Marlene Leone, who made party dreams come true at head of catering at Chicago's Ritz-Carlton, dies at 83

Marlene Leone had stories to tell.

As head of catering at the Ritz-Carlton, Chicago for decades she coordinated glitzy gatherings of all sorts.

There was the time her meticulously planned dinner featuring Bill Clinton was thrown into chaos because the famously chatty former president ran into U2 frontman Bono in the lobby of the Ritz and bent his ear for more than a minute, throwing the timing of the whole affair out of whack.

She was an unflappable presence at weddings, corporate events, charity galas and birthdays.

She once saw to it that a pony made its way to the hotel's 12th floor ballroom to help celebrate a bat mitzvah.

Chef George Bumbaris, who co-owns Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook but formerly worked at the Ritz, remembers a birthday party for Oprah Winfrey in which he served sorbet in the middle of a piece of ice shaped like an "O" for about 350 people.

Bumbaris, who marveled he was able to pull off the specialty desserts, noted the extravagant spending on plants, trees and flowers that went into transforming the space for the event into a garden scene.

"She produced some great venues, unbelievable the stuff," he said.

"We used to view it kind of like show business, and Marlene would write the script along with whoever was throwing the party," said George Anderson, former banquets manager at the Ritz.

"If it was a client's dream, she made it happen," recalled Marc Kaufman, who worked for Ms. Leone at the Ritz for years. "And Marlene always kept her cool," he added.

Ms. Leone was one of the first people hired at the Ritz when it opened in Chicago in 1975. At the time, the ultra-high-end hotel had little competition in that market in Chicago.

Ms. Leone helped set trends that morphed into industry standards — like allowing guests to choose entrees at the table, Kaufman said.

"She's an icon in catering world," said Joe Monastero, who works for the Texas Restaurant Association and counts Ms. Leone as a mentor. "You know the song 'Puttin' on the Ritz?' ... That is Marlene."

Ms. Leone, who retired in 2003, died March 2 at a senior living community in Evanston from natural causes. She was 83.

"Her career was a central part of her," said her daughter Johna Hedden, noting that her mother regularly worked 15-hour days.

"Sometimes I'd go to the hotel as a kid, and there'd be the most amazing group of people who were immersed and committed to the mission, from the linen providers and lighting people and the florist to the waiters in the kitchen who used to pretend to hold me over vats of soup," she said with a laugh.

She was one of the first women, if not the first, to run catering for a high-end hotel downtown, colleagues said.

"It's all the more impressive when you consider she didn't have a college education but was regularly hiring young people with master's degrees in hospitality management from places like Cornell University," said her daughter.

Ms. Leone was born June 7, 1942, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Joe and Lee Leone. He built swimming pools, and she was a homemaker.

Ms. Leone worked part time at the Cleveland Sheraton in high school and worked at a hotel in Washington D.C., before moving to Chicago.

She worked at the Seven Eagles, a now-shuttered restaurant and banquet hall in Des Plaines, and was part of the staff that opened the first hotel at O'Hare International Airport, which later became the O'Hare Hilton.

In 1997 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Catering Executives Club of America.

"For the longest time she didn't want to talk about her accomplishments as a woman in the industry, because she'd been so focused for so long on transcending that, and being who she needed to be to make it. But her contributions in leading the way for other women were highlighted that night and I'm glad they were because it took her until that moment to relax into that part of her legacy," her daughter said.

"She came from humble beginnings, she learned kitchen French and taught herself food etiquette and how to become this person who could play at this echelon, and I'm sure there was some impostor syndrome that she had to overcome, but, really, she was a natural at it and at the end of the day it was her: unbroken and unbreakable competency and poise and sophistication," she said.

In addition to her daughter, Ms. Leone is survived by her grandson, Jaden Hedden.

A funeral Mass will be held March 28 at 11:30 a.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Glenview.