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Jean Sinclair Tailer, a figure on the Southampton social scene from the 1960s to the 1990s, died May 5, 2018, in Palm Beach, Florida. She was 99.
Mrs. Tailer was born October 12, 1918, in western Pennsylvania, the only child of a steel executive. She worked as a model in New York before marriages to Richard Earl, Alexis Thompson, Alfred Corning Clark, and Thomas “Tommy” Suffern Tailer. She married Charles F. Schmidt, who survives her, in Palm Beach in 2016.
It was with Mr. Tailer that she became a part of the Southampton summer colony, residing on Ox Pasture Road from the early 1970s through the mid 1990s. She was a member of the Southampton Bathing Corporation, and with Mr. Tailer, a scratch golfer at Shinnecock Hills and The National. Mrs. Tailer was chairman of the Southampton Hospital Summer Party benefit in 1987, with her husband.
She was a member of The Colony Club in New York City, and The Everglades Club in Palm Beach, where she was very active on the charity circuit.
Mrs. Tailer was known for her great style, and was placed on the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1980.
She had a longtime affiliation with Town & Country magazine, orchestrating many of its features on prominent women of social note.
“Being married to Jean was like playing Best Supporting Actor in an Oscar-worthy movie about High Society,” said her husband, Mr. Schmidt.
“Jean was a dear friend, mentor and advisor, and I will miss her terribly. I will miss her sharp wit and good sense of humor and her constant energy and get-up-and-go,” said Mai Hallingby Harrison, a longtime friend of Mrs. Tailer’s.
on May 21, 2018