Betsy Bloomingdale, the long-reigning queen of Los Angeles society, died Tuesday at 93, from complications of a heart condition, at her home in Holmby Hills. A tall, striking figure with a flair for fashion, decorating, and entertaining, she was the embodiment of the phrase “a class act.” Her effervescent personality and seemingly Pollyanna approach to life belied an iron determination and a strong perfectionist streak.
Frequently referred to in the press as “the First Friend” because of her close friendship with Nancy Reagan, which went back to the late 1950s, she was a major influence on the First Lady’s style. Her late husband, Alfred Bloomingdale, an heir to the New York department-store fortune and co-founder of the Diners Club, was among the group of tycoons known as the “Kitchen Cabinet,” who supported Ronald Reagan’s political career from his first campaign for the California governorship in 1966.
Over the years, the Bloomingdales hosted the Reagans and their inner circle (including Walter and Lee Annenberg, Justin and Jane Dart, and Earle and Marion Jorgensen) in their stately Billy Haines-designed house on Delfern Drive off Sunset Boulevard. When I interviewed her in 1998 for this magazine, she recalled a dinner she gave for the First Couple in 1985: “Ronnie told funny stories, and some not so funny, about Iran and Iraq, for example.”
Like many great hostesses of her era, Betsy kept notebooks meticulously recording the guest lists, seating arrangements, table settings, menus, wines, flowers, and her outfits so that guests would never dine on the same dishes or see her in the same Galanos, Dior, Trigere, or Carolina Herrera on the next occasion. Her signature first course was caviar and smoked salmon in an half and avocado, topped with a dab of crème fraîche. The centerpieces of roses and dahlias usually came from her cutting garden, which she spent many hours cultivating. Coffee and cordials were served in the expansive living room, where a forest of white orchids in Chinese pots graced the baby grand piano.
She was born Betty Lee Newling on August 2, 1922, in Los Angeles to Australian émigré parents Vera and Dr. Russell Lee Newling—her father was a Harvard-educated orthodontist. An only child, Betsy attended the exclusive Marlborough School in Hanco*ck Park; shortly after graduating, she was a bridesmaid at Gloria Vanderbilt’s first wedding, to Hollywood agent Pat di Cicco. In 1946, Betsy married Alfred Bloomingdale, who had come out West to produce movies, and in short order she converted him, as he often said, “from a Jewish Democrat to a Catholic Republican.” They had three children: Geoffrey, Lisa Bell, and Robert. Betsy was first named to the International Best-Dressed List in 1964; she was elevated to its Hall of Fame in 1970. When Alfred died of cancer in 1982, amidst a tabloid scandal after his mistress went public, it was Betsy’s faith that sustained her. As one friend remembers, “She held her head high and went to Mass every morning.” An active philanthropist, her major causes were The Colleagues, which funded homes for unwed mothers; the new Los Angeles Cathedral; and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
I first met Betsy in the 1970s in New York, at the April in Paris Ball, an annual gala in support of Franco-American relations. I was there with my then-boss, Andy Warhol, who, when introduced to Betsy, blurted out, “I didn’t think there really was a Betsy Bloomingdale.” Her response: “I didn’t think there really was an Andy Warhol.” We invited her to lunch at the Factory, and she turned up the next day with Jerry Zipkin, the Park Avenue bachelor whom was the great pal of hers and Nancy Reagan’s. From then on, whenever I was in Los Angeles I would check in with Betsy and she would ask me to lunch or dinner; other guests might include Prince Rupert Lowenstein, Connie Wald, Joan Collins, Merv Griffin, Lynn Wyatt, Wendy Stark, and LACMA director Michael Govan with his wife, Katherine Ross. After leaving the White House, Nancy Reagan, who didn’t entertain at her house in Bel-Air due to the former president’s failing health, was a constant presence.
For the past two decades, I was always delighted to find myself seated next to Betsy at Vanity Fair’s Oscar dinner. In recent years, she was accompanied by her constant companion, the writer Burt Boyar. I remember her telling me at one party that she had taken two of her grandchildren, then in their early 20s, to a Richard Prince opening at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. “I told them, ‘It doesn’t matter if you understand the art,’” she said. “’You have to see it because it’s part of your time.’”
