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The Ritz Lady was, in many ways the quintessential New York Woman. She was sensible, arriving as she did by bus rather than taxi or hired limo. She enjoyed a style uniquely her own that did not bend to the whims of passing fashion during her 14 year run at the top, and had unbending personal standards of public conduct~ she never donned a walkman, never adapted a phony Borough Accent and said “fuhgedddaboutit” in an effort to sound streetwise. She maintained her finishing school brisk and contained (but graceful) stride in a world of break dancers and street mimes. She was democratic- putting in an appearance in Mayberry just as graciously as she did the glamorous world of That Girl. Her taste in music ran to pop, and she occasionally mingled with the Partridge Family or The Monkees but was just as comfortable with the mid 1960s Elvis-in-Hollywood genre. She was not adverse to being around children and every once in a while would infuse a Scooby-Doo episode with a glimpse of the world of adult fashions. She enjoyed game shows, usually before noon, and was never too busy to catch stay-at-home-mom oriented afternoon talk television back in the days before Oprah. She did not seem to be much of a sports fan and we do not recall her in the context of The Wide World of Sports or local televised events, but perhaps she would rather have skied in St. Moritz than have watched someone else do it on TV. Like 99% of New York women, under her well constructed, elegant, facade The Ritz Thrift Shop Model was essentially decent and polite~ did any other non-comic commercial spokesperson, then or ever, not only break the fourth wall to acknowledge the Voice of God Narrator but also take the time to thank him for a compliment?

Has there ever been a TV commercial model cum character more perfectly suited to her assigned role? She could easily have lunched at the Plaza. She would not have seemed out of place at St. Moritz. But, she could never have survived in the world of other TV commercials. Had she wandered into Whipple’s Market, we do not doubt for a second that she would not have slapped Mr. Whipple in the face and stormed out the moment she caught him spying on her through the toilet paper display rack. In the personal rights savvy 1980s she would probably have pressed charges and sued as well. Had her significant other treated her to a weekend at Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge, we do not doubt that she would have gotten no further than the lobby before hailing a cab back to the airport. And, had the Ritz Model deigned to enter Rosie’s Diner, and had Rosie the Diner Lady “accidentally“ spilled a cup of coffee, as was her wont, within ten yards of our Lady’s gently used but doubtlessly still expensive fur, we have no doubt that she, the Ritz Lady, would have been out the door LONG before Rosie produced two rolls of towels (her favorite, and “the other leading brand” ) to deal with the mess with her usual aplomb. The model, and the character, could exist only in the rarified world of West 57th Street, arrival by bus or no arrival by bus.

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