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Remember these?
“If you don’t look good, we don’t look good ...” (Vidal
Sassoon)
“Demanded by and created for perfectionists” (Baccarat)
“Danskins are not just for dancing.”
“Me and my Scaasi.”
Or, how about ...
“What becomes a legend most?”
He thought of them. He made them up. Along with dozens of other
phrases that are now carved in the annals of 20th century American advertising.
He has a way with words and with it has made more than a good living and a major
reputation in New York life. Which is good because ... he also has a way with
words. And a sense of how they should look. (Think about it.) He’s a friend
of mine and I call him The Mouth From the South. Because he has a way with words,
and they come pouring out of him; and as easily off the tip of his tongue as
they do the tip of his pen. He says what he thinks about whatever he’s
thinking and to whomever he’s thinking it.
Born and bred in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, as a kid he had an after-school job
doing window display in the local department store whose owner recognized “the
talent” and told him to get himself up to New York ASAP. Which he did.
This was quite some time ago (the mid-50s).
His first roommate claimed to be Tennessee Williams’ nephew,
something which Peter, never gullible, found far-fetched and funny, until one
night he was invited over to visit uncle, who took the boys around and gave the
kid from Hattiesburg his first taste of the glamorous New York life. He never
looked back and glamour was thereafter often his signature, both professionally
and socially.
In 1974 after more than a decade of creating ad campaigns for others, he started
his own agency, Peter Rogers Associates which brought him the New York fame and
fortune and the pleasure of the company of a wide variety of friends. The Blackgama campaign
(inarguably one of the most memorable in advertising history) also brought him
a devoted coterie of divas, two of whom – Joan Crawford and Claudette
Colbert – became close friends of his till the end of their lives.
Ten years ago, he cashed in his chips, dissolved his business and
took up portrait painting in his penthouse high above Park Avenue. Too soon,
in my opinion, to retire – whatwith his tremendous creative energy – he
still creates the campaign for Gracious Home, New York’s leading
hardware and at-home furnishings and supply emporium. “Look No Further” is
his moniker for the super-store. Every other Thursday in the New York Times Home
Section, there is a two-page spread of his “buy” suggestions for Gracious
Home. It is, in my book, the most effective advertising campaign for retail
that I’ve ever seen. The voice is so confident and commanding, so droll
and cleverly authoritative that it’s the only ad I’ve ever read that
always makes me want to go out and buy something. God knows what it does to compulsive
shoppers.
Several years ago, while visiting his late friend Bill Blass up
in New Preston, Connecticut in Litchfield County, he fell in love with that part
of the world. After decades of owning a seaside cottage on Fire Island, he decided
to make a switch. He bought a mountaintop with views of the countryside for miles
in all directions, and designed a Palladian-inspired villa which is nearing completion
as of this writing. Blass, when seeing the majestic plot quipped something like “when
you finally move up here, no one will ever see you again.”
Prescient in sentiment, perhaps, although not so much in reality. Peter is one
of those men who loves the convivial company. He’s both generous and magnanimous
with those to whom he’s devoted. New York took the boy out of Hattiesburg
but not Hattiesburg out of the boy. As quick to laugh as he is to speak his mind,
among his talents (and his bag of magic tricks) is the gift of friendship. All
these years later he still maintains friendships from childhood and family ties
and, like a staunch New Yorker, the nitty-gritty, as well as glittery ones, while
still forging new relationships.
Since a-building his “dream house,” he’s scaled down his
New York life, trading his large penthouse for a smaller one near Beekman Place.
Litchfield’s allure, aside from the obvious pastoral advantages, are all
those New York friends, old and new, besides the ones he’s luring in that
direction. A few weeks ago, he persuaded another old friend, syndicated columnist Liz
Smith (pictured with Peter and Ann Richards), a weekend devotee
of Middlesex, another stylish Connecticut county on the Long Island Sound, and
former Governor Ann Richards of Texas, a part-time New York
who is still a loyal resident of Austen, Texas, to pay him a visit. The trip
was so full of camaraderie, laughs, flavor and good fare that Liz, for the first
time in her long career, devoted a whole column to the fun of Life in Litchfield
County With Peter. The Mouth from the South whose Most became the Legend. |
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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