Ivan Boesky, infamous Wall Street insider trader, dies at 87

The big picture: Boesky was the kind of criminal who craved the limelight.

• The day before he surrendered to federal authorities, he descended via helicopter to a friend's son's cruise-ship bar mitzvah, wearing a tuxedo and "looking like a latter-day James Bond," per the NYT's obit.
• He embossed the carpets in his Westchester County, NY mansion with his initials, IFB; was driven around town in a pink Rolls-Royce; and had a habit of ordering every dish on the menu at fancy restaurants, leaving most of the plates untouched. (He consumed much more coffee than food.)

The backstory: Boesky grew up in working-class Detroit, and dropped out of Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Michigan, and Eastern Michigan University before turning the last of his father's chain of bars into Le Club a-Go-Go. Two years later, it went bankrupt.

• Boesky first became rich by marrying real estate heiress Seema Silberstein, whose parents bought him a Park Avenue apartment and seeded his investment fund with $700,000.

• Boesky took 40% of all the fund's gains, but only 10% of any losses.

The bottom line: Boesky's insider trading landed him a three-year prison sentence; he ended up serving eighteen months.

• Upon his release, his wife filed for divorce; in the settlement, he received $20 million from her, plus a $2.5 million home in California and an annual income of $180,000.