Longtime philanthropist friends were dining at Michael’s on Monday night, toasting this year’s upcoming Literacy Partners Reading Gala (a night of readings at which Katie Couric, among others, will read personal work to benefit literacy education). Even with Liz Smith and Helen Gurly Brown in the room, Iris Love was thinking of who wasn’t there: the late Brooke Astor, whose dogs she now takes care of. (As Love, the world-famous archaeologist who discovered the Temple of Aphrodite, put it: “I’m the one who has Brooke’s mini dachshunds, who her son, Tony Marshall, was going TO PUT TO SLEEP.”)
So how aaaare the Astor dachshunds — Boysie and Girlie — these days? Apparently they take after their original owner. “I was with Girlie over the weekend,” Love said. “She’s DIVINE. The only thing is, although I have dog doors all over, Girlie will not go out a dog door. She sits in front of any door and barks for someone to open the door for her, and then she goes outside and plays and does what she wants to.” Wait, an Astor wants someone to do things for her?! “She comes back and barks again, because the door has to be opened,” Love continued. “I said to someone who didn’t believe this, ‘The only thing that Girlie would prefer more is that the person who opens the door wears white gloves!’”
Related: Another Sad Chapter in the Brooke Astor Family Story [NYM]
