Pamela Harriman, Colossus of Style

Right up till the end, she possessed an inimitable sense of style.

The cerebral hemorrhage that would prove fatal occurred, after all, following her swim at the Ritz--not Gold’s Gym, not the local Y.

The Ritz.

In Paris.

Even in her final moments, Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman was a study in the fine--and some would say, rapidly evaporating--art of elegant personal expression: wrapping oneself in refinement, up to the very last second. Harriman died Wednesday at a hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Hyphenated suburbs are generally more fashionable than the cities they surround. Neuilly-sur-Seine made a far more graceful dateline for her obituary than plain old Paris, where Harriman was completing her tenure as U.S. ambassador.

The 76-year-old Harriman died the way she lived: with a surfeit of that ephemeral but unmistakable quality called style. Evita Peron, another legendary doyenne of spectacular self-invention, may have inspired the lyrics “She had her moment, she had her style.” But next to Harriman, Peron was a pretender. Harriman had decades of moments. She was a colossus of style.

Her marriages to Randolph Churchill (the son of Winston), Leland Hayward and Averell Harriman moved women of varying ages and social standing to wonder, how does she do it? Her love affairs with the likes of Prince Aly Khan, newsman Edward R. Murrow, media tycoon William Paley, shipping giant Stavros Niarchos and international business magnates Baron Elie de Rothschild and Giovanni Agnelli prompted much the same speculation.

Somehow--maybe it was the double strand of pearls she perpetually wore, perhaps inspiring a young Jacqueline Bouvier to take up the same habit--few people thought to judge such behavior as even mildly morally reprehensible. It takes style, clearly, to emerge intact.

Several biographies, none authorized, captured the details of Harriman’s rich life. They described her amazing abilities as a hostess and a charmer of men. They talked about her forays into politics, her creation of Pam-PAC, the first political action campaign fund to be named after the wife of an enormously wealthy man, and her appointment by President Clinton to the coveted ambassadorship to France once held by another of her countrymen, Benjamin Franklin. They discussed her houses in Washington, Virginia, Sun Valley and Barbados--at last count. They rehashed her less-than-idyllic relationships with the children and grandchildren of some of her husbands, such as Leland Hayward’s daughter Brooke (who painted a spiteful portrait of her stepmother in her own autobiography), and the daughters and granddaughter of Averell Harriman, who last year won a large out-of-court settlement from Pamela on the grounds that she had mismanaged the Harriman estate.

But the real story of this remarkable woman would have to be a primer: Lessons in Style From Pamela Harriman. It could be seen as a public service, a legacy by example. Forthwith, some possible selections:

* Marry Into History. Always take as your husband a man with a famous name. Immediately take his name, to be assured that you will eternally be beside him in the history books. Marry influence--not just wealth. Wealthy influence is even better.

* Marry them for their wealth, influence and for your place in history--not for their children. Remember that Cinderella’s stepmother was nobody’s fool.

* Between marriages (or possibly during them), consort with wealthy influence. (See above list of gentlemen acquaintances.) Don’t worry about their children, either.

* Don’t worry about what anyone says about you. (This includes stepchildren.) Fame persists long after the reasons for it have disappeared.

* Store information wisely. No one will dare to speak ill of you if you’ve got the goods on them.

* Set up a political action fund and name it after yourself. Entertain abundantly in the name of national politics. That way, it’s all tax-deductible.

* Keep a framed picture of yourself and the Queen of England on your living room table.

* Never change your hairstyle. A helmet worked for the soldiers of the Roman army, and it can work for you too.

* Firmly adhere to the belief that beauty is in the eye of the bestower. If you think you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful.

* Maintain a charming, girlish nickname. “Pammy,” for example.