It was probably not a secret that Mr. Buckley had been sick, on and off, for a very long time. That mates managed to be shocked by his loss of life, regardless of ample proof of its inevitability, was largely due to Mr. Buckley’s quiet method of getting on with it. Making robust issues look simple was and is a Buckley-Ford household trait.
‘That’s the Guy’
Mr. Buckley was born in Binghamton, N.Y., in 1948. His father was within the army; his mom, Mr. Buckley mentioned, was one thing of a narcissist, and “home” was continually shifting. One yr it was Germany, the subsequent France, then again to the United States, the place he was bullied in class as a result of he wasn’t, as he later put it, “sporty or athletic.”
During faculty and afterward in graduate college, he dated girls. Then, within the early Seventies, he got here to phrases together with his gayness and onward he went.
Mr. Ford first noticed Mr. Buckley whereas attending a David Cameron style present within the fall of 1986. Mr. Buckley nonetheless labored at Fairchild. Mr. Ford was designing sportswear for Cathy Hardwick. Their eyes locked from throughout the runway, however they did not make an introduction, Mr. Ford mentioned by a spokeswoman. (Though he greenlit mates to talk for this text, he didn’t converse personally.)
Soon after, Mr. Buckley was on the roof of the Fairchild workplaces in New York, getting ready for a style shoot together with his colleague Dennis Freedman. Mr. Buckley advised Mr. Freedman about this man he’d simply seen, when the elevator opened and out he walked, carrying Cathy Hardwick samples for them to shoot.
“That’s him,” Mr. Buckley mentioned. “That’s the guy.”
They had their first date on Thanksgiving weekend. By New Year’s Eve, they’d moved in collectively.
