Barbara “Babe” Cushing was born on July 5, 1915, in Boston, Massachusetts. This prominent American socialite was the daughter of famous neurosurgeon, Dr. Harvey Cushing, who served as Professor of Surgery at John Hopkins, Harvard and Yale Universities. Her mother trained her properly about how to travel in the right circles and meet the right people and Babe was blessed with grace, style and beauty. She was the youngest of three daughters, and her two sisters married according to their mother’s wishes. Mary (Minnie) Cushing married an Astor, Vincent to be exact, and her other sister, Betsey, was married first to James Roosevelt and then to John Hay Whitney. (Not bad, eh?)
Babe was working as a fashion editor for Vogue Magazine in New York City when she met and married Standard Oil heir, Stanley Mortimer, Jr. in 1940. The couple had two children and divorced a few years later. To some of her critics, Babe pursued social status at both the expense and neglect of her children.
In 1947 she married again, this time to the extremely wealthy and influential William S. Paley, the founder of CBS. The couple entertained lavishly and Babe became the toast of New York high society. A fashion plate of elegance, she was often on the “ten best-dressed women list”. She spent fortunes on her outfits and regularly bought haute couture ensembles from the major fashion houses of the world. She became friends with Truman Capote but later dropped him when excepts of one of his works revealed that he had betrayed the confidences of many of New York’s elite.
Babe Paley died of lung cancer at the age of 63 on July 6, 1978 and is buried in a church cemetery in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. When her husband died in 1990, he was buried next to her.
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