Megan Marshack

Megan Marshack
Born	Megan Ruth Marshack (1953-10-31)October 31, 1953 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	October 2, 2024(2024-10-02) (aged 70) Sacramento, California, U.S.
Alma mater	California State University, Northridge
Occupations	Journalist political aide
Spouse	Edmond Jacoby Jr. ​ ​ (m. 2003; died 2023)​

Megan Ruth Marshack (October 31, 1953 – October 2, 2024) was an American journalist and producer who served as an aide to Nelson Rockefeller from 1975 until his death on January 26, 1979. She was with Rockefeller when he died, and it was later widely alleged that she was his mistress.

Background

Born in Los Angeles on October 31, 1953, she was adopted by Sidney and Crewdyn (née Patricia) Marshack of Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. She graduated from California State University, Northridge, in 1975.

Career

In 1975, Marshack worked briefly as a reporter for the Associated Press. She shortly thereafter joined Rockefeller's staff.

Nelson Rockefeller

She worked on Rockefeller's vice-presidential staff, in Washington, D.C., for two years, and remained with his team after he left office in 1977 and returned to New York. There was speculation in the press regarding the nature of the relationship between Rockefeller and Marshack. For example, long-time Rockefeller aide Joseph E. Persico claimed in the PBS documentary about the Rockefeller family, "It became known that he had been alone with a young woman who worked for him, in undeniably intimate circumstances, and in the course of that evening had died from a heart attack." Rockefeller was initially announced to have died in his office, before it was later adjusted to the death having occurred at a townhouse he owned; it has also been reported that he may have been at Marshack's apartment.

News organizations widely reported that Marshack was a named beneficiary in his will, which specified that loans to Marshack totalling $45,000 were to be forgiven. The bulk of his estate was left to his wife with other large gifts going to museums.

Later career

Marshack remained largely out of the public eye afterward, and never commented on Nelson Rockefeller; the Rockefellers were reported to have had her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. For about a year after Rockefeller died, she dated 68-year-old cartoonist Charles Addams, who lived in the same apartment building as she did. In the 1980s, she began working for CBS.

In 1992, it was reported that Marshack was still living in New York, working as a news writer for WCBS-TV, but The Washington Post noted she declined to comment, saying "I don't do interviews." She remained with WCBS until around 1998, when she moved to Placerville, California, and joined the staff of the Placerville Mountain Democrat newspaper. In 2003, she married fellow journalist Edmond Jacoby Jr.

Later life and death

Marshack moved to Sacramento, California, in 2022, so she could live closer to her brother. The following year, Jacoby died from complications of injuries sustained in a car accident.

Marshack died from liver failure and kidney failure at a care facility in Sacramento on October 2, 2024, at the age of 70. She authored her own obituary, which appeared on the website of a local funeral home. The New York Times noted that in the piece, she continued to maintain her silence overall about Nelson Rockefeller, but suggested she made an oblique reference in the final line, in which she quoted the song "What I Did for Love".