Estee Lauder

May 11, 2004 - I got up especially early (for me) Monday morning to go to a Memorial Service at the New York State Theatre for the late cosmetics tycoon Estee Lauder (A Celebration of the Life of Estee Lauder), at 10 AM. I arrived two minutes after ten to find that the theatre already filled with more than 2400 people (SRO) and Governor Pataki at the podium speaking about this remarkable woman who died in her late nineties only two weeks ago.

I’d missed the musical prelude coming from the New York Pops orchestra in the pit, conducted by its founder Skitch Henderson.

On stage with Mr. Pataki were Mayor Bloomberg, Leonard Lauder (the eldest of Mrs. Lauder’s two sons), Marvin Traub, former chairman of Bloomingdale’s, Carol Phillips, a business associate of Mrs. Lauder, who founded the Clinique line for the Estee Lauder company, Barbara Walters and Richard Parsons, CEO of Time Warner, who once upon a time was Mrs. Lauder’s lawyer.

Pataki and Bloomberg reverently praised Estee Lauder’s business genius and paid tribute to her motherhood. Ms. Phillips fondly recalled working with this very dynamic woman who never took “no” for an answer, paid endless attention to detail in business as well as her employees and her family and exercised marketing genius at all times.

Marvin Traub recalled when Mrs. Lauder first got her line of cosmetics into Bloomingdale’s, she was unhappy with the location they had assigned her and wanted another, more visible one just outside the department’s parameters. His “impossible” eventually became, “oh all right,” and that location remains all these years later that of Estee Lauder products.

Barbara Walters’ recalled the Estee who was maternal and as prone to give advice as she was to promote her creams and lipsticks. They met for lunch early in Walters’ career when she was doing the “Today Show,” and she arrived still in on-camera makeup. “Never divorce,” Mrs. Lauder advised the young television star, adding: “the only thing that changes with the man is the face.”

At that same meeting Estee advised: “Always use a little more blush.” Walters admitted that she never took the divorce advice, but remembered the blush. She closed with another piece of sage advice the cosmetics empress gave her: “always wear white – it flatters your face.” Walters was wearing white this morning.

Estee’s son Leonard spoke about his mother, referring to her as Estee, as his mother, his friend, and his business associate. He recalled age seven when he was first sent to sleep-away camp. His mother had been instructed to send him on the train with a boxed lunch. She used a box which had come from Bergdorf Goodman holding new dress. A very wide box. She packed it so full, that he mused this morning that she was either worried about him not getting enough to eat or thinking that his counselors might share in it, starting her son off on the right foot with them.

She was, he added, a brilliant mother-in-law. She told him at the time that he was dating several girls including his now-wife Evelyn, that her “favorite” was Evelyn. “Mothers-in-law,” he also recalled her saying after he married Evelyn, “should keep their mouths shut and their pocketbooks open.” Once Evelyn and Leonard were married, Estee would then call Evelyn and ask how her son was treating his new wife.

Richard Parsons described a very focused businesswoman who always achieved what she set out to achieve and didn’t take “no” even from her lawyer.

After their talks, Itzhak Perlman came out to play Liebesleid by Fritz Kreisler and Melodie by Christoph Gluck.

The second set of participants followed: Mrs. Lauder’s grandchildren, Jane, Aerin (daughters of Ronald and Jo Carole) and Gary and William (sons of Leonard and Evelyn), each spoke affectionately of “grandmother,” adding another dimension to this woman’s life. She was close to all of her grandchildren and always in communication with them. Her two main concerns were their safety and health. “If we always took grandmother’s advice,” Gary Lauder reflected with amusement, “we’d be all bundled up and weighing 300 pounds.” With her granddaughters, she doted and encouraged the independence she lived by herself.

She was a woman who believed in what she was doing. Women, all women, could look beautiful, she once told a Budapest journalist (when she was opening the first Estee Lauder boutique in the Eastern bloc after the fall of the Soviet Union). “A woman is most beautiful on her wedding day when she has taken that time for herself.” Estee’s advice to all women was to take that time for herself everyday.

Her son Ronald recalled that when she got her first boutique in Saks – a great achievement– she was allotted a small space in the back of the department. Disappointed but undaunted, she asked if it would be all right if she sent out some cards announcing the opening to her friends. Her request was approved.

So she sent out some cards – 156,000 of them. The opening day, Adam Gimbel, then the chairman and owner of Saks arrived at the store to find thousands of women waiting for it to open. Soon her learned they all wanted to get to Estee Lauder’s space because she was “giving away free samples.” There were so many customers, the management decided she needed to be moved to a larger space temporarily. She suggested a spot in the front of the store. Temporarily. Forty years later, Estee Lauder Cosmetics still occupies that spot.

At the end of the service, the orchestra played a medley of songs that she loved, accompanied by a montage of snapshots and portraits from infancy to the end of her life. What they revealed illustrated the words of the speakers – a very pretty woman of style, always determined, attentive, ambitious, proud and regal. And always beautifully turned out, even in the most casual circumstances.

As the photos ran through the life, from the youthful Estee, in the embrace of her handsome young boyfriend (and then husband – Joseph Lauder) to the young mother, to the cosmetic saleswoman/executive, to tycoon and socialite to grande dame, one understood the amazing scope and brilliance of this energetic woman born Josephine Esther Mentzner in Queens, daughter of immigrants from Austro-Hungary, who had a rich, full life, inspired by the same sentiment and opportunity that inspired the career of Irving Berlin and his myriad American songs. This was Estee Lauder, and her legacy, under the distinguished guardianship of her beloved family, remains just that: a tribute to a remarkable (and beautiful) modern American woman.

Gene Hovis

February 20, 2004 - Gene Hovis died on Tuesday in his sleep in the apartment on West 72nd Street that he shared with his companion of forty-two years, Hans Teetz. He would have been seventy on July 7.

I met Gene at just about this time fourteen years ago at the apartment of a mutual friend, the late John Galliher. He was tall and very self-possessed in bearing and jolly and warm in presence.

He was one of those kids who came to New York just as soon as he was out of school, to seek his fortune. He was born in a little town in North Carolina called Salisbury. Summertimes, when he was old enough, his mother would send him up to New York to stay with an aunt, and he was starry-eyed.

One of his earliest recollections was asking his mother what the difference was between the public drinking fountains that were “For Whites Only.” When his mother told him that there was no difference but that those were the rules, Gene decided he wanted to live in New York when he grew up. Where everybody drank from the same fountain.

He always said he came from a family of fabulous cooks. Many of his stories about his childhood in the South took place in and around the kitchen and the garden where his mother grew her vegetables and flowers. It was an idyllic life, at least in the re-telling. You could see the curious little boy discovering the pleasures of life through his mother’s culinary tastes and talents.

When he came to New York with dreams of being an actor; where he found his way into the more sophisticated circles of the theatre and the arts, he also got into cooking. He took lessons from Dione Lucas who was then one of the leading teachers in Manhattan. Eventually he befriended and learned from the New York Times now legendary food editor Craig Claiborne.

All of this ultimately led to a career in the food business – as a caterer, a professional chef, a food stylist, a food consultant. When I met him he was food editor for HG and co-host with Melba Tolliver on Channel 12’s Long Island People. And he’d written a cookbook harkening back to his roots Gene Hovis’ Uptown Down Home Cookbook. Later he was Vice President and Creative Director, Marketplace and Restaurants for Macy’s.

Gene Hovis and Melba Tolliver. January, 2002.

However, his profession and his professional life were only aspects of a larger persona. He was the first African-American person I’ve known who established a social presence in what is still all these years later, a very white world, not by wealth or by celebrity, but by sheer force of personality. Brilliant, mind you, and well-seasoned with the wisdom he acquired in childhood.

He traveled in social and artistic circles uptown, downtown, East Side, West Side and worldwide, and that is what he loved about life. He loved Paris and for years spent part of his summers there. And wherever he went he knew people. By his fifties the boy from Salisbury was on the International Best Dressed list, a member of the glitterati and man of the world.

He often entertained at small luncheons or dinners in the large but cozy apartment with a dining room that could hold twelve or fourteen comfortably. There you’d have that uptown down home cooking which also meant a homemade (Gene-made) cake or pie, seated amongst the fast and the fashionable from opera divas to CZ Guest to all kinds of New York types, happy as clams in mud to be at Gene’s table where he’d made a place not only for himself but for everyone else.

He wore his successes and his high life like a well-tailored comfortable jacket. He was always very generous with his kind words and in sharing whatever he had. Including his excellent connections in this culture of supra-networking. In the early 90s, after decades of collecting antiques and storing them in warehouses, he opened what immediately became a very successful antiques shop up in Hudson, New York.

A few years ago, long a diabetic, he had a massive stroke. That changed everything. He handled it with characteristic grace. But when that happens to a very social creature in this most social of metropolitan environments, much of the world falls away. Gene, however, was blessed with two things: courage and Hans, his devoted companion. He made the adjustment as a matter of course.

He also discovered he didn’t miss not going to the parties he was still getting invitations for. Occasionally he got out to lunch or dinner with old friends. He looked great. He needed a cane to get around but he wore it the way he did everything else: with classic style. No doubt he at least considered the laments of a radically quieter life for such an active and creative mind. But the business of taking care of himself and making himself comfortable was now the priority and would always be.

We chatted on the phone every now and then. He was always better at keeping up than I was. I hadn’t seen him in months although when we talked he was his cheerful and mischievous self, concocting thoughts designed to make you laugh. He called me on the phone last week when I was on a business call. “Let me call you back,” I said.

“ You won’t,” he laughed, “you’ll forget,” he said knowingly.

I did forget. I did what I often do, I remembered in the very late night before turning in; when it’s too late to call.

Now it really is. He died in his sleep. He was resting; he was comfortable. He would have said he had a good run. He loved his life, every minute of it.

	Jack Paar Jack and Miriam Paar and their dog Leica strolling on a country lane in Connecticut, circa 1975. Photo: Randy Paar Wells.

Jack Paar. The original Talk Show host.

At the peak of his career, he had a reputation for being volatile, difficult and hard to predict. He could be impatient and turned off by people who did not provide some interest for him. Away from the pressures of his work, much of that eased, (except those who bored him) although that “edge” that the world saw, was still there. Years later he told me in amazed reflection: “There was a time in those days when I’d would sit up there in my office at 30 Rockefeller Center and actually think the world revolved around me!”

My luncheons and dinners at Jack and Miriam’s in New Canaan were fun and interesting for the same reason his show was. Jack held forth. Conversation was lively, informative, amusing. There was a coterie of old friends and new, old staff and performers, friends made early on in his broadcasting career and even Sidney Carroll who first wrote about Jack in Esquire during the War years, and garnered him important notice. (Sidney’s wife, June Carroll was a co-writer of Jack’s theme song: Love Is A Simple Thing) There were often people passing through who wanted to meet or to see the great man again, as well as new friendships yet to come.

In 1979, I moved from Connecticut to California, setting out on a new life path as a writer. I got the feeling Jack didn’t think much of the idea of giving up a nice business for a new pursuit in a new place. The night before I left, I went to dinner at their house. “Well kid,” he said as we were saying our good-byes, “Hollywood’s a great place to be a star but an awful place if you’re a failure.” His tone had the kindly but regretful concession of a wise uncle. I knew he was also reflecting on his own experience – he’d found his stardom in New York.

The move effectively marked the end of our relationship. There were occasional but rare correspondences between me and Miriam, exchanging of cards, but in time, over distance, that was dispelled too. This, as we know, happens in life, and especially on the higher, faster tracks, which are far more transient. Hermes Pan had phrase for it, which he always recalled with a chuckle: “I loved ya honey but the show closed.”
Jack Paar was one of the most remarkable media personalities of his time, a power still reflected, indeed, even ingrained in our culture. He was also a genuine piece of late 20th-century Americana, a blessed pleasure for me to know, and for many many millions of others too. In the words of Noel Coward as sung by one of Jack’s favorites, Bea Lillie, I went to a mah-velous party. It was his. And Miriam’s.

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.

	Sarah Churchill Lady Sarah Consuelo Spencer-Churchill. December 1921 - October 2000 Sketch: ©Robert Schulenberg.

She was born Lady Sarah Consuelo Spencer Churchill on December 17, 1921, at a house in Portland Square, London, the daughter and first born of the Marquess of Blandford, and Mary Cadogan, one of four daughters of Viscount Chelsea who were fashionably known in their day as "the Cadogan Square." Her maternal grandmother, the former Consuelo Vanderbilt, was world famous for having been forced by her mother Alva (Mrs. Willie K.) Vanderbilt to marry Sarah's grandfather, the Duke of Marlborough at the end of the 19th century. Ironically, many years later, as a young woman, visiting at Cliveden, Sarah was told by Nancy Astor, in what were clearly meant to be unflattering terms, that she was "just like Grannie Smith." Grannie Smith being Astor's reference to Sarah's great-grandmother, Alva (whose maiden name was Smith).

When she was thirteen, her grandfather died, her father became the duke, and the family moved to Blenheim. Socially isolated, except for mainly the company of her siblings — two younger sisters and a brother (who is presently the duke), poorly educated as upper-class British girls were at the time, Sarah was nevertheless a most curious individual. She loved to read (which became a lifelong habit) and her favorite hours were spent in the servant's dining hall where she could pretend to be reading while listening to the staff gossip.

It was there that she first heard talk about Mrs. Simpson and the Prince of Wales, their relationship still unknown to the British people. The couple were coming for a weekend, and their bedrooms would be adjoining. Too young to know what a "mistress" or an "affair" was, she still could easily discern that Mrs. Simpson was not a "nice lady." So it surprised the young girl to meet a very charming woman, "very soigné" compared to Sarah's mother and her friends, Sarah recalled years later, and also, compared to Sarah's mother and her friends, very kind and affectionate toward Sarah's pet dog. Sarah loved dogs all her life and had lots of them (mainly Jack Russells).

The most influential person in her life was Grannie (Consuelo), who after divorcing the duke in 1920, married a Frenchman named Jacques Balsan. I once asked Sarah if she thought her grandmother had a happy second marriage. Her immediate answer was approvingly matter-of-fact, "Oh, of course ... it was her show."

From an early age Sarah and her siblings were brought to Long Island and Palm Beach to visit "Grannie." The child knew then that she wanted to live in America. American women led "independent" lives, "not shut up in cold country houses all week long while their husbands were down in London having a wonderful time."

In 1939, she made her debut at Blenheim in what has been referred to in histories as "the last great party" in England before the War. It was there that her mother openly disapproved of her "dancing with that black man" who happened to be the Maharajah of Jaipur, something that on recollection years later, left Sarah with wonder and amusement.

At the beginning of the Second World War, she married an American, Edwin Russell, and the following year, their first daughter, Serena (they had four), was born. Shortly thereafter, mother and daughter came to America to stay with Grannie. And so began Sarah's American life.

When the War was over, the Russells settled in Philadelphia on the Mainline. Their lives revolved around Philadelphia and Grannie's world of Manhattan, North Shore Long Island, Southampton, and Palm Beach. Proximity solidified the relationship of Sarah with her grandmother. As Grannie grew older, Sarah became the family member she could depend on, a role that fulfilled Sarah's maternal personality perfectly.

In the early 1960s, in her early forties, Sarah's life changed dramatically. Her grandmother died, leaving her a small fortune and another fortune in furniture, paintings, porcelains, and jewelry. Sarah also divorced her husband and became involved with a very handsome young Chilean man about twenty years her junior, named Guy Burgos. Her grandmother, who had long suggested the divorce from Russell, probably would have approved of Sarah's romantic adventure with Burgos. Her family, however, did not. Sarah, however, didn't care and never would care what anyone thought about it. The marriage lasted less than a year, but the couple remained very close friends for the rest of her life.

About a year after Burgos, while on a yachting trip in the Mediterranean off Greece, a guest of Henry McIlhenny, a Philadelphia socialite and art collector, Sarah met another very handsome man, a Greek named Theo Roubanis, also about twenty years her junior. Another Philadelphia friend, Gloria Etting, who was on the McIlhenny yacht at the time, recalled that the two became almost instantly involved, and were the "golden couple" everywhere they went.

Sarah and Roubanis were married shortly thereafter. By this time Lady Sarah had garnered a great deal of attention in the American and British press as a "madcap heiress," which amused her greatly. She never took the attention seriously, however. Sarah was a woman who followed her heart.

The Roubanis marriage lasted for thirteen years. Sarah built a large house on the Peloponnese, while maintaining houses in Manhattan and Montego, and, finally, Beverly Hills. Although wealthy, she was never rich (the bulk of Grannie's fortune went automatically to the Blenheim trusts). Nevertheless, she lived well (someone once said she could "stretch a buck around a New York City block"), brought up and educated her four daughters, while at various times supporting husbands, staffs and, various friends.

She never lost the thrill of traveling and she did so constantly. She was never more than three weeks in one place when she didn't have a reason (and a plane ticket) to travel elsewhere. Houses, friendships, family, and plain curiosity required her constant peripatetic attention.

The almost hyperactive pattern of movement in Sarah's life easily suggests a restless spirit. But she wasn't restless as much as she was energetic. If she had been a man, she would have been the duke, being the first born. A number of close friends always referred to her (usually out of her earshot, but not always) as "The Duchess." There was this huge propensity to lead, like a General, like John, the first Duke, who won the battle of Blenheim against the armies of Louis XIV.

Many years ago, while reading a biography of the first Duke, I came upon a long description of the personality of his wife, the first Sarah Churchill, the powerhouse whose intimate friendship with Queen Anne brought them Blenheim as a gift from Her Majesty. I was struck by detailed similarities between the Sarah of the 18th century, and the Sarah I knew. To confirm my impression, I called a friend who also knew her. "I'm going to read you a personality description," I told him, "and I want you to tell me who it is."

I began reading. Three or four sentences in, he stopped me. "Oh that's easy, that's Sarah."

He was as awestruck as I, when I told him that indeed it was Sarah, but the one from the 18th century.

So, for those who knew her, it is a great loss, that great force, that great light, a personality barbed and brilliant and melodious and enthusiastic and adventurous and bossy and embraced. She was all those things, and much much more. When they carried her casket from the church yesterday afternoon, hoisted on the pallbearers shoulders, it was almost baffling to know that she would be still forever.

Khalil Rizk

April 27, 2001 - New York society was shocked to learn that Khalil Rizk had died suddenly in Austria two days ago after a very brief illness. The forty-six-year-old antiquaire and porcelain dealer, a partner in The Chinese Porcelain Company at Park Avenue and 58th Street, was a popular figure on the New York cultural and philanthropic scene. Son of a Lebanese father and an Italian mother, Khalil loved the New York social life unabashedly. He had a passion for it that evoked (for me anyway) an image of a kind of post-modern Jamesian character, or a gentleman of Whartonesque stature. There was a very literary quality to his presence.

He was a fairly big man, not handsome but attractive in his intense yet gentle bearing. You might have mistaken him for a diplomat or a European banker; very serious. He'd lost a lot of hair early in life, giving him the appearance of being older than he was. He seemed somewhat reserved (to know on a very superficial basis, as I knew him), yet he was unfailingly gracious and polite on meeting. But it seemed to me — and again, I reiterate, I was not a friend and did not know him well — there was a certain reticence. Either that or a sharply focused mind undistracted.

It was a manner one might perceive as "shy." Although his social career was very dynamic and he had an impact on many powerful and influential people, belying shyness. He was a man who liked being at the center of his community — which was worldly and sophisticated. He had a hunger for it. He reveled in knowing people. Since taking up residence in New York a number of years ago, he established himself deftly as a social and cultural persona.

His loyalty and devotion to friends was obvious to the observer. He could always be seen at the opera and the ballet as well as all the significant cultural openings, often accompanying Aileen Mehle, the international society columnist "Suzy." Had he been granted a normal lifespan, Khalil's influence and affect on New York would have grown commensurately, for he loved it all. And it loved him back. Many will miss him.

	Judy Green

September 17, 2001 - Judy Green died last Friday morning about 3 a.m. in her Park Avenue apartment where she lived and entertained at countless dinners, parties and receptions for the past twenty years. She had a ten-month battle with pancreatic and liver cancer. It is not clear to me when she learned the finality of her affliction but I know that for several months up until very recently, possibly even a few hours or even a few minutes before her death, she thought she'd triumph and defeat the disease. I know that from things I've heard from the very few who'd been in contact with her and because I knew her. She was a fighter. To the bitter end. She was a competitive woman by nature, deeply competitive, and life was in many ways a race, a race to stay in. Death was a losing. An admission of losing.

I met her only eight years ago when I came back to New York from living in Los Angeles. I'd been writing social-historical pieces for Quest. One day at a luncheon of some mutual friends, Dominick Dunne told me that Judy Green wanted to meet me and wondered if she might call me. The whole idea of someone wanting to meet me and asking if they could call was entirely flattering.

I'd heard of her, although only in passing. In the 60s and 70s, Judy and Bill Green had a big country estate in Mount Kisco where they often entertained and were part of a then dazzling set that included Frank and Barbara Sinatra, Ann and Morton Downey, Bennett and Phyllis Cerf, Rosalind Russell and Freddie Brisson, Claudette Colbert, Pamela and Leland Hayward, among others. I knew this only from the pages of W, and from the columns of Liz Smith and Suzy. I knew also that she'd written a couple of novels that created quite a stir amongst the same social set. From the outside looking in, it appeared to be a very glamorous life among the rich, the glitterati and the literati.

Coincidentally, a few days after Dominick had told me about Judy, I went to a luncheon given by Heather Cohane, who then owned Quest, at a now defunct restaurant on East 80th Street. Judy Green was among the guests. I introduced myself. She quite curious to see this man who'd she'd been reading but never seen. For some reason she imagined me to be quite different in appearance and age. Again, all very flattering to me.

Tete-a-tete with writer Anthony-Haden Guest at one of her parties.

At her invitation, I called her a couple days later and we made a date to meet for drinks one late afternoon at her apartment on Park and 62nd. I'd actually never had the experience of someone wanting to meet me because they'd liked what I'd written. Although, of course, I had experienced the converse. So it was a very intriguing circumstance, especially since I had no idea what her personality was like and what our conversation would be like.

The day before our meeting I happened to mention Gerald Clarke, the Capote and Judy Garland biographer, that I was going to meet Judy Green. He said: "oh you'll have fun. She loves to give parties and she'll invite you to her parties." In New York, the idea of going to parties (up until these past few days in all our lives), the possibility of meeting new and interesting people is, for many of us, part of what city life is all about.

The Green apartment, decorated by her great friend Ann Downey, was large, plush and glamorously ornamented, and warm, with a large wood-paneled living room, a boldly rich red "library" (with a red Rothko over the sofa, a Warhol of Judy over the bar commode, and a Dufy on the opposite wall). It was a real New York apartment in a way that can only exist in New York. The kind where you'd imagine the rich and the famous pass through. And they had. The tables on either side of the sofa were crowded with silver-framed photographs of the glamorous and rich and famous friends. Men, women and children. Dressed for summer, dressed for grand evenings; on yachts, by the sea, under palm trees. Sinatra relaxing poolside with his wife. Princess Grace with Judy's late husband Bill Green; Truman Capote in his Studio 54 garb, the society columnist Suzy, looking very sportif, under a cabana, adjusting an earring, looking very much like a movie star, Andy Warhol waving, Rosalind Russell laughing, Irving Lazar beaming. The photographs of a golden life, a life of leisure. At least on first sight.

Judy and I sat and talked that afternoon for about three hours. We talked about the people we knew in common. We talked about books, authors we liked, books we hadn't read. She was full of information, details about New Yorkers, Hollywood people, actors, authors, artists. Her conversation had an "insider's" quality; she was privy to the other side, and often the underside, of the lives so many of the rich and famous who were only familiar to me as "names." The stuff that gets categorized (initially anyway) as gossip. To a writer, (or to me anyway), stories, anecdotes — for sake of insight or for sake of titillation — about the rich and the famous are irresistibly compelling. Especially if the teller is well informed.

That and my endless curiosity, combined with her welcoming personality, created an instant bond between us.

She was a small woman, probably no more than five-four. Blonde at this age, a brunette earlier on. Perpetually tanned (from frequent trips to Palm Beach in the wintertime and Europe and the Hamptons in the summer). She often wore red, or black. She was not a fashion maven, and although she had the perfunctory fur coats and accessories, and always looked "turned out," she cared little about it. She had by then been a widow, young, for fourteen years. Mother of a daughter Christina (now married to Lloyd Gerry) and a son Nicholas. She'd had a sparkling, if not brilliant career as a novelist. Irving Lazar was her first agent and Bob Gottlieb was her editor.

She was born and brought up in New York, on Central Park West, daughter of a wealthy businessman. From an early age she moved in the social circles of the Our Crowd families, as well as tycoons of publishing and show business. She was a very pretty girl. Author/historian Barbara Goldsmith recalled meeting Judy when she was seventeen, "at a Christmas ball Mrs. Arthur Lehman gave for her grandchildren the Buttenweiser, Loeb, Bernhard kids. She was wearing a lemon yellow dress and she was so beautiful, with those cat's eyes and cameo face (before the sun, before Bill Green, before books and articles and people like Swifty)."

She was very proud of and duly impressed by the fact that she was related, on her mother's side, to Dorothy Fields, the great Broadway lyricist. Judy, too was very facile with words, and loved to, and often did, whip up a witty and clever lyric or poem for a friend or an occasion.

When she was in her late 20s, she married a businessman named Bill Green who was almost twice her age and whos had a previous marriage. Green was, as I said, a very close friend of Sinatra's, as well as Edgar Bronfman, the Seagrams heir, with whom he had close business connections. By this time Judy had already published her first novel and embarked on her literary-social career. The combination of friends that the two brought to the marriage provided an energetic, peripatetic and rich social life, that characterized the marriage. In his late sixties, Bill Green died suddenly of congestive heart failure, having been stricken while they were staying with Claudette Colbert at her house in Barbados.

Christmas at Chez Green 2000.

Bill Green's death left Judy a rich and independent woman. She wrote three more books and became a popular hostess on the New York scene. As bright and well-read as she was, she had a tireless interest in social life. She loved the camaraderie. She loved the variety and changeability of city life. She loved the nightlife. She also loved presiding over the festivities, kind of Auntie Mame-like in her role.

She was not a quiet, behind the scenes kind of hostess. She loved music — although she could never sing on key — and she loved stirring things up to something resembling a near-frenzy of excitement. The effect, however, was a kind of near-Hollywood movie version of a New York party, where the world — Wall Street, Broadway, Hollywood, and publishing get together with a few other types, such as bookies and very well kept mistresses. Her rooms were full of a lot of laughter, music, frequent entertainment, gabbing, gossiping and the noise of people having a good time.

A graduate of Vassar, she had many of the qualities associated with New York girls of her generation. She was worldly and sophisticated. From Herman Wouk (Marjorie Morningstar) to Mary McCarthy (The Group), she moved easily amongst all kinds of New Yorkers, and with no authority, but with a warmth which with she insinuated herself into many people's lives.

Judy at Restaurant Daniel Judy with DPC, and her Yorkshire Terrior, Lulu.

Many friends were acquired by many through Judy.

She loved people, especially creative people, or brilliant people, or powerful people. She loved theatre people and movie people. She read their books, saw their shows, their movies. When you got to know her, you got to know someone who could be bossy at times, or possessive, or even petulant, especially if she thought she was missing out on something. She had an intelligence as "sharp as a knife," as one friend put it. "And like a sharp knife, she could cut too." Yet she was magnanimous and generous with her friends and assets, and quick to share. A friend in sudden financial straits could call her anytime and a check for five or ten thousand would be waiting with her doorman within the hour, no questions asked and no time limit on the loan. If she thought you needed something, she wouldn't wait to be asked, but offered instead. One famous authoress once borrowed several thousand dollars from her, and shortly thereafter fell out with her. Riffs with Judy could happen. However, the woman never spoke to her again, and Judy was never repaid. Her only regret was the sad loss of friendship.

She was very energetic. A late night party, even with a lot of drinking going, and she could do her share, didn't stop her from being up the following morning by seven or eight at the very latest. She read everything — all the periodicals, all the newspapers, all the gossip columns, and all the latest bestsellers. She remembered everything that passed through her eyes and ears and never forgot. An inveterate sports fan, she loved betting on the football games, the big tournaments, the horses, the gaming tables. Her limit, which she rarely approached, was always ten thousand. Like many women of her means and energy, she never turned down an opportunity to travel and saw much of the world many times.

The sportswoman at Joe and Joan Cullman's fishing camp in Canada, 1998.

It was a big personality with lots of laughter and lots of wit. Not unusually, it could also be a very willful personality, at times prone to the temptations of envy or self-centered interests that often seem to come with the territory of being bright, talented, rich and a woman in what was basically a man's world. She could have married again after Bill Green's death, but she preferred the independence. She preferred being able to make her own decisions financially. She preferred being able to pick up the check and share the wealth. Her large apartment was often home away from home to friends in from Europe or other parts of the country.

Last November she suddenly fell ill with a mysterious pain that was too much to bear. All kinds of tests discovered tumors. Whatever she was told, she chose to tell almost none of her myriad friends and acquaintances that she was suffering, and possibly very ill. The single picture of Judy in the red dress was taken at the last party she gave in her apartment last December. She'd given two Christmas parties last year: one for a couple of dozen friends that included dinner and then another for about two hundred fifty. The big party especially was vintage Judy. A wide array of New York turned out (as seen in NYSD 12/00) to meet and greet and see their hostess. Very few knew anything about what she was facing; and all her great fears remained covered by her smile and her laughter.

A couple of weeks later she started her treatments. The whole process was a terrifying one for her although few saw her experiencing it, as indeed many never knew, until her death, that she was ill. She chose instead to withdraw from the world. Phone calls were not returned, invitations were turned down without explanation.

Friends were confounded and concerned, but to no avail. Stories went around that she was very ill. The stories angered her. That, to her, suggested defeat. She was adamant. She was determined to "beat it." Her condition worsened over the following months. Then she found a doctor who gave her a special experimental treatment which had produced positive results for others. She took it, and by last summer it looked like she was making almost miraculous progress.

By August, she was convinced that she was on the road to recovery. For the first time in months she began to see certain friends for lunch or for dinner. Everyone, who knew of her battle, was amazed at her resilience. She bought a house in Bridgehampton. Then she went down to her friend Ann Downey's house in Palm Beach to rest and continue her treatments. She called me for the first time in months to tell me her good news. We made plans to see each other when she returned to New York after Labor Day.

8/2/2001

However, within days, her condition suddenly reversed itself. It was there in Palm Beach that she collapsed. She was brought back up to New York a couple of weeks ago, and checked into a hospital. A few days later she returned to her apartment. Despite the agony, she remained defiantly steadfast. And then on Thursday, she ran out of time; she left us.

Responding to an email I'd written to Barbara Goldsmith about Judy, she wrote back what so many of her friends must be thinking about her now:

Ever since I received your Email I've been thinking of that song:

I've seen fire and I've seen rain.
I've seen sunny days
I thought would never end
... but I always thought that I'd see you
one more time again.

I won't.
We won't.