{"id":618,"date":"2011-10-09T11:55:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T15:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/W3\/?p=618"},"modified":"2011-10-09T12:29:01","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T16:29:01","slug":"how-trucker-girl-nancy-shevell-became-lady-mccartney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/how-trucker-girl-nancy-shevell-became-lady-mccartney\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trucker-Girl Nancy Shevell Became Lady McCartney"},"content":{"rendered":"
Who is this mystery New Jersey-ite dating Sir Paul?<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Nancy Shevell and Paul McCartney. Photo via Timothy A. Clary\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/div>\n

On a recent morning in the fifth-floor conference room of the Metropolitan Transit Authority\u2019s brick and limestone Madison Avenue headquarters, a public meeting of the board was called to order. The various members representing the audit, governance, bridges and tunnels, finance, and other committees listened patiently as Mark Shotkin, a member of the transit-riding public, made a statement. \u201cJim and Andrew, your ties are very nice,\u201d he began, spreading a little sugar around the room. \u201cNancy, your-your-your jacket is very nice,\u201d he added, grinning at Nancy Shevell, the bus committee chairman. Then he got right to the point: \u201cGood morning, everybody, um, garbage and graffiti on platforms and trains\u2014totally disgusting.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Shevell, who is tall with raven hair that swings glossily from side to side, wore a striped gray and white sweater, black jeans and sandals, along with an indulgent smile. Having served on the M.T.A. for 10 years\u2014spanning four governors\u2014the trucking executive was plainly at home in the boardroom. There was little indication that she is living something of a Cinderella-at-the-ball moment these days. The New Jersey-born daughter of a trucking company owner, she is now betrothed one of the world\u2019s top recording artists, Sir Paul McCartney. Except for the 1925 Cartier solitaire diamond engagement ring (said to have set the Beatle back some $650,000) sparkling on her left hand under the stark fluorescent lighting, however, the future Lady McCartney still seemed like a Jersey girl\u2014an exceedingly self-possessed, relaxed, collegial and well-manicured Jersey girl, but still.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t meet a prince without a fairy godmother, and Ms. Shevell\u2019s romantic coup\u2014he may not be John Lennon, ladies, but he\u2019s not Ringo, either\u2014is said to have been engineered by no less formidable a yenta than\u00a0The View<\/em>\u2019s Barbara Walters, who happens to be her second cousin. \u201cBarbara was her emotional confidante and played matchmaker,\u201d a friend of the couple told\u00a0The Observer<\/em>. \u201cShe gave numerous dinner parties for them and always made sure to invite people she knew that Paul would want to meet.\u201d The friend added that the broadcast vet also coached Ms. Shevell on how to behave around the musician, helping her to beat out a number of other aspirants for Mr. McCartney\u2019s eye, including Rosanna Arquette. Ms. Walters\u2019s strategy was clear: Look at Heather Mills, and do precisely the opposite. \u201cThey took a page from the old regime and made sure not to make the same mistakes.\u201d Among other shrewd moves, Ms. Shevell has made a point of wearing Stella\u2019s designs to various parties, ensuring maximum press coverage (Ms. Mills had done the same thing, but Ms. Shevell is said to have done it with more sincerity and panache). She has also pulled back when the media attention heated up. The couple shunned the press at the recent Costume Institute Gala, and at a New York City Ballet party (Sir Paul has collaborated with Peter Martins to write the musical score for a ballet debuting this fall), she tried to steer clear of photographers, one told\u00a0The Observer.<\/em>\u201cShe told me that she didn\u2019t like to have her picture taken with people she didn\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd she mentioned that she wasn\u2019t used to the attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Walters was asked about her role as matchmaker. \u201cWe are very close,\u201d she told\u00a0The Observer<\/em>, somewhat coyly.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cNancy is like a second child to me. Her two aunts died of cancer. She\u2019s struggled in her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than that she wasn\u2019t saying. \u201cThe thing about Nancy is that she doesn\u2019t want this article,\u201d Ms. Walters explained in her legendary lisp. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want anything to do with publicity. She\u2019s turned down a piece in\u00a0Vogue.<\/em>\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t want anything to do with music.\u201d<\/p>\n

No wonder Mr. McCartney likes her.<\/p>\n

Nancy Shevell grew up in a Jewish family in Edison, N.J., the middle daughter of Myron and Arlene Shevell. Myron is the owner New England Motor Freight (NEMF), a large haulage company that does more than $400 million in annual revenues. Like Paul\u2019s first wife, Linda McCartney, Arlene fought breast cancer (she died in 1991); Nancy is a survivor of the disease.<\/p>\n

The Shevells have been in the trucking industry since the 1920s, when the family business transported seafood from the New Jersey coast to New York (shades of\u00a0Boardwalk Empire<\/em>). During the 1960s, Myron started his own business with his brother, Daniel, but they ran afoul of government investigators, and in 1975 were charged with fraud for alleged involvement with the Mafia. The case never went to trial, but the brothers were forced to surrender control of company and went bankrupt. Later that year Daniel Shevell, aged 39, fatally shot himself. In 1988, after buying the struggling trucking company NEMF, Myron Shevell was accused of colluding with Vincent Gigante, the head of the Genovese crime family. It was claimed in a racketeering lawsuit that Mr. Shevell made illegal pay-offs in return for a deal that would allow his company to skirt union rules. Again the case never went to trial, but Mr. Shevell was barred for five years from engaging in union negotiations.<\/p>\n

Despite these difficulties, Nancy gravitated toward the family business. According to the one and only interview she\u2019s ever given, a 2002 sit down with the\u00a0The Newark Star-Ledger,<\/em>\u00a0she loved it when her father brought her toy trucks as gifts. \u201cI used to line them up in my room, right next to my Barbies,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cWhile other kids would go feed ducks at the park, we would go to my father\u2019s truck terminals, to places like Pennsauken, every single weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

A tomboy streak appears to have persisted into high school, where Nancy played for her school\u2019s all-girl football team. Her interests, as listed in her 1977 yearbook, were skiing, flying, Vermont and, curiously, \u201cboobs.\u201d She went onto Arizona State University, where she majored in transportation\u2014the only woman to do so at the time\u2014and met her ex-husband, attorney Bruce Blakeman, with whom she has a son, Arlen, 19.<\/p>\n

Mr. Blakeman couldn\u2019t offer a sharper contrast from her current beau. A die-hard Republican who challenged Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010, Mr. Blakeman is probably best-known for an eccentric political ad which featured a \u201cpitch\u201d from his talking pet dog during a short-lived campaign for mayor in 2009. When contacted about Ms. Shevell\u2019s wedding plans, he was gracious. \u201cI wish Nancy and Paul well, and that\u2019s it. Nancy\u2019s a great mother, and Paul treats my son very nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Shevell joined her father\u2019s company in 1983, becoming VP for administration in 1986. As a woman in an overwhelmingly male industry, she was put through her paces. In\u00a0The Star-Ledger,<\/em>\u00a0she recalled one dramatic throwdown with a colleague, adding pointedly, \u201cI don\u2019t know where he is right now but I know where I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Shevell was appointed to serve on the M.T.A. board in 2001 by then-governor George Pataki, an unpaid post. Though her 10-year tenure came to an end in June, so far no seems to be in any rush to replace her.<\/p>\n

According to other board members, Ms. Shevell is well-liked by her colleagues, despite having missed a number of the monthly meetings and openly texting in others. She breezes through her agenda items with a certain practiced efficiency and a firm grasp of Robert\u2019s Rules of Order. Eschewing a driver, Ms. Shevell generally takes the bus to M.T.A. meetings, traveling down Fifth Avenue from her apartment on East 83rd Street. Noted one former board member, \u201cShe would talk a lot about bus bunching on Fifth and the fact that the subways are so crowded during rush hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t to say she\u2019s been a champion of commuters during her years on the board. \u201cShe plays for the company team,\u201d said Gene Russianoff, longtime spokesperson for the Straphanger\u2019s Campaign. \u201cDuring her tenure as bus committee chairman, they eliminated 570 bus stops, which led to worse service. She didn\u2019t publicly fight the budget cuts. She\u2019s not a thorn in the side of the M.T.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

The origin\u2019s of the couple\u2019s romance are murky, despite the efforts of some of Fleet Street\u2019s finest news hounds. (Indeed, Sir Paul, dubbed Macca by the British papers, recently suggested he may have been voice-mail hacked.)<\/p>\n

Reportedly, their acquaintance goes back some 20 years, due to the\u00a0 proximity of their weekend homes in the Hamptons. (Ms. Shevell\u2019s East Hampton residence, valued at $8 million, is said to be far nicer than Mr. McCartney\u2019s Amagansett getaway.)<\/p>\n

Their romance first became public in 2007, when\u00a0The Sun<\/em>\u00a0reported that they\u2019d been spotted at a South Fork sushi spot. Afterward, the story noted, \u201cMacca put his arm around Nancy after he drove her home\u2014and they kissed tenderly.\u201d Ms. Shevell was legally separated at the time, and Mr. McCartney was busy disentangling himself from his troubled romance with Ms. Mills.<\/p>\n

The tabloids also breathlessly reported on a road trip they took in the summer of 2008 on Route 66 crossing seven states in an \u201989 Ford Bronco, and another jaunt to Anguilla after the deaths of Nancy\u2019s older brother, Jon, from a drug overdose, and Neil Aspinall, the Beatles\u2019 road manager.<\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s engagement was announced on May 6 of this year. The wedding will be in London\u2014a low-key affair (as these things go) with just a few friends and family members present.<\/p>\n

And after that? Ms. Shevell has been quoted by\u00a0The New York Post<\/em>\u00a0as saying that she\u2019d love to live here in New York but that they would most likely wind up in England. That\u2019s where the story may diverge from the usual fairy tale. Despite Sir Paul\u2019s fortune of well over a billion dollars, he is famously stingy. (A source close to the couple noted with an eye-roll that during the couple\u2019s courtship, Nancy always bought her own plane tickets to the U.K.) His estate in Peasmarsh, Sussex, might be set on 1,500 acres for privacy reasons, but it\u2019s no palace by any stretch. Moreover, it\u2019s isolated. Ms. Shevell can anticipate a lot of nights watching the telly.<\/p>\n

And when she does go out, sources say, she will have her work cut out for her. \u201cConfident, independent women who come over here with money will not have many friends,\u201d warned Helen Kirwan-Taylor, an American journalist whose husband runs a hedge fund in London. \u201cThe last thing you can be here is threatening to other women. The things that open doors in New York shut them in England.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the M.T.A. meeting, Ms. Shevell told\u00a0The Observer<\/em>\u00a0that she didn\u2019t understand what all the fuss was about. \u201cIt\u2019s just not that intriguing,\u201d she said. \u201cNot like his last marriage, which was\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0intriguing. I\u2019m over 50. I work. That\u2019s it. I haven\u2019t been social and I have a small group of girlfriends. There really isn\u2019t much to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled, pushing through the door out to Madison Avenue\u2014presumably late for a bus.<\/p>\n

Source: The New York Observer<\/p>\n

By\u00a0Daisy Prince<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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