Jeffrey Slonim, 56, Celebrity Reporter
Jeffrey Slonim of New York City and East Hampton, a journalist and reporter who started his prolific career at Interview magazine, died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York on Oct. 13 as the result of a fall. He was 56 years old.
Mr. Slonim joined the staff of Interview in 1984, when Andy Warhol was its editor, and continued there until 2012 as a contributing editor and society editor, among other duties. He also worked for many years for Allure and Hamptons magazine, doing what is referred to as “red-carpet” or celebrity reporting. For Allure, he created “Private Eye,” a back-page spread featuring subjects answering a range of questions from “Do you talk to people on planes?” to “Do you own anything you are wearing?”
He was “The Inquisitive Guest” for Architectural Digest and the writer behind “Diddy Runs the City” for The New York Post, a marathon training diary of Sean Combs, the hip-hop entrepreneur. He also wrote for People, Condé Nast Traveler, and Gotham magazines.
At Allure he used his skills as a photo researcher to produce “photo essays that combined vintage and contemporary photos of celebrities and their costumes,” long before online archives made such work easier, according to his family.
“His offbeat approach — now widespread in celebrity coverage — was less about gossip than about giving his readers a glimpse of stars’ real lives,” friends and family wrote in his obituary material.
Born on May 6, 1960, in Kittery, Me., Mr. Slonim was one of four children of Charles E. Slonim and the former Louise Wiener. His mother, who lives in Fairfax, Va., and his siblings, Anne Rafal of Fairfax, Va., Amy Slonim of Bellingham, Wash., and Hunt Slonem of New York City, a painter who spells the surname differently, survive. His father died in 2014.
Mr. Slonim’s father, a career naval officer and submarine captain, moved around a good deal when his children were young, and the family lived in Honolulu, Bremerton, Wash., Washington, D.C., Newport, R.I., and, ultimately, after his retirement in Manassas, Va., where Mr. Slonim graduated from J.E.B. Stuart High School. He was Key Club president in high school and also rowed crew.
Mr. Slonim graduated in 1982 from Yale University with a B.A. in political philosophy and economics.
As skilled as he was at chronicling celebrity events, he was also adept at putting on parties and fund-raisers, a book party to raise money for American Ballet Theater in 2009 and a fund-raiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 among them.
In August 1995, Mr. Slonim was married to Fiona Moore. She survives, as do their two sons, Finbarr, 18, and Declan, 15, of New York. He is also survived by nine nieces and nephews.
Martha Moore, a freelance reporter and friend from Yale, described Mr. Slonim as “a delightful, thoughtful, erudite, and talented person who had a great sense of humor and pursued an extremely challenging profession with remarkable enthusiasm and grace. . . . And as a friend, he was a lovely person.”
Mr. Slonim loved East Hampton. He enjoyed spending time with his family, sailing in Montauk, playing the piano, and driving his Jeep Wagoneer. “Regardless of how many celebrities he interviewed, the real rock stars in his life were Fiona and the boys,” Martha Moore said. “He was very proud of those kids.”
There will be a memorial service on Dec. 18 at 4 p.m. at the Fourth Universalist Society in New York, 160 Central Park West at 76th Street. Contributions in his name can be sent to the Jeffrey James Slonim Memorial Fund, c/o Hunt Slonem Studio, 14-B 53rd Street, Box A-8, Sixth Floor, Brooklyn 11232.