Elizabeth Zuckerman and Daniel Weisman: Leaving Neverland
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Version 0 of 1. Elizabeth Zuckerman and Daniel Weisman were in full rescue mode when they met for a first date in 2014, at a Halloween fund-raising event for an animal shelter in Beverly Hills, Calif. “It wasn’t the ideal location to get to know one another,” Ms. Zuckerman said. “The place was packed and there were rescue dogs everywhere, many of them barking, some of them with missing legs, who were being rolled round in wheelchairs. It was a real madhouse.” Both Ms. Zuckerman and Mr. Weisman had adopted a dog from animal shelters in Los Angeles, a city that was, for them, fast becoming its own madhouse. “Men and women in the entertainment business in Los Angeles go through a kind of Peter Pan syndrome, where it becomes really hard to grow up because you can’t afford to,” said Mr. Weisman, 34, who was born and raised in the city and is a manager representing artists at Roc Nation, the music company Jay Z founded in 2008. “So you end up living in a kind of limbo, just kind of frozen there between 20-something and 40-something,” he said. “I wasn’t going to keep living that kind of life.” Neither was Ms. Zuckerman, now 27, who had moved to Santa Monica and begun working in Los Angeles two years earlier, after graduating from the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. “Los Angeles is a hypnotic place where you can get caught up in the same routine, day after day, for the rest of your life,” she said. “I felt like I was going nowhere fast.” That is when she collided with Mr. Weisman, who said he was “awe-struck by her beauty and genuine nature,” on Tinder. “All the women I had been meeting in Los Angeles came with a lot of flash but no substance, and after a while, they all started to look and sound like the same person to me,” he said. “But Lizzie was different. She wasn’t one of those L.A. women who were super wrapped up in themselves. She was just a normal girl who was unaffected by that way of life and had her priorities in order. I had never met anyone like her.” Two weeks later, he invited her to the fund-raising event, which was held at Two Rodeo, a shopping mall on Rodeo Drive. Though the Amanda Foundation event was intended to aid animals, it did little to assist Mr. Weisman’s chances with Ms. Zuckerman. “It was a terrible idea on my part, too loud and chaotic and way too crowded,” he said. “There were dogs and their owners roaming all over the place, many of them wearing costumes, and some guy in a red Lamborghini who kept circling the block trying to pick up Lizzie. It was insane.” Through all the chaos and insanity, they managed to find each other. “I saw Dan in the distance; he was super-tall and handsome and wearing a letterman jacket,” Ms. Zuckerman said. “The whole thing was really very awkward, but we approached each other and shared a hug. I had butterflies in my stomach like you wouldn’t believe.” Once inside, they were swept up in the commotion, and unable to speak to each other. “I led the way through the event with Dan at my heels and could not get a good look at him,” Ms. Zuckerman said. “All I could tell was that he was very tall, with a Mr. Incredible physique.” Eventually, Mr. Weisman caught up with Ms. Zuckerman and extended another invitation to her, this one on short notice. “If it’s not too weird,” he asked her, “would you like to get out of here and grab a bite?” Ms. Zuckerman accepted, and in the quiet of a nearby restaurant, the two were finally able to talk. “He was smart, handsome and very broad, about 6-3 or 6-4, the epitome of a manly man,” Ms. Zuckerman said. “He wore glasses at the time and had very prominent dimples. He looked like a big teddy bear who sounded as if he wanted to save the world.” “With other guys I dated, getting them to say anything was like pulling teeth,” she added. “But with Dan, the conversation came easy, and he kept making me laugh.” She laughed hardest when he told her that he was the inventor of sanitary wipes for men, but it turned out to be true, as did every other entrepreneurial endeavor Mr. Weisman laid claim to, including the fact that he once owned his own line of men’s shoes. “I was amazed, and very impressed,” Ms. Zuckerman said. Mr. Weisman was feeling much the same way. “She was stunningly beautiful and very insightful,” he said, “and I could tell by the kind of shape she was in that she took really good care of herself.” He was hooked the moment he saw her online, said Margaux Weisman, his sister. “In Lizzie’s Tinder photo she was wearing a belt,” Ms. Weisman said. “In L.A., where everyone is trying really hard to look like they are not trying, she just seemed so put together and refined. It said something about how she wanted to present herself to the world.” As the two shared grilled salmon and an Eton mess — an English dessert of strawberries, meringue and whipped cream — Ms. Zuckerman learned that Mr. Weisman had graduated from Emory in Atlanta, and that he was the only son of parents who had worked in Hollywood: Constance McCashin Weisman, an actress, and Sam Weisman, a film and television director and producer. His parents had lived in Los Angeles from 1977 to 1997, before moving to West Newton, Mass. He told her that his mother had starred on the CBS prime time soap opera “Knots Landing” for almost a decade, and that his father, who had won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy, directed numerous episodes of “Family Ties,” as well as the feature films “D2: The Mighty Ducks” and “George of the Jungle.” He learned that she was born in Portland, Me., and raised in nearby South Freeport, and that her mother, Jennifer Cassidy, and stepfather, Dr. Bruce Cassidy, an eye surgeon, lived in Cumberland Foreside, Me. Their first conversation was sailing along when Mr. Weisman almost made another terrible mistake. “I think this is going well,” he said abruptly. “What do you think? Do you want to meet up again?” Ms. Zuckerman didn’t know what to think. “I was kind of paralyzed for a moment,” she said, and laughed. “No one had ever asked me for a middate evaluation.” Mr. Weisman quickly recovered. “It was more of a recommendation than an evaluation,” he joked. They were soon dating “long distance,” as Mr. Weisman put it, referring to the one-hour bumper-to-bumper haul between their homes, hers west of Interstate 405 and his to the east. In November 2014, they took their first weekend road trip together, to Palm Springs. The next month, they rode dune buggies together on Pismo Beach, where Mr. Weisman first told Ms. Zuckerman that he loved her. “By that point, I loved him too, but I didn’t want to be the first to say it,” Ms. Zuckerman said, “though it almost slipped a million times.” As their love grew, so too did their disdain for their long-distance commute. “I lived beneath the Hollywood sign, and she lived clear across town,” Mr. Weisman said. “Sitting in all of that traffic just wasn’t fun anymore. We may as well have been living in different states, so we took what seemed like the next logical step.” That step was taken by Ms. Zuckerman in February 2015, just four months after she met Mr. Weisman, when she moved into his apartment. “It made things a lot easier,” Mr. Weisman said. “We never fought or got sick of each other, and no matter what I suggested, whether it was trying a new restaurant or going to a museum or concert, or even driving cross country, Lizzie was always up for a new adventure.” In the coming months, they would travel to Hawaii, Panama, Cuba, Mexico, Japan, France, Germany and Colombia, among other places. Their greatest adventure, however, began to coalesce in October 2015, when they became engaged. As it turned out, marriage was not the only thing Mr. Weisman proposed: He asked Ms. Zuckerman, who had also grown tired of the Los Angeles scene, if she would consider moving with him to Nashville, where Roc Nation was opening up an office. “At first I thought, I’m definitely not moving there,” Ms. Zuckerman said. “But then I thought about it, and realized that if we stayed in Los Angeles, we would have never taken the next step, because it’s impossible to feel financially secure there, especially for two people who just got engaged and wanted to buy a home and start a family. “But Nashville was that kind of family-friendly place where we could put roots in the ground and have a real life together. It has seasons and real people who you can communicate with every day, which sort of snaps you back into reality.” In April 2016, they put Los Angeles in the rearview mirror and drove onward to a new life in Tennessee, where Ms. Zuckerman soon opened a project management consultancy that bears her name. “Nashville is a cute little town pretending to be a big city,” Mr. Weisman said, “but it’s certainly a big enough place for us to get a fresh start.” They were married on Jan. 14 at the Riverhorse on Main, a restaurant in Park City, Utah, with a rustic-meets-elegant vibe and dark wood floors, exposed brick walls, stone and metal accents and a front-of-the-house atrium that overlooks the town’s busy Main Street, where the couple went to take pre-wedding photos. Later that day they stood before a friend, Rob Heppler, who had became a minister of the American Marriage Ministries to oversee the nondenominational ceremony. Mr. Weisman began to recite his vows but could get through only a few words before tears began streaming down his cheeks. “I’m not nervous,” he said, wiping his brow and his watery eyes. “I just love her so much.” He tried once more, and this time he managed just five words, “Lizzie, before I met you …” before bursting into tears again. “You know, there was a bet about how quickly I would cry,” Mr. Weisman said, to the great amusement of the 100 or so guests seated in the dimly lit upstairs restaurant, some dressed in rhinestones, cowboy boots, jeans and leather, others in fur and fringe. The groom eventually pulled it together and addressed his bride directly. “I used to be scared,” he said. “Scared of failing. Scared of starting a family. Scared of not making enough money. Scared of everything. I’m not scared anymore, Lizzie. The only thing I fear is not spending every day for the rest of our lives together.” Then it was her turn. “The face that greeted me that night on a curb in Beverly Hills has since become my best friend, mentor, playmate, confidant and my greatest challenge,” the new Mrs. Weisman said. Several guests cheered, others cried, all of them knowing that somewhere between the madhouse that was Los Angeles and the tranquillity that is Nashville, the bride and groom had come to each other’s rescue. |