The above photo smacks of so much of what wealth and celebrity used to look like: someone smiling, bejeweled, furred, and looking gorgeous with their clothes on with male eye candy on their arm.
Ms. Pat Montandon didn't have to pose with her bra and panties on covered with an open coat to gain attention to wind up on a TMZ segment, or a New York Post Page 6 spread of babes with their tits and asses hanging out. This was someone who looked every part of the word elegant.
And the NYT obituary writer, Penelope Green, who gives Ms. Montandon a 6-column, 19-gun sendoff with photos that nearly covers a full inside page, seems to be at her best when her subject has made the rounds of galas and fund raisers and sat in those distinctive chairs with the finial knot at the tops of each back that all those affairs have.
I don't know how obits get assigned at the NYT. I detect some are written by reporters who have been covering the subjects' lifetime endeavors, say classical music, or dance, but for the most part they seem to be randomly assigned. Maybe.
I once heard that in the Manhattan DA's office there is a wheel that is spun to see you will be the next prosecutor on the next incoming case. Somehow, I just don't see a wheel being spun at the NYT.
Obits can be of the pre-written kind, obits that have been sketched out with all the salient details of the person's life, waiting to be released into the world when the subject passes away, with the few additions that might be necessary to bring it fully up-to-date.
Or, obits can be written on deadline, assigned and expected to be completed for the next edition. I have no way of knowing which kind Pat Montandon's obit is, but if it's one on deadline, then Penelope Green should be eligible for an obit Pulitzer, if one exists. (I don't think there is one, but there's always room to expand the categories.)
Ms. Green takes us on a near cradle to grave breathless account of Ms. Montandon's life that makes me wish I had met her, or at least had my picture taken with her. That of course would mean I would have been invited to one of the many galas and fund raisers she appeared at, or chaired. That would be moving on up
The print headline for Ms. Montandon goes: Pat Montandon, Who Focused on Partying, Then Peace, Dies at 96. The online headline goes: Pat Montandon, Socialite Who Sought Publicity, Then World Peace, Dies at 96.
Talk about a hard scrabble childhood. Ms. Montandon was the seventh of eight children of "itinerant evangelical preachers whose tent revival ministry took the family throughout West Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. During childhood she picked cotton for pennies. At 19, she survived heart surgery." Talk about material for Ms. Montandon's memoirs. And of course there's more.
There were men, Numerous men that are described as being part of a chaste summer courtship with Frank Sinatra, [Frank, chaste?] a 12-year marriage with an abusive rancher, a six-month marriage to a gay man, and an improbable marriage to Melvin Belli, the lawyer who defended Jack Ruby, in a Shinto Temple in Tokyo that was voided after being declared "not legally binding." Her last husband was one who made his fortune in real estate and wineries. She was married to James Borton for 12 years.
The trail of hookups that it took to get to her divorce from Mr. Borton are a dizzying tale of musical matrimony that should be a mini-series. Ms. Green has it all down pat. (If all the names are arranged just so, they likely adhere to the Six Degrees of Separation leading back to Kevin Bacon.)
Ms. Montandon was a west Coast person, having a radio show and a gossip column in the San Francisco Examiner. The legendary, acerbic columnist for the Examiner, Herb Caen, constantly poked jabs at Ms. Montandon, calling her Pushy Galore, and the Dumb Bombshell. He called Ms. Montandon's short marriage to Mr. Belli, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo." You get the picture of the animosity.
To those who may not get the jab at being called Pushy Galore, you have to have seen the James Bond, 1964 movie Goldfinger, where James meets a female in airplane management who owns a fleet of small planes all piloted by young women. Honor Blackman, a British actress, plays Pussy Galore, (I kid you not.) an attractive, substantially well-figured woman who James has a wrestling match with in a barn. You haven't heard "pussy" sound the way it does until you hear it said with Sean Connery's Scottish accent.
Herb Caen was known for holding up two fingers in a symbol of V, but said it meant vodka. He lasted a long time, and I'm sure there were those who weren't unhappy about his demise in 1997.
Ms. Montandon wrote her memoirs after her son, her only child, apparently wrote a somewhat "tell-all" that attracted a lot of attention from those who follow those things, the memoir first being serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle and The New Yorker to rave reviews. Definite cred there.
Pat wrote her own memoir after, but remained on good terms with her son, who some might have assumed threw Mom under the bus.
Live long enough, and you get the last word over those who ridiculed you. When she was being dumped by John Borton for a much younger woman, the columnist Herb Caen "did a forensic" reporting on the divorce filing, holding up to the light the requested $57,000 a month requested in the settlement that lead the National Enquirer. to call her "The Most Expensive Wife." [More than Liz Taylor?]
But when Herb was getting a divorce, Ms. Montandon listed his assets in her column: a family home, a '69 Mercedes and a '77 Honda Civic. She wrote: "Life ain't easy honey, ask one who knows."
No word if she attended his funeral.
Note:
Other links to blog postings about obituaries Ms. Green has written lately.
https://onofframp.blogspot.com/2025/11/no-detail-escapes-obituary-writer.html
https://onofframp.blogspot.com/2025/07/jane-stanton-hitchcock.htmlhttps://onofframp.blogspot.com/2025/04/reinaldo-herrera.html
http://www,onofframp.blogspot.com
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