BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Whoa, is this one of those overnight rags-to-riches stories? Or, more accurately, fake furs to riches?
Looks to be.
Referring here to one Brittany Powell, receptionist at the Phoenix and sometimes model.
That's her on the cover and several times inside of the Fabulous Furs' '98 catalog. Furs is Donna Salyers' Covington business specializing in fur coats and accessories that look real but aren't.
Anyway, Salyers sent a catalog to Elite, the huge New York modeling agency. Next thing you know, an Elite rep is on the phone making arrangements to fly Powell up to begin contract talks. She heads out early this week.
In other fur news, Crook & Chase, the Nashville Network talk show, had its third Fabulous Furs fashion show 3 p.m. Friday. It repeats 10 a.m. Monday.
Look for dogs as well as models. Last year's fur coat on Elvis the dog went over so well producers want a dog this year to model an umbrella and fake sable puppy jacket.
One more thing: David Buckley, wardrobe boss on the NBC sitcom Working, ordered fake fur headbands last week for actress Debbie Mazar (new to the show this season) to wear on an episode that will tape this week.
MAGAZINE UPDATE:
Paging through People Magazine here -- because no one was having a cocktail party and we got bored, that's why -- what do we find but Cincinnati smack in the middle.
Turns out Michael Ilyinsky, a 38-year-old single dad from Milford, pops up in the Oct. 19 People in the story "Royals Among Us." It's about royalty living in America.
Ilyinsky is Prince Michael Romanoff Ilyinsky. He's a second cousin of Czar Nicholas II and a grandson of Grand Duke Dmitri. The latter Royal Russian married into Cincinnati's Emery family -- after getting tangled up in the plot to assassinate Rasputin, noted Mad Monk.
People picked him (it also interviewed his sisters Anne Glossinger and Paula Comisar and niece Audrey De Young) because he has made seven trips to Russia and, he told People, "got teary-eyed at all the former family palaces."
He also is the unofficial family historian and singularly unaffected by all this royalty business.
CLAP PLEASE:
Know who needs a round of applause this morning? Barbara Reece, that's who. Clap it for her business, community and family involvement. That's what the Prince-Hall Gothic Lodge No. 122 Free and Accepted Masons did Thursday at Integrity Hall.
And isn't it a wonder they got her to slow down long enough? She is, after all, one of the busiest women in North America.
To wit: Reece manages Integrity Hall (husband Steve Reece owns it) and works as well in the family businesses of Communiplex Promotional Services and Reece & Reece Enterprises, a real estate development and management company.
Oh yeah, she also has three children (ages 27, 20 and 18) and is a singer. People with long memories will remember her as Barbara Howard, a regular on the club circuit in the 1970s. Most of her singing today is in church, though she can be heard singing lead on a radio commercial for Ohio tourism.
So anyway, something like 200 people, mostly from Cincinnati but lots of Columbus lawmaker types, too, showed for the dinner and testimonial, which concentrated on her 26 years in business. And, it develops, gave her several of these: ClapClapClap.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
KNIPPENBERG ARCHIVE