Editor, Socialite. Born Dorinda Prest Dixon and soon became known by her first and last initials. She moved to New York in her late teens or early 20s and got a job assisting Mr. Avedon. Ms. Vreeland hired her as an assistant, her son said, and she advanced to photo editor. In 1954, she helped out with costumes for the Harold Arlen Broadway musical "House of Flowers," for which Mr. Capote had written the book. D.D. who helped create the Eloise series by introducing author Kay Thompson to illustrator Hilary Knight, a cabaret singer, portrayed to amuse her friends, of whom Ms. Ryan was one. Ms. Ryan urged her to write a book, and never stopped pushing her to finish the job. The result was "Eloise," published in 1955 and a best seller the next year, and its continuingly popular sequels. "The book would never have existed without D. D. Never," Mr. Knight said in an interview Thursday. "She would have just dropped it and gone on to something else." Beyond her historic Eloise moment, Ms. Ryan thrived at the crossroads of New York's fashion and artistic worlds, seeming to make a statement every time she dressed, almost always in clothes she made herself, always recognizable with her famous precisely stylized eyebrows. She married the stage manager, John Barry Ryan III, the scion of a family of financiers and civic benefactors, who went on to be a general partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Company, the investment bank. They divorced in the 1980s.
Editor, Socialite. Born Dorinda Prest Dixon and soon became known by her first and last initials. She moved to New York in her late teens or early 20s and got a job assisting Mr. Avedon. Ms. Vreeland hired her as an assistant, her son said, and she advanced to photo editor. In 1954, she helped out with costumes for the Harold Arlen Broadway musical "House of Flowers," for which Mr. Capote had written the book. D.D. who helped create the Eloise series by introducing author Kay Thompson to illustrator Hilary Knight, a cabaret singer, portrayed to amuse her friends, of whom Ms. Ryan was one. Ms. Ryan urged her to write a book, and never stopped pushing her to finish the job. The result was "Eloise," published in 1955 and a best seller the next year, and its continuingly popular sequels. "The book would never have existed without D. D. Never," Mr. Knight said in an interview Thursday. "She would have just dropped it and gone on to something else." Beyond her historic Eloise moment, Ms. Ryan thrived at the crossroads of New York's fashion and artistic worlds, seeming to make a statement every time she dressed, almost always in clothes she made herself, always recognizable with her famous precisely stylized eyebrows. She married the stage manager, John Barry Ryan III, the scion of a family of financiers and civic benefactors, who went on to be a general partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Company, the investment bank. They divorced in the 1980s.
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