JONATHAN E. ZUCKER

Born: March 15, 1941
Died: December 27, 2011

Jonathan E. Zucker was born in New York City, son of Seymour and Cynthia Zucker. His father and grandfather were both doctors. He graduated from Riverdale Country School in New York.

John was a member of Branford College. He left Yale in 1961 and graduated from Columbia. In 1966 he received his medical degree from Columbia.

John settled in the Washington, D.C. area. He first worked in the U.S. Public Health Service, had a fellowship in pediatric allergy and immunology and then opened his private practice in allergy medicine. He lived in Georgetown and conducted his practice in suburban Maryland where he maintained three offices until his retirement in 2008.

John was well known in the Washington metropolitan area for his daily pollen counts which he provided local media. According to the Washington Post, "His daily pollen counts, a traffic update of sorts for allergy sufferers, were used by radio and television stations and by Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone for its recorded weather updates. Dr. Zucker determined the concentration of allergens by collecting pollen on a microscope slide, which he placed on the roof of one of his offices."

John is survived by wife Kitty Kelley, the biographer of celebrities such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, and Oprah Winfrey. He was a past president of the D.C. Chapter of the International Wine and Food Society. He and Kitty met at a dinner party and married in 1992.

John died of a heart attack at his winter home in La Quinta, California. In addition to his wife, his survivors are his two children from his first marriage, Jeremy Zucker and Amanda Bowker, both of Washington, a sister and four grandchildren. His first marriage to Nancy Baum ended in divorce.