The strange happiness of the ideal woman Babe Paley, who became the prototype of the heroine "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is believed that ideal women do not exist. One lacks beauty, the other lacks secular manners. However, seekers of the Lady of Perfection need not despair. There was definitely one such woman. In the first half of the 20th century, she drove the whole of New York crazy. Babe Paley became one of the prototypes for the protagonist of the book and film "Breakfast at Tiffany's". She has been at the top of the ranking of "America's most well-dressed women" fourteen times, and Marilyn Monroe admitted that she "feels like a chalda" compared to her.

Lady Perfection

Barbara Cushing was born in Boston in 1915. Her father was a famous neurosurgeon, professor at Harvard and Yale Universities. Therefore, the girl received an excellent upbringing and education. She started her career with a chic start - the position of editor of New York "Vogue" allowed her to enter the world of fashion and immediately take a certain place in society. And in her personal life, everything turned out to be for her benefit. The first husband was the heir to oil tycoon Stanley Mortimer, and the second was William S. Paley, president of the CBS radio network. Both her spouses were fabulously rich, so Barbara always had the opportunity to become a style icon.

However, many women, having financial resources, show only bad taste to the whole world. Barbara Paley has become a favorite of the public for a reason. Her incredible sense of proportion and innate grace made it possible to wear fabulously expensive things as if they were nothing compared to her personality. Her style was described by fashion magazines as "a laid-back chic that can only be achieved with serious effort", it was restrained and sophisticated at the same time. At the same time, Paley never followed fashion trends if they did not suit her. So, for example, having started to turn gray, she flatly refused to dye her hair and sported natural gray hair.

The men admired this socialite. They began to affectionately call her Babe, and women tried to copy. For example, the case with the scarf became a textbook example. One day, going to lunch, Babe took it from her neck and elegantly tied it around her purse so that it would not get in the way. Just a few days later, New York was seized by the fashion for such a detail of the toilet. We must pay tribute to this woman, she was constantly in public, in the spotlight, and on the front pages of fashion publications. Barbara took her fame calmly, taking it for granted. It felt like she was just … working perfectly.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

The writer Truman Capote, the author of the famous film, was actually not very happy with the way his main character was realized in the cinema. He adored Audrey Hepburn and always paid tribute to her incredible beauty and talent, but she was not a socialite in the full sense of the word at heart. Capote drew inspiration for the book from salons in New York. He was admired by secular divas who managed to combine the incongruous - pretentiousness and simplicity, refined manners and common sense. So in many ways he wrote Holly Golightly from them. But the main muse of his heart was always Babe Paley. Probably, the relationship with this woman was for the gay writer the character of purely creative admiration, but he, without hiding, shouted to the whole world about his feelings:

Hardest job

Truman Capote said that. This also applied to her family. It seems that this woman has set herself the goal of showing the whole world that there are ladies who can serve as an example in everything. And she was the ideal wife for a man who, having brought her fabulous wealth, unfortunately, quickly lost interest in her and could flirt with her friends.

Babe never made scandals in public, but she always tried to please her husband in everything. Memories of acquaintances have been preserved that she even constantly wrote down his opinion on certain issues - gastronomy, books or TV shows, the ideal wife always wanted to remember what her husband liked. She was also usually in no hurry to express her opinion, if it did not coincide with the thoughts of William Paley.

Of course, for a woman with a status in society, excellent work and fame, this state of affairs could not be the ultimate dream for personal happiness. However, Barbara was not going to change anything in her destiny. According to the same Truman Capote, she even thought about suicide several times, but ultimately resigned herself and decided that just a family would be her one more job, and until the end of her life she continued to play the role of an ideal wife.

In 1974, doctors sentenced Barbara Paley - she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Probably, the long-term habit of constant smoking affected. In this situation, the woman acted as always - reasonably and with style. Firstly, she made a similar plan for her own funeral and commemoration, even indicating the exact menu, and secondly, she prepared a memory of herself for loved ones. She sorted her entire collection of jewelry, including jewelry from Cartier, Tiffany and Van Cleef into small bags, wrapped each in gift paper and inscribed the name of the person to whom she bequeathed it. Experts estimated her collection at about a million dollars, so these were truly royal gifts. One of the brightest women of the 20th century died in 1978.