Shermane Billingsley was barely 2 years old when the Broadway gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen revealed that Shermane was bedridden with a fever of 104.
Less than a year later, Walter Winchell reported that Shermane had vamped to an inquiring columnist, “I will break your heart someday with my big blue eyes!”She was still a tot when Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer and movie Tarzan, was about to present her with a bunny on live television but froze; she filled the void by ad-libbing, “You know, my father once gave me two rabbits, and in a short time I had 200.”Shermane Billingsley, who died on April 16 in a Manhattan hospital, was the last living link to the storied Manhattan nightspot that made her such endearing fodder for the society pages, the Stork Club.
She was the youngest daughter of its impresario, Sherman Billingsley, and after the club closed in 1965, she became the faithful guardian of its legacy for nearly six decades.
Her son Austin Billingsley Drill said she died of cancer at 78.
The family delayed the announcement of her death until this month, he said, to give them time to mourn.