New Jersey Housewife Who Became a Top Fashion Model, Mary O’Brien, Dies at 96

In the spirit in which the model and fashion executive Mary O’Brien lived her life, a scrapbook highlighting her career was displayed at her wake on Friday and was dubbed “The Mary Show.”

O’Brien, 96, died in her Englewood Cliffs, N.J. home on Nov. 8, after a brief illness, according to her daughter Jody. The longtime model and Seventh Avenue showroom executive’s funeral was held on Nov. 16 at St. Cecilia Church in Englewood, N.J.

Born Mary Buonarota in Hoboken, the eldest of three siblings in a robust first-generation Italian American family, O’Brien carried on her parents’ quest for the American dream with confidence and determination. Her father worked for Ford Motors painting cars, and her mother worked in local factories including ones for Hostess and Lipton Tea. What sparked the fair-haired Mary O’Brien’s “love of attention” was marching down Washington Avenue in her hometown as a 14-year-old drum majorette wearing a white and gold satin uniform. “She had an audience for her appearance. That set her off,” her daughter said.

During her modeling career, O’Brien routinely appeared in advertisements, in showrooms and on TV shows occasionally like NBC’s “Today” show and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” Fashion was a different game in the 1950s, when her job required modeling in a fashion show at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for an audience of 1,000 people. There were also trips to Cuba, the Bahamas and other far-off locales. Distinguished designers like Adolfo thanked her in typewritten notes that were signed off with “Love.” She earned such praise often working 14 to 16 hours a day with designers and routinely stood for hours on end while the collections were being developed four times a year. For retail shows and couture shows, she earned $40 an hour in 1964. The willowy model kept at it after marrying and having two children. “You get used to the attention and glamour and then one day it isn’t there. Many of the girls seems lost after they leave the business,” O’Brien said in a 1963 interview with The Record.

At the age of 48, she switched tracks to the sales side of the fashion industry, traveling throughout the U.S. for designer trunk shows and to fashion-focused cities like Paris, London, Milan and Tokyo. She also periodically judged beauty pageants. A natural connector who knew what was flattering and what would sell, O’Brien easily edged into sales.

Along the way, she crossed paths with the comedian Groucho Marx, John F. Kennedy and surrealist Salvador Dali and assisted with fittings for former first daughter Lynda Bird Johnson Robb and the late first lady Rosalynn Carter. Despite not being “the brainiest woman in the world, when it came to clothing, what looks good and how to convince people, she was a natural. She would just put people at ease. She was just a natural salesperson,” her daughter said.

O’Brien also didn’t back down. She would tell Kasper, “who was a difficult guy as most designers are, ‘This isn’t going to work. It isn’t going to sell.’ He would say, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mary.’ But she was right,” Jody O’Brien said. “She went on to work for a number of different houses.”

Her modeling career stemmed from someone telling O’Brien that “she had the look,” her daughter said. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the Barbizon School of Modeling in New York City for a stint. O’Brien was later discovered while modeling at Bergdorf Goodman — walking throughout the Fifth Avenue store’s departments in different styles — as was the norm then. The blond-haired model then signed a contract with the Mannequin Agency and was known as “the Ice Queen” on the runway, due to her cool demeanor, sleek style and platinum coif. She didn’t want to smile for the cameras, due to a gap in her teeth, although that signature became fashionable when Lauren Hutton arrived on the scene, Jody O’Brien said.

Working with an array of designers including Adolfo, Bill Blass, Yves Saint Laurent, Adele Simpson, Kasper and George Samen among others, O’Brien loved the selling aspect of her job. “She would really work it — opening a coat or twirling in a dress. She took her time,” her daughter said.

Designer Stan Herman said Tuesday that O’Brien “represented that era beautifully and reminds me of every model of her time. She was a great showroom model.”

Like Adolfo, Samen also became a close friend who once said that her intentionally drawn-out poses during an awards ceremony at The Metropolitan Museum of Art was unforgettable and had moved him to tears. Her appearance was not something that she ever took cavalierly. Despite being rail-thin, O’Brien would pull on two girdles and a corset, and get completely dressed up, complete with heels, gloves and a hat, just to board the bus to commute into Manhattan’s Port Authority from New Jersey and then take the short walk to 530 Seventh Avenue, where many big-name designers were based. “Then she would spend the rest of the day half-naked, because she was largely a fit model. Nowadays models go in sneakers. In those days, you went in full regalia,” Jody O’Brien said.

Even later in life, when she adopted more minimal makeup than she had worn in her modeling days, she maintained her style and black-and-white wardrobe. However, keeping up her blondeness was another matter when O’Brien outlived her hair colorist and stylist. Before she passed away, “her only instruction was, ‘Make me look good,” her daughter said with a laugh.

Staying slim with a 23-inch waist was no easy feat. Her daughter said, “It was tough. She was the only thin one in our Italian family and my father. He was a clotheshorse too. The rest of us were typically stocky including me and my brother. How did she stay so thin? She would try not to eat and also modeling was a lot of hard work and required standing all day.”

She also collaborated with some of the aforementioned designers, as well as Ben Zuckerman and Hannah Troy. Her ties with Adolfo were so tight that she once joined him for an appearance on the game show “What’s My Line?” The designer marked her retirement in 1976 by running a full-page ad featuring O’Brien in WWD. With her platinum hair, Roman nose and slender physique, O’Brien belied her age of 48. While Maye Musk, Carmen Delle’Orrefice and other white-haired models are enjoying extended careers, that was not the norm in the mid-1970s.

Early on in her career she met her best friend and fellow model Rosalind Ames Warren and they remained lifelong friends. One job that didn’t work out was in Geoffrey Beene’s store. “She was a great saleswoman, but she couldn’t master the cash register. It didn’t last long,” her daughter said with a laugh.

Known for her warmth, elegance and relatability, O’Brien married her husband Richard in 1948, after setting her sights on him as a teenager. “She said he would walk around with his hands in his back pockets with bright blue eyes and thick brown hair. She found out who his family was. She knew when he would be walking down the street and she would scramble to the other side of the street to pass him. They were very happily married all the way through,” Jody O’Brien said.

One point of differentiation was when the ex-Marine suggested relocating to Seattle or Texas so that he could continue his engineering career. “My mother said, ‘No way — my career is starting now.’ So he took a great job at a bank, Manufacturers Hanover, and stayed there for most of his life,” Jody O’Brien said.

Predeceased by her husband, two brothers Frank and Morris and son Jeffrey, O’Brien is survived by her daughter.