ARTS & CULTURE
51 January/February 2019 StPeteLifeMag.com
He attended Harvard and MIT and by the late ‘80’s he was living in
Paris and working for world renowned architect I.M. Pei as the chief
of design on the Grand Louvre Project, the glass pyramid structure
with subterranean lobby that now marks the entrance to one of the
Susana, a graduate of Georgetown University, worked as an
executive traveling between New York and her home in Beijing.
man for her - a Franco American” working for his father in Paris. It
wasn’t long before Didi got to Yann as well, telling him “I have the
Neither was especially interested at that time. Yann had been
previously married to the daughter of publisher Katherine Graham.
The marriage ended in the ‘70’s and he was not particularly
interested in a serious relationship. Susana was content with her
career and had no plans to move.
But, as fate would have it, Yann and Susana found themselves in
by their mutual friend, Didi, they went to a Mark Rothko exhibit
at MOMA and the dye was cast. “As soon as he began speaking
about Rothko,” Susana smiles, “the imagery and magic of his words
made me see the work in a way I never had before. He was brilliant,
insightful, captivating. I knew right there and then.”
“Our real love story began over art.” They talked late into the night
proposed two months later, and Susana moved to Paris. I asked
how they came to be here in St. Pete and Yann said, “After moving
I
was commissioned to design the Hough wing and the Dali. But we
found an amazing community full of talented artists and beautiful
surroundings. Susana adds, “How could we NOT want to live here!”
Even as they speak of it now, each beam over the memory. All their
recollections are peppered with compliments, made in earnest,
and sincere admiration for each other even after 30 years. “He’s the
most incredible person I have ever met,” Susana says. “And that’s
saying something.” “Susana is brilliant, accomplished, and she’s
been my muse for 30 years,” replies Yann.
It is very clear that they are as much in love now as they were then,
perhaps more so.
Eugenie Bondurant and Paul Wilborn
Paul and Eugenie are one of the best known and, I think I can say
this without contradiction, best loved couples in St. Pete. Paul, a
Tampa native, was a news journalist for the Associated Press, the
Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times, and a screenwriter in a
former life, but he now presides over all things stage worthy as the
musician, regularly performing his American Songbook, a series
of cabaret style concerts with his striking better half. These days,
scripts for Radio Theatre Project, a very popular monthly series of
Eugenie are regular and highly popular participants.
Eugenie, long and lean with undeniable star presence, is the ‘Burg’s
resident movie star. Featured as “Tigris” in one of the “Hunger
TV. She has a million stories, but I love the one about how she found
y , g
to London and then back to the USA, we came here in 2001 when I
found
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