Fashion legend Oleg Cassini, 92
Posted: Sunday, March 19th, 2006 12:29 amOleg Cassini, 92, the dapper descendant of Russian aristocrats who married a movie star, designed clothes for a first lady and was the first to license his name to products from perfume to luggage, died March 17 at a hospital on New York’s Long Island. His third wife, Marianne, said the designer suffered a broken blood vessel in his head.
Mr. Cassini was best known as Jacqueline Kennedy’s couturier, creating 300 elegant outfits from simple A-line dresses to her iconic pillbox hats. Her Inauguration Day outfit, a pillbox hat and a fawn-colored wool coat with a sable collar over a matching wool dress, dazzled women around the globe, who rushed to find copies. …
Mr. Cassini designed with the panache of Hollywood, where he worked in his early years outfitting such stars as Betty Grable, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. The small, debonair playboy, whose Old World manners, pencil-thin mustache and athletic prowess charmed the ladies, had many romances with famous actresses — Anita Ekberg, Linda Evans, Jill St. John — and dozens of models. Others he simply named “Monday” or “Tuesday,” referring to the days of the week when he wooed them.
He was married four times, first to cough-syrup heiress Merry Fahrney and twice to Hollywood star Gene Tierney, with whom he had two children. After his third divorce, he was engaged to Grace Kelly, until she dumped him to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco. … Read full obituary
