Society: Open End

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Toward the end of October, Ceezee moves into the Guests' Manhattan apartment on Sutton Place (TIME. April 13) to take up her role as hostess and leader of fashion in this entertainment and fashion center of the world. For the past 14 years she has bought all her clothes at Mainbocher, with the exception of a dress or two she may pick up in Paris. Mainbocher, the classicist of simple lines and uncluttered elegance at stratospheric prices, and Ceezee were made for each other; her bright coloring and trim figure flatter his clothes, while their understated chic expresses Ceezee inside as well as outside.

"In New York I don't go in much for these little female lunches at the Colony and the Cote Basque," says Ceezee. "And I hate cocktail parties. We usually have people in or go out in the evening—to a dinner or a benefit or a ball. I'm not a great nightclubber, but of course I turn up at El Morocco from time to time. Last winter it was Le Club, I thought it was loads of fun."

Lady on Horseback. One of Ceezee's basic interests in life is riding. Every morning when the Guests are in Manhattan, she drives up to White Plains to take lessons from Coach Gordon Wright on the details of ringmanship—feet, hands, and placement for the jumps. From time to time throughout the year, the Guests spend a few days at Middleburg. Va.. where they have a small cottage on the estate of a Phiops cousin. There Ceezee and Jacqueline Kennedy have known each other on the hunting field for years (though Ceezee knew Jack Kennedy slightly when he was at Harvard, they have never moved in the same social circles).

After Christmas, the Guests usually spend two or three months in Palm Beach. This is Winston's legal residence; his family arrived there soon after World War 1. Though they have given much of their land holdings to the city for parks and the like, the family still owns sizable quantities of Florida real estate, which they bought when Worth Avenue was pure boondocks. But Ceezee and Winston live simply in Palm Beach in a four-room apartment over a converted garage, occasionally entertaining small groups of friends in restaurants. Between times, when the mood seizes them, they take off for Paris, London or, as they did last winter, Egypt. There a bedazzled pasha presented Ceezee with a greyhound, which she gratefully accepted as a welcome addition to her traveling retinue of dogs (two Labrador retrievers, a miniature schnauzer, a toy poodle).

Plenty of Gasoline. It is a life Ceezee's mother could scarcely have envisioned for any daughter of hers when she made her own debut at 17—into show business. The daughter of a New York voice coach. Vivian Wessell began with a small part in a Lehar operetta, and ended her theatrical career some five years later after she met wealthy, well-born Boston Clubman Alexander Lynde Cochrane.

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