Ironically, Martha Mitchell — wife of President Nixon's infamous attorney general, John Mitchell — posed for De Ruth inside the Watergate Building during the height of her fame. "She had a certain peasant charm — a charm of her own," he recalls.
A man who craves variety, De Ruth has for many years spent his summers at a studio in Massachusetts. This past summer he began to teach painting in New Mexico — something he has wanted to try for a long time. A passionate skier, he travels to Austria each winter to pursue the sport that he learned as a child, then gave up until his mid-40s.
His other after-work activities? "I love to be in the company of women," says the artist with a radiant smile, adding that he prefers their company when he's not painting them.
The East Side, according to the artist, is "a city in itself. There's a sterility over there, at least for me. I just can't see myself without this mixture that the West Side is." De Ruth has been going to the same Chinese laundry for 28 years — Jack's on Columbus Avenue. Another business he has patronized all that time is Schneider's Art Supplies at 75th Street and Columbus.
As the interview comes to a close, I ask De Ruth what advice he would give to an aspiring young artist. "Never be discouraged by anyone or anything," he says. Then, to balance his remarks, he relates an anecdote about an art student who asked Degas what he could do to help the world of art. Replied Degas: "Stop painting."
********
WESTSIDER MIGNON DUNN
The Met's super mezzo
3-8-80
Don't look for opera posters, photographs or reviews on the walls of Mignon Dunn's Westside apartment. The Tennessee-born Metropolitan Opera star, one of the world's most sought-after mezzo-sopranos since the early 1970s, prefers to keep her two lives separate. She has no scrapbooks and saves no clippings. "I look forward to what I'm doing tomorrow," she explains.
"I don't like those stand-up-and-sing roles. I loves to play wicked women. But you have to make them just as human as possible," she continues, her gold jewelry jingling as she settles onto the sofa. Tall and attractive, with large, expressive features, Miss Dunn is hospitality personified as she talks about her life and career over a glass of wine.