Hattie Wiener, an ebullient and bawdy former dancer and therapist who found a measure of celebrity in her 70s for sleeping with younger men and promoting what she said were the anti-aging benefits of her lifestyle, died on June 21 at her home in Manhattan. She was 88.
She had been diagnosed with diastolic heart failure, and chose to end her life by refusing food and liquids, said her daughter, Rama Dunayevich.
Tabloids called her the Tinder Granny and the Oldest Cougar in the World, titles she was proud to claim. Ms. Wiener (pronounced WEE-ner) had long been an evangelist for older women having sex with younger men — a practice she began when she divorced in 1984, when she was 48 — and for the health benefits she felt accrued to those who followed her bedtime regimen, activities she promoted in a self-published book, “Sex and the Single Senior” (1990).
But it wasn’t until she was featured in “Strange Sex,” a 2010 documentary series on TLC, that she began to enjoy a sort of B-list fame, appearing as a reliably naughty guest on television shows like “Access Hollywood” and “Dr. Phil.”
“I realized that by sleeping with young men,” she said in “Strange Sex,” “I’m starting my life over again, because my husband was a young man and we had wonderful sex and now I’m repeating the pattern, but not with my husband or anyone his age.”
In that series, TLC filmed her date with an affable electrician and single father of three named Ron who was 40 years her junior. Ms. Wiener dressed with typical flair, in a studded dog collar, a black minidress and a gold bolero jacket; Ron looked like he was dressed for a barbecue. But he was a kindly date, and noted that he was fond of older women because of their confidence and because, as he put it, “They’re not looking for the happy ever after.”
Ms. Wiener appeared two years later, dressed with similar aplomb and radiating good humor, on “Extreme Cougar Wives,” another TLC series.
“People are always imagining that a cougar, that they’re clawing, they’re beasts of prey going after a boy toy or a cub,” she told “In the Know,” a Yahoo program, in 2020, “and I have turned that around. At no time have I ever gone after a young man. I wait for a man to come on to me, and that happens quite often.”
Ms. Wiener was a dramatic and engaging presence, with her lush New York accent, her bedazzled style and her shock of white hair. She was cast, memorably, in a Dolce & Gabbana ad shot by Steven Klein for the fashion brand’s resort collection in 2009, wearing a gold one-shoulder, one-piece bathing suit, her hand entwined with that of a well-oiled muscle man (the supermodel Claudia Schiffer is featured, too). And she appeared in a few music videos, including a truly raunchy one by A2M.
Her distinctive look made her a favorite of Manhattan street photographers like Daniel Featherstone, who is partial to shooting older New Yorkers, and of Harry Mavromichalis, a documentary filmmaker and a founder of Glorious Broads, which celebrates women like Ms. Wiener. Mr. Featherstone captured Ms. Wiener on West 56th Street sporting a sheepskin vest and rose-colored glasses for a portfolio of stylish characters whom New York magazine lauded in 2019 as part of its annual series “Reasons to Love New York.”
“The opposite of old is not young,” Ms. Wiener told the writer Jenny Zhang for a short profile that accompanied the photograph. “The opposite of old is new.”
Hattie Messner was born on May 25, 1936, in Manhattan, and grew up in Brooklyn. Her mother, Sarah (Kagan) Messner, embellished the hats made by her father, Nathan Messner, a milliner and store owner who would go on to be president of the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers union, before being forced to resign for refusing to sign a loyalty oath during the Cold War. (Ms. Wiener often said she was named in honor of her father’s profession.) She graduated from the High School of Performing Arts, and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brooklyn College in 1958.
She met Jack Wiener at a summer program for dance in Connecticut. They married in 1959, and in the early 1960s opened the School for Creative Movement in the Arts, a school for dance, drama and the arts on the Upper West Side. For a time after they divorced, Ms. Wiener took the surname RetroAge as a way of promoting her new business as an anti-aging coach, though she never changed her name legally. She also worked as a masseuse, a therapist and, in recent years, a sex coach.
Ms. Wiener was the author, with Sallie Batson, of “RetroAge: 4 Steps to a Younger YOU!” (2009). She also designed an anti-aging chair in 1992, with a back that supported correct posture. It never went into production.
“She wanted to be this spokesperson for older women,” her son, Joshua Wiener, said, “the next Oprah with the theme that aging women can be beautiful and sexy. It was a massive goal that in many ways didn’t align with her desire to have a life mate. She fluctuated between wanting fame and to be on a big stage and wanting a life partner. Dating young dudes was perhaps not the best choice for long-term happiness.”
“I was a committed virgin till 22,” she often said, “and a committed slut from 55 on.”
In addition to her daughter and son, Ms. Wiener is survived by her sister, Michele Kaufman, and three grandchildren.
In the last year or so, Ms. Wiener earned a modest living by posting erotic photos and videos on OnlyFans, the X-rated online subscriber platform. In the OnlyFans universe, her content was apparently fairly tame. Topless only, her daughter said.
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