Paul & Vince would like to welcome Dorothy Wiggins, a long-time West Village resident who turns 100 this month—living proof that the spotlight only grows brighter with age.

Born in New York City in 1925, Dorothy began her career as a stage actress, singer, and dancer, enchanting audiences with her talent and charisma. Her life later took her around the world as the wife of career Foreign Service diplomat Guy Arthur Wiggins, where she embraced new cultures and raised three children. Back in New York, she and Guy shared more than six decades of marriage, a partnership she calls her life’s greatest work.

Today, Dorothy continues to charm audiences with live cabaret performances while dazzling over 330,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok (@dorothylovesnewyork) with her wit, glamour, and zest for life. This fall, she will be featured in the documentary Who Is Dorothy?, and in September she’ll perform the ceremonial coin toss at the 2025 U.S. Open Tennis Tournament.

1.

Paul & Vince: This month, we’re breaking with tradition a bit, since our series usually highlights New Yorkers in their professional roles. But since you’re every bit the consummate New Yorker and are celebrating your 100th birthday this month (Happy Birthday, Dorothy!), we wanted to do something special. As our guest, could you share how your life in New York has unfolded over the past century?

Dorothy: Well, I was born in Manhattan in 1925. We lived in Washington Heights back then, and then we moved to Sunnyside, Queens, where I went to PS125 and then to Grover Cleveland High School. I remember they took all of us kids to the 1939 World’s Fair for free. And at the Fair, they had cars on monorails that looked very futuristic, and we were all excited, but except for Epcot Center, that was an idea that never came to be. And…hmm… I saw Sally Rand, the burlesque performer, in a little booth, isn’t that funny that I’d recall that? Of course, I was young and impressionable.
And I loved theatre, I loved seeing plays, and I had a little girlfriend whose father worked at a box office, so I went to see plays and musicals very early on. And then my friend moved to Long Island, to Hampstead, so I convinced my mother to move to Forest Hills so I could take the LIRR to Hampstead High School and say I lived with my friend there. I figured it all out.

Paul & Vince: You would have been a teenager then, but it sounds like you were very independent.

Dorothy: Oh, yes! When I was an only child, and I was riding the subway for fun by the time I was ten years old. I would go with a friend; it only cost a nickel. Or we would roller skate over the 59th Street Bridge from Queens. I remember roller skating down Third Avenue or Second Avenue and looking into the townhouses there and seeing the chauffeurs in front and the maids in the kitchen. And I said to myself, “That’s what I want.” From the time I was very young, my dream was to live in a townhouse that was mine. And eventually, it’s one of those dreams that came true.

Paul & Vince: So, you’re dream came true! That’s great.

Dorothy: Yes, I had an interest in real estate, show business, and I had an interest in fashion. My mother let me buy things at Bloomingdale’s by the time I was twelve.

Paul & Vince: And then did you attend college in the city?

Dorothy: Yes, I went to Queens College, which was free. It was really when my life started, because the school had a football team and the boys had cars. We would drive up to Glen Island Casino, where all the big bands played. I danced to Glenn Miller and Tuxedo Junction. I was lindy hopping to all the great bands, because they all played there…The Dorsey Brothers, Claude Thornhill, all of them played there. We would bring a bottle of booze and hide it under the table.
You had to have an average of 85 or more to get in, and you had to buy your own books. And one interesting thing was, the buildings used to be speech clinics, so everyone took a year of speech class, and at the end of the year they had recordings to show the difference, and that was the way all the students got rid of their New York accents. Isn’t that clever?
And after college, I got my first job as the J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency.

Paul & Vince: Like Mad Men, the TV show?

Dorothy: Yes, I was doing market research. I had a really cushy job. We would go to the beaches and ask people questions about mustard, whatever. And they would use the answers in their ads.
But it was different from the TV shows, because the head of the advertising agency was very conservative. He wouldn’t take liquor or cigarette ads, and he didn’t allow us to smoke at the office. At Christmas parties, we had to drink in the stairwells.

Paul & Vince: Interesting. Were there lots of women working with you, or were you a minority?

Dorothy: Well, after that I worked for the Gray-O’Reilly’s studio and that was the foremost theatrical photography studio in New York. And I was the only woman there with a bunch of randy men. They’d make holes in the dressing room doors.

Paul & Vince: Wow, so many adventures. But you married at a young age, no?

Dorothy: Well, yes, but one thing I’ll point out: this was the early 1940s, so there were no men at the school, they were all at war. I had very little choice, and in my day, if you weren’t married by the time you were out of college, you were in old maid, isn’t that ridiculous? But that was the mores at that time. So, I married a man who was studying to be a doctor. But I never was in love with my first husband, I was just a kid, and we just got married and he became a doctor.</p

2.

Paul & Vince: Wow, we imagine you’ve had a lot of dreams come true. Now, you often talk about your late husband of sixty years, Guy Arthur Wiggins, who was not only a distinguished State Department and Foreign Service Diplomat, but then became a well-known painter, like his father and grandfather, as his second career. How did that long love affair begin?

Dorothy: Well, my parents were great friends with his father, Guy Carleton Wiggins, the famous impressionist painter, whose work they loved. He would come over on the weekends for drinks, and sometimes he would read aloud letters from his son, who was Guy A. Wiggins, my later husband. And they were fascinating letters. The son did an overland trip by car from London to India, so if he was in Iran, for instance, he would write letters describing everything. And he was a wonderful writer.

So, I became totally intrigued with this person just through his voice, through his letters from around the world, which his father would come over and read aloud to us.

And then one weekend, I came up with my then-husband for the weekend (I was married before, you see), and Guy, this “man from the letters”, was sitting on my mother’s sofa. He’d come home, and his father had brought him over for drinks. And I was wearing an exotic chartreuse Japanese kimono thing. And I heard his mellifluous voice say, “Oh, what a gorgeous outfit.” And I fell in love on the spot. He had a wonderful voice because his mother was English. So, he didn’t speak the way everybody in America speaks.

So, of course, we had a passionate, fiery affair. But I had a child by that time, and he said, “I’m not breaking up your marriage.” So, every year on Valentine’s Day, I would call him. I don’t know why, but it was just nice to know he was out there. And I was studying at Stella Adler’s acting school, and I would take voice lessons and learn all the love songs to sing to him. And for three years, I did that.

And then one day, I got a telephone call. They said, “This is Capitol Airlines. Your husband’s plane has crashed…struck by lightning”. It was on the front page of the newspaper, and so Guy’s father read about it in the paper and called his son, who called me.

I was sad, of course, but three months later, I was married to Guy in 1959. But honestly, I had fallen in love the moment we met, and I have never wavered to this day. I think of him every waking moment. He died when he was 100. We were married for 62 years.

Paul & Vince: Unbelievable story. And with Guy’s job, you traveled quite a bit before coming back to New York, is that right?

Dorothy: Yes, we were stationed all over the world. And, as I recall, the last was Panama, and by then I had had enough. But New York was the top diplomatic post in the whole State Department, so it was difficult, but we had a diplomat friend who helped us. And finally, after we moved back to New York with our boys, I found a townhouse to buy in just three days. On 87th Street and First Avenue. I was really lucky. It was $144,000, and I parlayed that into the house I now have in the West Village. Which is worth, what, you must know [Laughs] maybe $10 million? And to think it all came from that original investment of $144,000.

3.

Paul & Vince: Unbelievable story, and of course, it’s obvious you’re a very smart person, especially when it comes to things like New York real estate. But tell us, what is a normal day is like for you? Do you have a routine?

Dorothy: Every day is different. But I don’t know, just my life. Yesterday, I did three things. I had my hair done. And then I had a little show that I was in, so I went out. And I forget what else. But I do different things every day, and I go out doing some of my Instagram stuff.

Paul & Vince: Hmmm… that “Instagram stuff”, eh? [Laugh] You’re famous the world over, Dorothy, and we’ve seen articles about you in places from the New York Times to British Vogue. So, how did you become such a genuine social media influencer in your late 90s?

Dorothy: Well, you know my husband Guy lived till he was a hundred. But after he passed, my son Noah knew I was very sorrowful, so he introduced me to his videographer friend Michael Astor, and got me doing this Instagram stuff to keep me involved in something. And I thought, “What the hell, you know?” I’m a theatrical person and I enjoy being on camera.” So that’s all it is. Michael follows me around and then puts the videos on Instagram. That’s all it really is. He just follows me and the younger people – I don’t know why–they seem to enjoy watching me play tennis or buying a new pair of shoes.

Paul & Vince: We’re pretty sure it’s the way you buy the shoes that has people watching.

Dorothy: Well, I’m told I don’t have filters. [Laughs]

4.

Paul & Vince: And what do you like to do in New York just for fun? Any old places that still have the New York nostalgia for you?

Dorothy: Well, of course, a lot of the character of New York is gone. That’s what it seems to me. I mean, you have a city of glass boxes; it’s no longer a city you can put your hands on. Thank God for Jane Jacobs, who protected the Village, and at least Soho, Chinatown, and Tribeca, all of which feel like the old New York.

But some people come in and ruin it all, like on Perry Street, which had these beautiful houses, all intact with all their molding and everything and a couple of years ago one of these Wall Street types came in and took one of the homes and totally ripped out all the molding and put in this whole modern thing for his girlfriend. And by the time he finished doing all that, they broke up and he sold the house. So, I mean that’s just typical.

Paul & Vince: Wow, and you must see all the celebrities who come and go in your [West Village] neighborhood, is that right?

Dorothy: Well, there’s a very funny story when Sarah Jessica Parker lived in the next block with Matthew Broderick. My husband never paid any attention to celebrities, he didn’t recognize them or anything. But they had a dog who would go out and night and bark and wake us up. So, we decided to complain, so Guy went around the corner to the house and he rang the doorbell and Matthew opened the door and Guy said, “May I speak to the master of the house?” That’s the way he spoke, he had a kind of English way of speaking, so Matthew Broderick just looked around and said, “Well, I guess that’s me!” and then Guy complained about the dog.

Paul & Vince: Hilarious.

Dorothy: Yes, but I liked the Fulton Fish Market, which Guy and I used to visit. That was quite a place. The mafia ran it, of course, but it was a fun place to go. And we went to the Ear Inn, on Spring Street, which has been there for two hundred years. The Hudson River used to come right up to it. And I love going to the theatre. My theatre friends are always impressed that I’ve seen every original musical. I saw the original Gypsy with Ethel Merman, and the original My Fair Lady with Julie Andrews, who nobody had ever heard of before that.

Paul & Vince: That is impressive. And what do you think makes New York so unique, even after all these years?

Dorothy: Well, absolutely, there’s no place like it. For one thing, I love the variety of humanity that live here. In some cities, everybody looks the same, talks the same, but in New York, there’s the most variety of any city that exists, and of course, I’m so accustomed to getting anything I want at any time of night and day. That energy keeps me going.

…and one more, Just For Fun

Paul & Vince: And now it’s time for our Just for Fun question. If you had all the money in the world, and could only buy one thing, what would it be?

Dorothy: Truly, if I had all the money in the world, I would love to buy the house next door. It belongs to David Muir, the journalist, and if he would sell it, I’d love to have it. There’s two things I would do. I would put in a swimming pool and have a daily hairdresser so that after I swam, I could do my hair. I can’t have the swimming pool without somebody to redo my hair.

Paul & Vince: You would build a private spa next to your house? Brilliant.

Dorothy: Well, even though I’ve been around the theatre for so long, I never was a star, so right at the end of my life, instead of just being an old lady on the way to death, my son’s made a celebrity out of me, which is fun. So, I guess…well, shouldn’t I get my own spa? [Laughs]