Catherine Clark Mayer, artist and community activist, dies at age 93 Times Picayune 04-15-2010 Submitted By NOVA ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Catherine Clark Mayer, a model, artist, art teacher and community activist who brought an unmistakable flair to whatever she did, died Wednesday at her home in Mandeville. She was 93. "She was a life force like no other," said Emery Clark, the artist, who was a longtime friend. "She truly was the poster child, the icon for everything she did." Mrs. Mayer, who loved to wear jungle prints and drove a white convertible until she was 90, was a self-taught artist who never let adversity stop her. After she fell and fractured her hip when she was in her late 80s, Mrs. Mayer sent her daughter out to buy art supplies so she could teach painting to her fellow patients who were undergoing physical therapy, Clark said. And after a breast-cancer diagnosis when she was 79, Mrs. Mayer was one of nine faces adorning the cover of "The Many Faces of Breast Cancer," a locally published collection of inspirational stories. "I believe in 'Attitude, Attitude, Attitude,' " she said in that booklet, "and a great deal of faith." A native New Orleanian who lived in Mandeville, Mrs. Mayer graduated from high school in Atlanta, where her family lived briefly during the Depression. While in Atlanta, she reigned over a spring festival as Queen of the May. Among the members of her court, she said, were the future wives of Groucho Marx, William Randolph Hearst Jr. and Frank Sinatra. In her 20s, Catherine Clark was a model at Gus Mayer department store on Canal Street. She possessed the type of beauty that could turn heads, including Cary Grant's. She met the debonair movie legend when he wandered into a dance at a downtown hotel shortly before the United States entered World War II. According to a privately published memoir, Grant asked her to slip out with him to the French Quarter, but she turned him down, saying, "No, thank you. I have a date." Her date was Martin Mayer, Gus Mayer's nephew, whom she had met while she was modeling at his uncle's store. They married in 1941; he died in 1978. Grant wasn't the only superstar she met. While Mrs. Mayer was working as an administrative assistant to the St. Charles Hotel's executive director, Clark Gable dropped in for lunch during a layover en route to officer training school in Miami. She was sent to get him out of the hotel through a back door and back to the train station before his presence touched off pandemonium. "I don't remember any real conversation with him," she said in her memoir. "All I can remember is, 'You're short!' " During World War II, Mrs. Mayer was an active volunteer in the war effort, and she continued volunteering for the rest of her life. At the Old Ursuline Convent in the French Quarter, where she was a tour guide, Clark said she helped raise money for its renovation. Mrs. Mayer's infatuation with painting started in childhood, she said, when she was fascinated by watercolors. Her artistic style blended realism with impressionism, said Clark. In addition to canvases, Mrs. Mayer painted murals for the Women's and Infants' Services unit at Memorial Medical Center (now Ochsner Baptist Medical Center). She started teaching in her 70s, and she arranged shows for her pupils at the Christwood Retirement Community and the Young Energetic Senior group at the Pelican Athletic Club. Mrs. Mayer believed that anyone could paint. "It doesn't matter whether you can draw a straight line or not," she said. "In fact, we don't want you to." Art, she said, is "letting your imagination go and doing whatever you feel like." Survivors include a son, Martin Mayer Jr. of Mandeville; a daughter, Catherine Mayer of Seattle; a sister, Tressie Carey of Covington; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Visitation will be held from 10 a.m.-noon at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. A memorial service will follow. Burial will be in Lake Lawn Cemetery.