The Tony I Knew

LAURIE WOOLEVER WORKED ALONGSIDE THE LATE CHEF AND TV HOST FOR NINE YEARS AND BECAME A TRUSTED FRIEND. NOW SHE REVEALS THEIR STORY FOR THE FIRST TIME

- ANA CALDERONE

'A Great Boss'

"I don't know that I ever would've left," Woolever says of her job as Bourdain's assistant, which ended with his death in 2018.

Five minutes before her

Zoom interview with People is scheduled to start, Laurie Woolever is logged on and ready to talk. Her boss, the late Anthony Bourdain, was notoriously punctual, and now “if I’m not five minutes early, I’m late,” she says with a shrug. Woolever, 50, was Bourdain’s assistant from 2009 until his death by suicide in 2018. She managed the life of the most traveled man on TV, cowrote his books and acted as his publicist. She was his Luca Brasi from The Godfather, he’d joke. “Assistant maybe doesn’t feel like the most accurate title, ” she says of her relationship with the chef turned writer and host. “Chief of staff?

Keeping His Legacy Alive