| Ellin
Saltzman; Betty Sherrill; Sydney Roberts Shuman; Peggy Siegal;
Nancy Silverman. |
Ellin
Saltzman. Fashion editor, longtime fashion
arbiter, mother of another fashion editor Elizabeth Saltzman,
widow of interior designer Renny Saltzman, (with whom she
shared a famous Richard Meier-designed house in East Hampton),
she now is working with the internet fashion site Bluefly.
Ellin has been a sea of calm in a professional world filled
with temperament and volatility, possessor of long and enduring
friendships. And chic.
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Betty
Sherrill and Armene Milliken
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Betty
Sherrill. One of the most influential interior
decorators of the past half century, Mrs. Sherrill started
out working for Mrs. Brown at McMillen and eventually ended
up (after Mrs. Brown’s retirement) owning the majority
stock in the firm that has decorated the houses, apartments,
yachts, offices and private airplanes of some of the most
famous names and fortunes in America and the world. A girl
from Louisiana who came to New York when she married investment
banker Virgil Sherrill, she reflects on her career with a
modesty that is believable even if not true. Her signature
is classic and lastingness. Her own very stylish duplex apartment
has not been re-done in more than forty years. As head of
the board of her building (One Sutton Place South), one of
the most prestigious residential apartment buildings in New
York, Mrs. Sherrill is regarded as a very important political
power. Despite her fulltime career, she has always managed
a fulltime social life which greatly included volunteer and
philanthropic activity both in New York and in Southampton
where the Sherrills have lived in a Stanford White-designed
weathered shingled cottage for more than forty years. Mother
and grandmother, she oversees her business interests with
what appears to be an iron hand (in a velvet glove) but at
the
end of the day, it’s her garden in Southampton where she finds the pleasure
and the outlet for her passion for living and for her family.
Sydney
Roberts Shuman. The friendly and attractive blonde Philadelphian
Mainline debutante first married to a Gould, with whom she has children, and
now (for a long time) to investor Stan Shuman, she is very active in New York
philanthropy. The Shumans live in Manhattan and East Hampton.
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Peggy
Siegal. Peggy Siegal is possibly New York’s
most famous and controversial publicist. Or
at least, to be more specific, “woman publicist.” She’s as
energetic as a teenager which might be what she was when she started out in
her business umpty-ump years ago feeding items to the columnists and Women’s
Wear Daily about any celebrity she could get her eyes on or even think
of. This enthusiasm which she obviously came straight from the cradle with,
which some would/could rightly call alpha-personality aggressive behavior,
eventually got her enough notice so that within a certain circle of movers
and shakers in New York during the past twenty years, Peggy Siegal is a name
that registers, and often with an exclamation mark in the highest circles and
along the corridors of power.
It’s impossible not to write about her without mentioning her noticeable
effect on people, which in the past has often resulted in feuds and forays
into the tumult and the shouting. Because Peggy does not go quietly into any
good night. At least not until the party’s over and the press and her
clients have been taken care of. She has long had a reputation for being a
screamer, a yeller, a tummler (sp) and the wicked witch of the ballyhoo department
on the Hollywood axis. But more about that later.
When you meet her, or even see her, you
get a very attractive woman, long and slender, perfectly coiffed,
very fashionable with a style that reflects a position of prominence.
You might meet her at the fanciest parties or charity galas,
at the designer collections, in Palm Beach, Aspen, around the
pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel, (or the Peninsula), or any place
else on the planet where celebrity-dom is holding forth. If she’s
not working it, she’s been invited. And then she’s
working it. If she hasn’t been invited, it’s been
known that she will get herself invited. And then she’s
working it. Why? Because she loves it. Like a perpetual teen-ager,
she loves her work and the excitement and the personalities that
move in, out and around her orbit.
For several years now, she’s been the top film publicist on the East
Coast. A Peggy Siegal screening is an important social event in New York, and
can even be major. First of all, her “list” — those she invites — is
a thorough cross-section of the heavy-hitters who make up the New York scene,
be it society, show business, publishing, fashion, Wall Street or the (current)
billionaires boys’ club.
The Peggy Siegal Scene: A new picture, pre-release, in one of
several private screening rooms in Manhattan, filled to capacity
with “names,” “somebodys” (all
buddies, or could or would be, for at least the moment), followed by, after
the picture, a sit-down dinner for fifty or sixty (often with placement at
Le Cirque, or the Four Seasons, or the Plaza Athenee or any number of the chicest,
or latest, spots in town). They’re all there, at one point or another,
and they’re all talking about the picture they’ve just seen. And
very often the stars of the picture are there. And their spouses, and partners,
girlfriends, lovers, former co-stars, directors, producers and agents. And
the photographers; don’t ever forget the photographers. It’s real
Hollywood by the Hudson. But real Hudson too. And it’s Peggy’s
oh-so-personal production.
Sometimes she takes her show on the road and stages her screening
soirees in the Hamptons where the dinner parties are not only
star-kissed but sun-kissed.
And the List, the Peggy Siegal List (PSL) is coded, reflecting each guest’s
particular background and importance to her scheme of things. And the PSL changes
too, ever so subtly (except to those who suddenly realize they’re not
on it anymore), because Peggy is in the business of The Now In New York.
She has a high regard for the grand old names as well as the bigshots and the
hotties. You probably won’t see the latest teeny-boppers at her parties
(unless it’s their picture she’s screening) because she’s
got just a little bit older and after awhile, let’s face it, who needs
to go there?
Once upon a time it was good for a reporter or
columnist’s career to engage Peggy in a little back-and-forth
(usually provoked by the scribe) because she gives good newsprint
and says exactly what’s on her mind. One summer morning
in Southampton a few years ago, I ran into her at the local cheese
shop at 6 AM where we were both getting coffee. It was the morning
after Lizzie Grubman hit the accelerator in
reverse at a nightclub down the road. Peggy, at the time, was
a business partner of Lizzie. I asked her what happened. Amazingly,
she didn’t know; she’d just got back from Europe
a few hours before and couldn’t get Lizzie on the phone.
I wrote that little piece of non-news, real non-news, in the
Social Diary the next day and it got picked up by media all over
the country. Because it was Peggy Siegal saying she “didn’t
know.” No one believed her! Although I did. And it was
true; she didn’t know.
I’ve known her for a number of years now and
I’ve heard all the horror stories (the yelling, the shouting,
the snit-fits) but fortunately (thank God) I’ve never seen
them front-row-center. What I get is this very smart, savvy woman,
anxious to be helpful, always curious, with that clever brain
always working, who can hold her own with any of the Big Boys
(talk about the screamers and the shouters!). So it is impossible
for me not to write about Peggy with admiration and affection.
Her imprimatur is class. She’s a very hard-working woman,
never, ever shirking from the top of her game (except for those
occasional moments that have overwhelmed her in the romance department).
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Dr.
Gregory Bays Brown and Nancy Silverman
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Like
any good press agent, public relations woman, flack, flimflam ma’am,
publicist, she can be unflappable, undeniable, formidable, indefatigable, and
a brilliant hostess who always delivers. If a picture doesn’t have a
buzz, she’ll buzz it baby, and it’s all caviar and champagne. She’s
very popular (as you might imagine anyone with her film-and-sup-with-stars cachet
would be), knows the best of them, dines with the lot of them, lunches with
her myriad girl pals, and like some of us (or maybe a lot of us) non-stop New
Yorkers, is not so lucky in love. When she falls, it’s hard, like a whirlwind
waltzing with a hurricane, but when it’s over, it’s like the movie:
get out the hankies and go see the picture.
Nancy
Silverman. The dynamic
wife of conglomerateur Henry Silverman of Cendant Corporation.
Mrs. Silverman may not be a business
partner of her husband (although for all I know, she may be) but
she is articulate and even at times outspoken with her opinions
about the state of affairs be they business, society, politics
or current events. The very rich Silvermans are multi-residential
but the humbler roots are not disguised by affectation under any
circumstances.
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Albemarle,
Rufus
Aston, Muffie Potter
Basso, Dennis
Benedict, Daniel
Capehart, Jonathan
Cominotto, Michael
Curry, Boykin
Dahl, Tessa
DeWoody, Beth Rudin
Duchin, Peter and Brooke
Duff, Patricia
Eaton, Phoebe
Fales-HIll, Susan
Fekkai, Frederic
THE FULL LIST
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