Frida Burling, Author of "Frida's Fifty Years in Georgetown"

“Frida is the sexiest 93-year-old I’ve ever seen,” said a guest at the Georgetown House Tour Patrons’ Party. “No one ever says no to Frida. She’s flirtatious and charming even while she’s twisting your arm,” he added, speaking of her ability to persuade hesitant Georgetowners to open their cherished homes for the hundreds of strangers who troop through on the annual tour. For more than 60 years, Frida has focused intensively on the St. John’s Church-sponsored tour, along with all the other good causes she has helped. Monies from the fundraiser help many social service agencies.

This fall she was an honoree for the Citizens Association of Georgetown’s Black and White Ball for her years of community work for her beloved neighborhood. But her influence has spread even farther, raising her to iconic status for many organizations.

Her life did not always enable her to have the means and time for causes, as she noted recently when the United Way of America gave a luncheon honoring her in New York, at the United Nations.

In her autobiography, Finally Frida, she mentions early years when, because of a mostly absentee father, Laurence Frazer, both she and her interior decorator mother worked, barely managing but helped by Frida’s scholarships and by friends, who gave them boxes of outgrown clothing.

Her life changed after her mother married again, to wealthy Randolph Leigh. Frida was much photographed and written about as a high-spirited and pretty debutante. One fascinating item was in the first column ever by Igor Cassini--later the legendary New York columnist “Cholly Knickerbocker”--whose brother Oleg became Jackie O’s favored designer.

Igor described a pre-WWII Chevy Chase Club evening when Mussolini’s visiting son, Vittorio, was lionized by all the debs, but only spent time with Frida Frazer. He went back to Italy, so the romance never blossomed further, but it is intriguing to think that if it had continued until Il Duce had an American daughter-in-law, Frida might have changed the course of history!