June 22 (Reuters) – Seven facts about former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who died on Monday at age 100:
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* Greenspan grew up a Benny Goodman fan and before taking up economics he studied clarinet for two years at New York’s Juilliard School and played saxophone with a touring jazz band.
* Greenspan and NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell dated for 12 years before marrying in 1997.
* Greenspan was notorious for speaking cryptically and once said, “I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I said.”
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* His first wife introduced Greenspan to Ayn Rand, the “Atlas Shrugged” novelist known for her philosophy of individualism, and they became close friends.
* The bathtub served as Greenspan’s auxiliary office. He said it was during his daily morning baths, which sometimes lasted two hours, that he had his best ideas, using the tub time to read reports and write speeches. “Immersed in my bath, I’m as happy as Archimedes as I contemplate the world,” he wrote in his memoir.
* After he retired from the Federal Reserve, Penguin Press paid $8.5 million for his memoir, which at the time was the second-largest advance paid for a non-fiction book.
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* In his last year at the Fed, Greenspan had a salary of about $180,000.
(Compiled by Bill TrottEditing by Diane Craft)
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.
