter split.

“We were married, we were divorced, there were maybe three or four rocky years, and then we became friends again,” Seymour Stein said yesterday. “We had a better friendship than the marriage. I loved her.”

Divorced, Stein needed money, and maybe no longer wanted to be the oldest woman in the clubs. She studied for a real estate broker’s license, and rocked and rolled at that, too. She sold Billy Joel‘s apartment to Sting, and Debra Winger’s pad to Harrison Ford.

Friends and family who’ve come to Judge Richard Carruthers’ Manhattan courtroom this week have been saddened all over again.

“Linda was a real New York character,” said Vogue writer Billy Norwich, so out of place in the courthouse he thought a prisoner wearing a waist chain “had on Verdura.”

“Bette Midler used to study her accent and her moves,” Norwich said. “Linda was the first one to blur the separation between uptown and downtown.”

Liz Rosenberg, a Warner Bros. music veep, hopes her friend gets justice: “I don’t want her to have been taken from the Earth and for someone not to pay the consequences.”

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