“Within a year or so, I worked on a cover story, and I was interviewing Marvin Traub, C.E.O. of Bloomingdale’s. I was just this wet-behind-the-ears kid and Beverly gave me my start.”
“The men kind of ran the show back then,” she added. “When Beverly took over Interiors, she saw herself as a woman making her mark in the industry, and I think that was important to her.”
Beverly Anne Russell was born on Dec. 9, 1934, in London. Her father, Leslie, was a department store executive. Her mother, Maude (James) Russell, was a homemaker. As a girl, Beverly read voraciously and became smitten with the written word; she turned in a book-length homework assignment when she was 14.
Her first job in journalism was at The Manchester Evening News, and as she chased stories around town, she met a fellow journalist, Roger Beardwood, whom she married. When he was hired at a magazine in New York, she moved there with him and their young son, soon landing a job at Condé Nast.
In addition to her son, she is survived by a sister, Gillian Redfern Rones. Her marriage to Mr. Beardwood ended in divorce, as did her marriage to the photographer Jon Naar.
In her 70s, Ms. Russell moved to Mexico, immersing herself in San Miguel de Allende’s artistic expatriate community for six years. She also focused on personal projects, releasing self-published books with spiritual themes like “Lines on Aging” and “Crossings: Words of Comfort.” She later lived in the British Home, a retirement community in Sierra Madre, Calif., geared toward Anglophiles and people from Britain.
About a year ago, Ms. Russell learned that she had a terminal heart condition, and the finality of her diagnosis — as well as the loss of autonomy that she felt came with it — profoundly disturbed her. She recently moved to New Mexico, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, and she underwent the procedure this month.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
