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 Hot summer days in New York
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| Early evening light in the West Village. |
Candles, both ends burning. Monday’s piece and obit on the “first supermodel” Dorian Leigh evoked a lot of comments from readers including several who knew her and knew her sister, Suzy Parker.
The picture that emerges was one of a woman who was independent, self-supporting but nevertheless at the effect of being desirous and desirable at the same time.
By the early 1950s, she was the object of desire of Charles Revson, the tycoon who created Revlon – then the greatest cosmetics company in the world. Revson fell madly in love with her – or at least in lust for her – for her image that is. He introduced himself by sending her an elaborate display of orchids. When she popped his balloon by telling him that his gift was the “most vulgar thing” she had ever seen, he could only respond: “Well, I didn’t want to send you the money.”
However, he didn’t care. He was a rough number himself and prevailed, winning his point; she became his model for his “Fire and Ice campaign,” and his lover. Among the gifts he showered on her was a magnificent diamond ring. After the purchase, they emerged from Cartier in the midst of a quarrel. Right there, on the street, she took off the ring and flung it into the sewer drain. Unfazed, even turned on, the tycoon bought her another, larger diamond.
Unlike so many models today, she started her career late – at 27. She did not go with rock stars or entertainers but with Heads of State and business tycoons, and there were lots of them; lots. The famous Richard Avedon photograph of her looking at herself in the bathroom mirror was taken in the flat of Mme. Helena Rubenstein in her Paris apartment on the Ile St. Louis.
Although she brought her sister Suzy Parker into the fold and introduced her to Eileen Ford, the two were estranged for mch of their later years. Suzy Parker lived in Santa Barbara, with her husband Bradford Dillman, having retired from modeling and film-work and bringing up her family.
A reader who was a friend of Parker’s wrote yesterday: Suzy was a good friend for many years but one never spoke of Dorian with her. Have no idea of what started the feud but it was deep. Suzy was one of the funniest women I've ever knew. She had a fast wit and could also tell the dirtiest jokes and make them quite passable! It always amazed me she was perfectly content to be a stay-at- home mother baking bread. She was great cook. She and Brad Dillman lived such a normal life raising their children. He looked upon his movie career as sort of going to an office. His family and his golf games at Valley Club (THE club here that generally doesn't allow movie stars although Dick Widmark was another exception -- and when he's in SB Sean Connery plays there) were what mattered to Brad. And Suzy certainly didn't act like a woman who was at one time considered most beautiful woman in world. She put on a great deal of weight but that face was still so beautiful. She was a no nonsense dame. But a wonderful one to have as a friend.
Whatever caused the rift, it was never mended. When Suzy Parker died in 2005 at 69, Dorian, then 86 and living on the East Coast, did not attend the funeral.
When she gave up her modeling career she decided to open an agency in Paris that soon became a great success despite French laws about “hiring” women for modeling. Charles Revson backed her in the agency. Despite its initial success, its fortunes fell by the wayside and she decided to open a restaurant. She had previously studied at Cordon Bleu. She had a very unmodel-like appetite and decided to open her own restaurant – Chez Dorian – outside Paris.
A friend who dined there recalled: She had this sad place twenty minutes out of Paris where she cooked and had a small menu, and you had to sit on these horrible chairs. It was a long walk to the bathroom which was an outhouse. But once in awhile, her gang of friends would go there on a Sunday to support her. It was already known among friends, that she was really penniless.
When she came back to New York, she rented an apartment on the Upper West Side. The Upper West Side in those days was just beginning its massive gentrification. It was a great rent for those looking for good sized apartments in solidly constructed buildings at a price – often a very cheap price because the Upper West Side was not chic. Revson paid for the apartment and promised to take care of her for the rest of her life. He didn't. He died in 1975 and that was the end of that.
She decided she’d become a chef. She went to work for a restaurant and lasted a week. Undaunted, the devil-may-care personality decided to go into the catering business. She also decided to share her wealth of knowledge by writing books about pancakes, fritters, crullers and doughnuts.
Her daughter lived with her in the apartment. Revson died and support ended. Her daughter, a drug abuser, committed suicide in that apartment. It was the second of her children who committed suicide – the first being her son by Alfonso de Portago who jumped from a window in 1977.
Another friend who visited her at her New York apartment recalls She had a larger – than – life devil may care personality – but her living circumstances were all too depressing, and worse, she got to be a bit crazy by then, and was the size of a tank. She thought of herself in the catering business, and moved up to Pound Ridge in Westchester where she had a small business catering dinners.
In 1980, she published her memoir, The Girl Who Had Everything. The book was not a success but it did reveal a woman who lived strong and hard and was full of resilience, getting back up and going back into the fray.
After the death of her Portago son, she became a born-again Christian. “Now I’m not living for myself, I’m living for Christ. I know it sounds like something out of Billy Graham but I am trying. This involves every decision and every impulsive.”
She died in a care-giving facility, of Alzheimers, three months after her 91st birthday. |
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