Photo: 1995 Cadillac hearse for sale on EBay.

Queen of the Dead – dateline August 15, 2011

• I mentioned recently that I worked in advertising in the 1980s—well, I found out that the Don Draper to my Peggy Olsen died on August 7. Bernard Cooper—who was 84—was founder and president of Cove, Cooper, Lewis, one of those small, workhorse New York advertising agencies that don’t get TV shows made about them. Bernie was a great boss, and what might be called a firecracker. Bursting with energy—sometimes to the dismay of us Peggies—he fought in the Navy in World War II, ran 13 New York marathons (starting in his fifties), helped form the New York Road Runners Foundation, and in a way got Yours Truly started on a writing career. When I say I was a Peggy Olsen at CCL, I am not kidding: I was a bright-eyed 20-something secretary and Bernie spotted my way with words and let me write copy (yes, to the fury of the older male copy staff, just like on Mad Men). Those Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous ads in TV Guide? Mine! So thanks, Bernie, and bon voyage.

• “The Egyptian Marilyn Monroe,” Hind Rostom, died on August 8 in Cairo; she was 82. The blonde bombshell starred in dozens of films before retiring in the late 1970s; most remarkably, she refused to publish her memoirs or allow any films or TV shows to be made about her. “I realized in recent years, I made the right decision at the right time,” she told an Egyptian newspaper, “especially when I learned that artists of my generation suffer in the studios of the new stars.” She thoroughly enjoyed her retirement: “I wasfreed from all restrictions and my life became normal; I met with my friends and I spent the most beautiful times of my life.”

• Charles L. Gittens, 82, the first black Secret Service agent, died on July 27. His entrance exam was alternately funny and horrifying: the person evaluating him, in Atlanta, claimed he was “speaking incoherently”—due to Gittens’ heavy Boston accent. He was a founding member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and was a member of the Justice Department’s Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations. But perhaps the most memorable event he attended was on May 19, 1962—Gittings stood right by President Kennedy as Marilyn Monroe serenaded him at Madison Square Garden.

• Another war hero gone: the glamorous Nancy Wake (who died at 98 on August 7) was a New Zealander living in Paris when WWII broke out. Through the Occupation, she escorted escapees into Spain, ran a safe house in Nevache, was a courier for the French Resistance and, according to the Washington Post, “was trained by the British to kill with her bare hands (she delivered a fatal karate chop to a sentry at an arms factory) . . . traveled nowhere without her Chanel lipstick, face cream and a favorite red satin cushion.” It’s just a shame Wake didn’t use her connections to track down that Nazi whore Coco Chanel during the Occupation and deliver a fatal karate chop where it would have done some good.

—Eve Golden