John Galliher John Galliher aboard Jacques Sarlie's yacht off Greece, 1965. Courtesy of James H. Douglas.

January 7, 2003 - John Galliher died in his sleep on the Saturday before Christmas at his apartment on East 63rd Street here in New York. He was eighty-eight and had been ailing with pancreatic cancer, a condition he learned about a little less than five months before. He told very few about his condition. He accepted it, put his house in order, even to the point of writing his death notice which appeared a few days later in the New York Times stating that he had “died peacefully in his sleep.”

He was known to his multitude of friends down through the decades, as Johnny, Johnny Galliher (pronounced Gal-yer), or occasionally Johnny G. He was a most unusual man -- a unique combination of characteristics and qualities – easily said but rarely so in life -- difficult to define. His old friend of more than fifty years, Tony Hail, the San Francisco interior designer, put it most succinctly for the many friends who survive him. “He was fun to know.”

He was exceptionally gentlemanly, the kind of man who if he didn’t have something nice to say (or amusing, which might be more like it with him), he said nothing. Ever. Yet he navigated skillfully for more than sixty years through a world where bitchery and malice can be commonplace and lethal. Instead, for him there was often a smile on his face, or if not, then the obvious promise of one.

He was born in Washington, D. C. on May 24, 1914, the second son of five children. Of all the children, only his older brother Joseph survives. The Gallihers were a prominent family of Anglo extraction. He was exceptionally handsome, not tall, about five-nine, slender, almost slight but sinewy, with a thick head of curly black hair and bright blue eyes.

Evalyn Walsh McLean

By the time he was a teen-ager, the coltishly handsome young man was a favorite of one of Washington’s leading hostesses Evalyn Walsh McLean, the fabled owner of the Hope Diamond, and her daughter, also named Evalyn. He and young Evalyn often went out together, and if the evening were formal, her mother would often insist that she wear the Hope Diamond. As soon as they were away from the house, young Evalyn would take it off and give to John to put in his pocket. The whole transaction, he recalled seventy years later, made him very nervous. He was firstly worried about possibly losing the legendary rock that was worth a small fortune and secondly, (or maybe even firstly) he was afraid that it’s reputation for bringing tragedy would affect him too.

After graduation from high school, he took his degree at Lehigh University. He served in Europe during the Second World War as a naval officer with the rank of lieutenant. After the War, he moved to Los Angeles, where he shared a house in Beverly Hills with Diana Barrymore, daughter of John Barrymore and Michael Strange (a nom de plume for Oelrichs).

By his early twenties, mainly through his early relationships with the McLeans (young Evalyn committed suicide with an overdose in 1946 and the elder Evalyn lost most of her fortune by then), and with Diana Barrymore, John’s path in life was beginning to take direction.

It was on a sidewalk in Beverly Hills, where he settled right after the War that one day he ran into Lady Mendl, Elsie de Wolfe, whom he’d already known. Learning that he was “new” in town, she asked if there were anyone he’d like to meet. He told her he couldn’t think of anybody, that he’d already met so many. Then he thought of Garbo, already a legend.
“That might be difficult,” John later recalled Lady Mendl saying.

A few days later, he got a call from Lady Mendl’ s secretary: Lady Mendl was inviting John for cocktails (as they called it in those days) the following Tuesday at 5:30. He expressed his regrets to the secretary, but he already had a previous engagement on that day. “Break it,” she said emphatically and sotte voce.

So he did. And on the following Tuesday at the appointed time, he went over to Lady Mendl’s Mediterranean villa on Lexington Road behind the Beverly Hills Hotel. When he arrived he found waiting: Lady Mendl, Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich …, and Greta Garbo.

Johnny on the Lido, 1953. Courtesy of Luis Estevez.

His relationship with Garbo, is emblematic of John’s social career. All kinds of people were attracted to his company. He saw her many times after that first meeting, although rarely, if ever, the result of his seeking her out. Garbo, he knew, as did everyone who came in contact with her, was highly unavailable to anyone who had any expectations of her presence, or company.

There was the time when both John and Garbo were guests on producer Sam Spiegel’s yacht in the Meditteranean in the 1950s. It so happened both he and she were early risers, and the first thing both did was to take a swim before breakfast. They’d bump into one another leaving their respective cabins for the swim. Only a nod was exchanged, however, and other than that, never a word. Garbo also liked to swim in the nude, something that John blithely ignored for her sake, swimming just far enough ahead of her. When finished both would return to their cabins without uttering a word.

Later at breakfast, however, with everyone present, they’d exchange their first words. “Good Morning Miss G.” “Good Morning Mr. G.”

Garbo’s terse and monumental diffidence always made John laugh in recalling. Later in the 1950s he’d always see her at Kitty and Gilbert Miller’s on New Year’s Eve. The Millers’ party was the most popular and glamorous New Year’s event in those days. The Millers brought out movie stars, society, the artists, the writers and theatre folk. Formal and dressy. Forty or fifty would be invited to dinner, complete with Viennese musicians in uniform playing. After dinner, the chairs and tables would be moved away, a hundred more guests would arrive, the band would play and the night would begin.

Garbo would come. One year, just before midnight, John encountered her just as she was leaving. “But where are you going to go?” he asked, “It’s not even midnight.”

“I think I’m going to go to Times Square,” she whispered languidly in her legendary Swedish accent, “to pick up a sailor.”

John, in the recounting, always burst out in a quick laugh. Garbo’s wit, to make something very simple seem absurd, always amused him. He had a great affinity for just that point of view and often saw it around him, and often had a laugh over it.

In 1948, he went to work in Paris for the Marshall Plan and worked out of (if not for) the Department of Protocol in the American Embassy. He was living a charmed life; it was thus to remain for the rest of his life. He walked with a brisk, unassuming gait, an almost-jaunt, and an almost musical swing to his arms. There was often a smile on his face, and also always the characteristic kindly wrinkles in his brow.

He was already displaying a mature, yet rare talent, the talent for enjoying life, an elegant young man in his mid-thirties. He knew and/or met everybody, from Cocteau and Gertrude Stein to the Windsors, and everybody in between. There were Rothschilds and Mona von Bismarck (Mrs. Harrison Williams), there was Cole Porter and Elsa Maxwell and Noel Coward and Errol Flynn and Rock Hudson. He dined at Marie Laure Noaille’s. All the world was coming to Paris.

John in costume. The Sheik in dark glasses, at the "Adam and Eve Fiesta" given by Betty and Luis Estevez in Acapulco, 1959. From left to right: Francois Arnal, Countess Marina Cicogna, Romy Aguirre Naon, JG, and Luis Estevez. Courtesy of Luis Estevez.

John was entertained and was entertained by Barbara Hutton and her cousin Jimmy Donahue, with Fulco Verdura, with Elsa Schiaparelli, Arturo and Patricia Lopez-Wilshaw, Aly Khan, Rita Hayworth, Daisy Fellowes, Porfirio Rubirosa. And he was very popular with everyone, with a kind of luminous notoriety for having a great allure, for being highly desirable in many ways. He was not only charming, handsome and fun to be with but he also had a great reputation as a lover. Of both sexes. More than a few reveled in the telling of Diana Barrymore’s famous description of him being “well-bred and well” everything else.

He lived in Paris for fifteen years in, according to Tony Hail, a “very attractively” decorated apartment on the rue de Burgoyne, which he acquired through the assistance of Donald Bloomingdale of the New York department store family. He entertained often at parties populated by the rich, the celebrated, the powerful and occasionally the notorious. Paris in those days was, he recalled to me several years ago, “the best place in the world to be, the most exciting, creative era. Everyone wanted to go there. There were many different sectors of Paris life that one could see.” We can safely assume he saw them all.

In the following years, his life took on the pattern of early jetsetters, traveling frequently between Paris, London and New York, with trips to the resorts, to yachts on the Mediterranean, to Mexico, to Jamaica. At one point, he kept the apartment in Paris, a house in London and an apartment in New York. He worked for a time with Hubert de Givenchy at the beginning of his design career. Givenchy did not speak English and John spoke French beautifully. With his linguistic and social talents he served as a “liaison” for the rising designer.

By his forties, he was a man of the world, a man about town, to be found at the best places, on the best yachts, present at all the famous parties that seemed even more fabulous after the regeneration of Europe from the ashes of war. He recalled that the celebrated de Bestigui party in Venice in the 1950s is legendary only because of “the spectacular entrance of the costumes that made the party.”

It was a lifetime of being a very popular, highly sought after, highly enigmatic individual. He was a mystery to most who knew him, all his life and even with those who’d know him for decades. He wasn’t so much secretive as he was inclined to be discreet in a way that is almost unknown in today’s world. There are many who make the claim but few who actually accommodate the title. John was one of the very few.

The Sheik with Fran Stark, Acapulco, 1959. Courtesy of Luis Estevez.

That discretion was reflected in his dress, his décor and his social behavior. He was always a “gent” in his attitude and bearing toward others, always unfailingly courteous and kindly toward everybody. This rare quality is even rarer in the circles John traveled in most of the time. And because he lived such a long life, he had seen many rise from often humble inceptions right up to their royal tastes acquired along with the fortunes they accumulated or married into. He’d also seen many fall from grace and, with his incisive sensitivity, he often sympathized.

He did not divulge or break confidences, and he had many to keep. One might learn how he felt about someone or something only by observing his reaction carefully, if he were to laugh, or lower his chin and turn his face away with a wave of the hand – a very characteristic action.

He was also not one to reveal or express judgment about the private behavior of others. All of that was very “tiresome” and “disagreeable” to him. On the other hand, there was a moment in his Paris days right after the War, when, for reasons of “security” he shared with his superiors his knowledge of an affair the wife of a very important American general was having with a high ranking married Frenchman.

After fifteen years of living in Paris, he bought a house in London in Chester Square in the 1960s. It is said that in the following years, he bought and re-did several houses, making a tidy sum from the business. It was also known that he was not a wealthy man, or from a wealthy family, and that he had no apparent employment. This only added to his mystery.

While the haute monde and the demimondaine were always in proximity in John Galliher’s world, there were also the worlds of the arts, of the theatre and show business (he loved music and was a very close friend of Lena Horne and Bobby Short, to name only two among many).

About twenty years ago, having given up his Paris apartment, he also sold his properties in London and consolidated his life to a small but pleasantly appointed apartment on East 69th Street off Madison Avenue. Until his premature death of AIDS in 1991, he often visited his friend Billy McCarty-Cooper in California. He continued to travel frequently to visit friends in Europe or the Mediterranean. In his later years he made annual trips to see his friend Sybilla Clark in Lyford Cay, or Pat and William Buckley in Gstaad, Beatrix Patino on the Algarve. Up until a few years ago he’d travel to London to see his friends and to see his tailor, and less occasionally on to Paris to see old friends.

Pat Buckley

In New York, as the years accumulated, he always remained the ideal extra man. He kept up with the times, always aware of the changing tastes, very cognizant of the changing crowds and attitudes. He did not suffer fools gladly and did not accommodate rudeness. Instead he avoided both whenever possible, and when not, he removed himself as quickly as possible.

Like a lot of people who grow older successfully, he was always interested in the company and the fashions of younger people; so much so that he was never at loss for the company of new people who wanted to be with him, for he continued to fascinate in the same way he had all his life.

His life always seemed as organized as it was unique. He made everything look effortless including the natural burden of growing old. It must have at times taken great effort on the part of a man who lived, like his friend and mentor Cole Porter, what appeared to be the life of a hedonist.

He loved to play cards, and it was at the card table that a bit of a different side of Johnny Galliher came out. For this man who’d made an art of living a life unfettered by temperament hated to lose. Though the games were most often played for money, a penny a point, a dollar a point, and it was never a question of stakes. He simply hated losing and could get very angry, openly at his partner if he thought they’d played an especially bad hand. His temper at losing was so out of character that friends easily sloughed it off with a laugh, albeit sometimes feigned. For they always remained cowed by it.

In these last few years, he was often seen around New York, very often invited, very often attending theatre, movies, opera, ballet. Three times a week he walked the thirty or so blocks from his apartment on East 63rd Street (acquired in the mid 1990s) to the pool in the Asphalt Green on York and 92nd Street, have an hour’s swim, and walk back home. To the world, it seemed that although age had come to John Galliher, the levity of youth remained his. So it came as a surprise to those who knew him, to learn that just before the Christmas holiday, he had been gravely ill and had died.

He lived fairly comfortably, with style, although modestly, the last years of his life. Many will be surprised to learn that he left an estate of more than $1.5 million.

He went to sleep that Saturday night in his apartment and he never woke up. He’d avoided hospitalization throughout his brief illness and although he accepted very few invitations in the last few weeks, three days before his death, he did make a lunch at La Grenouille of a young close friend he’d acquired in the last few years.

He loved life and it loved him back — with grace, many good friends and many good times.