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The first time I ever heard about Denise Rich was
a number of years ago at Christmastime. It was in reference to
a holiday party she gave at her triplex penthouse apartment overlooking
Central Park. She had had the terraces surrounding her apartment
flooded for the event, and hired professional figure skaters to
dance around on the ice for the benefit of the hundreds of guests
who were cozy and toasty inside looking out. It was one of those
moments where the most sophisticated New Yorkers were momentarily
astonished. Knowing her as I do now, I would guess she was inspired
to stage a deeply nostalgic re-creation of one of those moments
of winters of her own growing up in central Massachusetts where
snow and ice-skaters dominated the landscape.
At that point in her social history, Denise Rich was the very wealthy ex-wife
of Marc Rich, the Swiss financier who was living in Switzerland,
a fugitive from the American Internal Revenue laws. It was assumed around New
York that her lavish lifestyle was made possible by her divorce settlement. It
was not generally known that she herself was an heiress of a New England shoe
manufacturer whose fortune initially launched ex-husband Rich.
Today the world knows Denise Rich as a player in the politics at the end of the
second Administration of President Clinton whose pardoning of
Marc Rich wreaked fresh havoc on the reputation of his constantly threatened
Presidency. Denise Rich evidently played a role in that pardon, whatever that
might have been. There have been several explanations why, one of which is most
plausible – that he was the father of her daughters – although none
was defining.
Her life outside the limelight and the tabloidal notoriety that comes with the
territory is far simpler and more focused. She is a songwriter by trade, consumed,
as many artists often are, by her creative interests. True or not, someone told
me that in her enormous apartment there is a fully equipped recording studio.
There is certainly room for it.
Her other abiding interest is the G&P Foundation For Cancer Research. The
foundation is the child born of her grief and mourning of the death of her daughter Gabrielle
Rich Aouad who passed away eight years ago at age 27 after a long and
valiant struggled against AML Leukemia. Named for Gabrielle and her husband Philip,
the foundation was the last wish of the daughter who fought through months of
painful treatment undaunted and unbowed. It was Gabrielle’s hope that the
foundation would fund research that would spare others the suffering she endured.
The G&P Foundation, under the guidance of Denise now stages two major fundraisers
a year. The big one in the wintertime hosts about a thousand guests annually
at the Marriott on Broadway in the city’s biggest hotel ballroom. It draws
figures from the world of Wall Street, Washington and Hollywood and raises several
million for the cause.
Denise is a familiar figure on the New York social scene these days and a fairly
frequent hostess at cocktail parties and fundraisers in her apartment. For all
her wealth and prominence, there’s still a strong hint of the girl next
door (at least if you grew up in New England), enthusiastic, energetic, the kind
of girl who probably as a teen-ager had a singing group a la the Shirelles or the
Ronettes and was reared with an emphasis on family, friends, career,
and a good time; in that order.
In reality, she’s also an economic force. The success of the G&P Foundation,
among other things, is witness to that. And despite her show-biz razzle-dazzle,
which clearly appeals to her, she wears her largesse and her big life all with
a kind of modesty that can lead one to conclude that above all, she’s a
good friend and mother. |
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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