Duchin, Peter (Oelrichs) 1937-

views updated

DUCHIN, Peter (Oelrichs) 1937-

PERSONAL: Born July 28, 1937, in New York, NY; son of Eddy Duchin (a pianist) and Marjorie (Oelrichs) Duchin; married Cheray Zauderer, June 22, 1964 (divorced, 1982); married Brooke Hayward (an actress and writer), December 24, 1985; children: (first marriage) Jason Edwin, Courtnay Oelrichs, Colin Zauderer. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1958.

ADDRESSES: Office—Duchin Entertainment, 305 Madison Ave., Suite 1526, New York, NY 10165.

CAREER: Pianist qne orchestra leader. Founder of Duchin Entertainment, New York, NY. Served on various boards of directors, including those of Lincoln Center, the Ballet Theater Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, World Policy Institute, and Chamber Music Society. Film work includes The World of Henry Orient, 1964, Working Girl, 1988, and Jade, 1995. Performer on sound recordings, 1960s-70s; performer on The Fred Astaire Songbook (two videocassettes), WNET/Turner Entertainment, 1991. Military service: Served in U.S. Army.

WRITINGS:

(With Charles Michener) Ghost of a Chance (memoir), Random House (New York, NY), 1996.

(With John Morgan Wilson) Blue Moon, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Peter Duchin is a pianist and orchestra leader who has played for corporate functions, weddings, private parties, proms, charities, kings, and every president since John F. Kennedy. He limits his performances to just over one hundred a year, sometimes for bookings made years in advance, but in addition, Duchin books engagements for other musicians through his New York firm.

Duchin is the son of Marjorie Oelrichs and society bandleader and pianist Eddy Duchin. His socialite mother cared little that she was removed from the Social Register for marrying the musical-genius son of Jewish immigrant parents. Eddy Duchin was devastated when his wife died just days following the birth of their son, and he returned to touring, seeming to want to distance himself from the child whose birth was connected to the death of his beloved wife. Consequently, Peter was raised by his mother's close childhood friend, Marie, and her husband, W. Averell Harriman, who later became U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and governor of New York. He lived with his father for several years when he remarried, but when Duchin was thirteen, his father died of leukemia at age forty-two, and the boy returned to the Harrimans. The elder Duchin's life was filmed as The Eddy Duchin Story (1956), starring Tyrone Power in the title role.

Duchin's memoir, Ghost of a Chance, written with Charles Michener, was called "a humble and heart-warming memoir of a class act" by Booklist's Patricia Hassler. The Harrimans provided Duchin with every advantage. He played polo, attended the best boarding schools, and experienced the privileges of being in a family that was as close to nobility in America as was possible. As a child, he rode alongside Harriman, who would be astride one of the two horses given to him by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Duchin began to play piano at age six, and upon graduating from Yale, he spent a bohemian year in Paris, followed by time in the military. When Duchin returned to New York, he enjoyed a full social life until Marie explained to him the necessity of earning a living. He formed a band, and his career took off, partly because of his extensive connections, but mostly because he had inherited the musical ability of his talented father. His romantic interests included actresses Kim Novak and Ava Gardner. He could name among his male friends celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Jack Benny.

Duchin's first eighteen-year marriage was to heiress Cheray Zauderer. The couple's friends included Aristotle and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, who originally encouraged him to write his memoir. His second marriage was to Brooke Hayward (Haywire), daughter of Broadway actress Margaret Sullavan and Leland Hayward, producer of such hits as South Pacific and Call Me Madam. Duchin and Hayward had met two decades earlier, but subsequently both had married—he to Zauderer, and she to writer Michael Thomas (Green Monday), and then to actor Dennis Hopper. After they married in 1985, the couple set up housekeeping in Manhattan and Connecticut.

Georgia Jones-Davis wrote in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that Duchin "provides touching and vivid portraits of Eddy and Marjorie Duchin's glamorous, doomed lives; the penny-pinching 'Ave' Harriman and his tough but tender wife, Marie."

A Publishers Weekly contributor said that "the only bitter note" is detected in Duchin's references to Harriman's second wife, Pamela, who became U.S. ambassador to France, and "who he claims destroyed his close relationship with his 'second father.'"

"Ghost of a Chance does not have much to say about the author's career as a bandleader," wrote George W. S. Trow in the New York Times Book Review. "Peter Duchin is no egotist. This must be among the most self-effacing autobiographies written. … This is a book that is, at many moments, brave and stylish."

Blue Moon, Duchin's debut novel, is a mystery coauthored with Edgar Award-winning John Morgan Wilson. The novel features Philip Damon, a character Duchin acknowledges is based on himself. The story is set in 1960s San Francisco, where Philip, also a bandleader and the son of a famous bandleader, cavorts with such friends as Truman Capote, George Plimpton, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Kennedy, and Bobby Short. The late Herb Caen, legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist, is another in the cast of real-life people. Booklist's Barbara M. Bibel said that "readers who know San Francisco will enjoy decoding the cast, and those who don't will love the novel's fast pace."

Philip is still mourning the death of his wife, Diana, who was murdered two years earlier. When at Jackie's suggestion Philip plays for a charity event in the very hotel where he first met Diana, he spies her double dancing with a real estate tycoon. The lights go out, and when power is restored, the woman's partner is discovered to have an ice pick protruding from his chest. Although Philip is a suspect in the case, homicide detective Hercules Platt agrees to let him assist in the investigation.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that "while the authors supply a reasonably credible plot, the atmosphere of 1960s San Francisco they evoke, from Chinatown to Haight-Ashbury, will be the draw for most readers."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Duchin, Peter, Ghost of a Chance, Random House (New York, NY), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1996, Patricia Hassler, review of Ghost of a Chance, p. 1662; October 1, 2002, Barbara M. Bibel, review of Blue Moon, p. 303.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2002, review of Blue Moon, p. 1176.

Library Journal, June 1, 1996, Kate McCaffrey, review of Ghost of a Chance, p. 108; October 1, 2002, Rex E. Klett, review of Blue Moon, p. 132.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 4, 1996, Georgia Jones-Davis, review of Ghost of a Chance, p. 4.

New York Times, September 8, 1998, Charles Strum, review of Ghost of a Chance, p. B2.

New York Times Book Review, June 16, 1996, George W. S. Trow, review of Ghost of a Chance, p. 9.

People, April 14, 1986, Andrea Chambers, "The Combo's a Little Haywire, but Brooke Hayward and Bandleader Peter Duchin Play a Good Duet," p. 135; August 19, 1996, review of Ghost of a Chance, p. 57.

Publishers Weekly, May 6, 1996, review of Ghost of a Chance, p. 64; September 23, 2002, review of Blue Moon, p. 53.