NEW YORK — Dressed in a modest black suit, Caitlin Buckley may not think she has much in common with her famously over-the-top grandmother, the late Patricia Buckley. And yet, at Monday’s memorial service for her at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the young blonde behaved very much like her “Nan.”
The only female speaker amongst an esteemed group of men, Buckley, 19, gave an irreverent and loving speech that revealed a more intimate side to life with the beloved socialite. Their relationship, she said, was “unusual and dramatic, with high fashion thrown into the mix. [Nan] was more Auntie Mame than someone in an apron, teaching you to knit and bake pies.”
Indeed, Caitlin Buckley’s fondest memories revolve around her grandmother schooling her on proper etiquette. “Never, ever butter your bread in mid-air,” Pat Buckley once scolded her then four-year-old granddaughter, who had deigned to do just that. “Only people who are deeply common do that.”
A few years later, grandmother taught her young charge how to use a finger bowl. “As you can imagine, that was really useful information during my first year of college,” the University of Charleston student said Monday. And finally, around age eight, her grandmother instructed her in “the art of air kissing,” Buckley said. “She said this would be essential later in life when I moved to New York.” Nevertheless, Buckley continued, “I remain convinced to this day that if given the opportunity, she could have run a country.”
If that were the case, Pat Buckley could have counted guests including Annette de la Renta, Mike Wallace, Tina Brown, Tom Wolfe, Charlie Rose, Lynn Wyatt, Mica Ertegun and Anne Slater among her loyal subjects. “Those great entrances, the unforgettable voice, her wit, those bedroom eyes,” began Reinaldo Herrera, who remembered reciting a favorite English poem with Buckley at her Stamford, Conn., estate (when they should have been dressing for dinner, he admitted).
Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state, recalled how he felt Buckley adored him and yet carried little respect for his political position. “She addressed me as ‘My Hero,'” he said proudly. “But she would not hesitate to stop me mid-paragraph to announce I was making no sense at all.”
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“She was the ultimate straight-shooter,” agreed Frederick Melhado. “She was not bashful. She wanted us to be successful, happy, amused and, of course, well-fed.”
When Melhado visited Pat Buckley shortly before her death last month, he told her, “I wish I had a magic wand.” She replied, “I know, Freddy, but we even run out of magic wands eventually.”