The Rise and Fall (and Rise and Fall) of Marcy Rogers

In the name of charity, she maneuvered her way to the top of Dallas Society—then came those inconvenient questions about money. Twice.

by Dana Rubin

January 1992

(Page 4 of 4)

The events that led to Marcy’s second downfall began in the autumn of 1990. In September, ICF sponsored a huge charity dance with rock-and-roll personality Dick Clark as the guest of honor. Marcy dreamed it up as a way of coaxing back into the fold all of the supporters who had decamped after the NCF debacle. But from the beginning, there was dissension among ICF volunteers and staffers, who complained about haphazard planning and financial chaos. The chairperson of the ball, former model Dee Hutcheson, resigned in July, just two months before the event. One of her complaints was that she could get no explanation for where the money was going; there was no separate bank account for the ball.

As a social event, the Dick Clark ball was a huge success. The idea itself was offbeat and original. More than 1,800 people showed up at the Crystal Ballroom at the Grand Kempinski to hear the Shirelles, the Coasters, Little Anthony, and Bobby Vee; hundreds were turned away at the door. Instead of the usual tuxedos and ballgowns, people wore sneakers and poodle skirts. But financially it was a catastrophe. ICF ended up owing money to the Grand Kempinski and a slew of other contractors. “I never could get to the bottom of where did all the money go,” said employee Gayla Simmons. “There were certain things I could never figure out with Marcy.”

Three days after the Dick Clark event, a group of ICF board members, employees, and supporters flew to Washington, D.C., for four days of parties and fundraising. Cher came to lend her image—Marcy had named her honorary chairperson of ICF because of her role as the mother of a facially deformed child in the movie Mask. There was a reception at the Soviet embassy with the new Soviet ambassador, a party attended by Jesse Jackson and other politicians, and a dinner auction. Marcy and a group of craniofacial patients met Barbara Bush at the White House. The next day Marcy testified before Congress—she even managed to get that week officially declared National Craniofacial Awareness Week.

Some of the people who saw Marcy escorting Cher around, arms entwined, thought that Marcy was clearly starstruck. Maybe that was true. But Marcy’s fascination with Cher went beyond the obvious. Marcy saw something deeper in Cher, something familiar: a combination of outward confidence and inner fragility. In March 1991 Cher came to Dallas for a round of publicity events. One afternoon ICF held a party at the home of socialite Patsy Donosky. Cher attended, reluctantly. Afterward, riding in the limo, she asked Marcy why she went through all those dull, draining parties. To her they seemed meaningless. “It’s a part of raising money,” Marcy explained. “Unfortunately, in Dallas it’s very hard to raise money unless you do these things.”

The next afternoon ICF held a tea for Cher at the Mansion. Cher arrived two hours late, only five minutes before the tea was supposed to end. Instantly a throng of TV cameras and photographers converged on her. Cher looked out over the room and saw a sea of ladies’ hats. She turned to Marcy and said, “I’ve never seen so many hats. Who are these people? What do these people do?” Marcy replied, “That’s the way Dallas is.”

Looking back, Marcy now sees that she was maintaining a kind of double vision. She was both the socialite in the party hat and the person standing apart from it all, wondering what in the world was going on. To hear Marcy talk about Cher is to hear Marcy describe herself: “She likes walking in at precisely the right moment. Part of it is that she’s insecure. She just wants to be noticed. I mean, she wears these outfits that get maximum, maximum attention. She stages it so that she’s so late that everybody’s about ready to give up and they’re gasping when she finally walks in. She has this smile and she’s very personable, but she’s always detached.”

IN APRIL 1991 AN ARTICLE IN THE Dallas Morning News gave Marcy more visibility than she had ever dreamed of—but the wrong kind. The article accused her of making the same mistakes at ICF that she had made at NCF. It described a foundation that was disorganized and deeply in debt. It stated that she spent more on promotions than on medical care and that far less money actually went to helping the children than Marcy portrayed. Later articles cited an investigation by the state attorney general’s office into the murky relationship between ICF’s finances and Marcy’s personal expenses. From that point, Marcy’s life spiraled downward. The entire board of the foundation resigned. The attorney general’s office appointed an interim manager, who assembled a new board in June. The first thing the new board did was scale back Marcy’s responsibilities, curtailing her role to that of fundraiser and spokesperson. But Marcy couldn’t live within those bounds. She continued to correspond with donors and doctors, planning events and explaining that she “had been vindicated.” Less than two weeks later, the board ousted her for good.

What Marcy had done wrong was fail to understand how to run a charity organization. She violated rule after rule about not using a position of fiduciary responsibility within a nonprofit organization for personal benefit. She had made little effort to separate her personal business from the foundation’s. She ran independent medical consulting ventures, for her own profit, out of ICF offices. She never understood that when you’re running a nonprofit organization with tax- exempt status, you have to be squeaky clean. Otherwise, no one has faith in you.

Overnight Marcy became an outcast. Her phone stopped ringing. Her law firm dropped her. Her bank closed her checking account. She even lost her charging privileges at the Crescent, including her beloved spa. Disconsolate, Marcy took a temporary $5.25-an-hour job at a North Dallas grill owned by a friend. Her job was to serve salads and work the cash register, which provided endless amusement to her detractors. And she began to think about leaving Dallas. She felt she had been betrayed by the very people she had relied upon. But there were also many people who had donated time and money to ICF who felt that Marcy had completely let them down. More than a few of them were happy to see her go.

“BRING FOOD,” SHE HOLLERS INTO THE PHONE. “I’m starving.” It is late September, a beautiful Indian summer day, Marcy’s last in Dallas. She is booked on an early evening flight to Los Angeles. Until she finds a job, she will stay with a friend in Beverly Hills, living on money borrowed from her father. She is $145,000 in debt. The movers are lugging boxes through the echoing hallways of Marcy’s North Dallas home. Scattered everywhere are Styrofoam chips and piles of trash. Marcy is perched on a cardboard box, in stretchy exercise clothes and no makeup, eating take-out Chinese noodle salad with a plastic fork and marveling that for the first time in years, she actually packed her own stuff. “I’ve always had people do it for me. And then I would just walk in and everything would be in place,” she says. This time, she checked out six moving companies. “I studied every line of every bid,” she says. “This really has taught me some lessons about being fiscally cautious.”

True to form, Marcy has left many errands for the end. We arrive at the airport only minutes before her 6:42 p.m. flight is scheduled to depart. But she has to check eight pieces of luggage and pay $180 for excess baggage. She tears through the terminal but arrives at the gate just after the door to the plane has shut. The next flight for Los Angeles departs at 9:59 p.m., more than three hours away—plenty of time, she notes, to go out to dinner one final time. She suggests Parigi’s, a stylish Italian cafe in Oak Lawn. So off we go, back down the highway. As we enter Parigi’s, a young waiter named George greets her as if she were a ghost. “You’re still in town?” he exclaims. “I thought you were gone. You’re going to do fine. I have faith in you.”

Marcy orders antipasto, a pasta dish, and a $21 bottle of red wine. She says she is glad to be leaving, relieved at the chance to start over. “We all have fifteen minutes at the top,” she says. “So even when I was at the top, standing next to Cher on the dais, I knew it was my fifteen minutes. And I have to tell you, in spite of this, I know I’ll be back, and I’ll be stronger.” After the meal, Marcy is adamant about paying. She makes out a check, and George takes it. Before dashing out the door, she hugs him and promises to call.

This time, as we drive back to the airport, the lights of the city twinkle a hundred thousand farewells. We arrive with ten minutes to spare, plenty of time for Marcy to step up to the counter, pull out her American Airlines frequent traveler’s card, and upgrade to first class.

Pages: 1 2 3 4