Never out of style: At 94, Marcus maintains zest for work, passion for shopping

NEW YORK -- The "old" and the "new economy" are bridged every day, but leave it to Stanley Marcus to do it so perfectly.<br><br>Mr. Marcus, who turns 95 next month, is an active consultant who goes to

Tuesday, March 21st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK -- The "old" and the "new economy" are bridged every day, but leave it to Stanley Marcus to do it so perfectly.

Mr. Marcus, who turns 95 next month, is an active consultant who goes to the office five days a week. A few months ago, he got a call from Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com. His request was simple: "I want you to talk to my organization."
"I haven't the slightest idea what I would say," Mr. Marcus told him. "But give me a couple of days with your people, and I'll find out what they're interested in."

Mr. Marcus, who wears custom-made Oxford suits and Turnbull & Asser shirts every day, soon found himself standing in Seattle before a "sea of T-shirts."

"There must have been 300 scientists [that's what Mr. Marcus calls techno-geeks] in this auditorium, and there wasn't a necktie or a coat on any of them. They were all wearing T-shirts," he said.

The moment needed something. Spontaneity.
"I took off my coat, my necktie and my shirt, down to my T-shirt. And then I said, 'Okay. Let's talk.'

"I couldn't have planned it better. It broke the ice," Mr. Marcus said. "I was on stage for two hours."

Stanley Marcus' talent for creating excitement is just one of the reasons the chairman emeritus of Neiman Marcus is being honored Tuesday at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
He's being inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame, only the second retailer among 149 executives who have received the industry's greatest honor for lifetime achievement in advertising.

The American Advertising Federation chose Mr. Marcus this year along with Mary Wells Lawrence, founder of the Wells, Rich, Greene advertising firm, and Bernard Flanagan, former vice president of corporate marketing and advertising for Dow Jones & Co. The group said the honorees "created new models for advertising in much the same way a new generation is setting new standards today."
Of Mr. Marcus, the federation said: "As far back as 1934, Marcus realized that his greatest competition was from leading retailers in New York and San Francisco. Defying conventional wisdom, he boldly pursued a national advertising campaign for his local store with two ads in Vogue and in Harper's. This strategy put Neiman Marcus on the fashion map."

The other retailer in the Hall of Fame is John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia merchant who is credited with the famous credo: "The customer is always right." Mr. Marcus was 45 and in the audience when Mr. Wanamaker was inducted. He was also well on his way to transforming a local store into an international brand known for its fashion, quality and service.

Shopping passion

Shopping remains his passion. He is in a Neiman Marcus store at least once a week.

Family members say that whether he's in an open-air farmers' market in Mexico or at the downtown Dallas Neiman Marcus, he is examining the merchandise, the way it's presented and what the salespeople know about it.

His everyday tools include a cell phone and the Internet. He's ordered books from Amazon.com and food from Dean & Deluca's Web site.

Mr. Marcus' secretary, Debbie Kopec, said that every once in a while, a package is delivered to the office that she didn't have anything to do with. "That's when I know Mr. Stanley has been on the Web again."

Embracing the Web is part of Mr. Marcus' ongoing quest to remain current. For his clients, he says, he must explore the Internet and understand its commercial applications.

Personally, he is impressed with the amount of medical information available, "much to my doctor's discomfort." Mr. Marcus is under orders to cut back his travel to just two trips a month, and he is restricted to traveling to cities with a certain "level of medical care."

Mr. Marcus has made few other concessions to his age, but he has reduced his workload from eight active clients to five "so I can handle them personally." He goes to bed around 11 p.m. and is at work by 8:30 a.m.

Only nine years ago, he started a physical fitness regimen; he works out three times a week with a personal trainer. And he and his wife, Linda, have a very active social life: "This week we'll be home for dinner one night," he said recently.

He spends a lot of time reading, including four daily newspapers, and corresponding.
Every year he reads more than 25,000 pieces of mail. He writes an average of 3,500 letters a year. "I still believe I should answer mail directed to me," he said.

Daughter Jerrie Smith of Dallas tries to have lunch with him almost every week.

"It's hard to say you're tired around him and never say you're bored," said Mrs. Smith. "When we were children, saying you were bored was worse than saying a swear word."

Familiar descendants

Earlier this month, Mr. Marcus visited grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Boston.

"He is tickled by his great-grandchildren," Mrs. Smith said.

All the children, 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren call him Stanley, "not Mr. Stanley, just Stanley," he said. "When my first granddaughter, Jennie, was born, I thought I was too young to be called grandfather."

Granddaughter Allison Smith (a Dallas Morning News photographer who took the photos that accompany this article) says she gets two to three pieces of mail from Mr. Marcus a week. "It might be an article or a card about an opening or something he thinks I would like," she said.

He also thinks e-mail is a great boost to family communications. "It used to be that when a kid went off to college, you never heard from them again until they came home for the holidays.

"I watch my daughter Jerrie with her kids scattered. She is communicating through e-mail two to three times a day," Mr. Marcus said. "It's a great success, a real contribution to family solidarity."

Mr. Marcus believes in staying in touch. He makes a habit of calling people he hasn't seen in five or 10 years "just to say hello. I find out how they're doing and it's rewarding to me, and I know they appreciate it too."

He has friends of all ages.

"I know I'm going to be 95, but I think of myself as being much younger."

Pick a subject, and Mr. Marcus is up to speed on it. Want to talk Oscars? He's seen several movies in the last few weeks: American Beauty, Wonder Boys and The Cider House Rules. He liked all those, but his recent favorite was Meryl Streep in Music of the Heart.

Just for grins, he rented some Hitchcock movies not long ago. "They were dull as hell.

So slow. The character development and the story. I wanted to stick them with a pin and say, 'Get on with it.' "

That's certainly what Mr. Marcus intends to do.