Caring For B. Smith Through Alzheimer's 'You Can Still Find Some Joy'

THE ICONIC RESTAURATEUR’S HUSBAND, DAN GASBY, WON’T HIDE OR APOLOGIZE: HE’S FALLEN IN LOVE WITH ANOTHER WOMAN AND MADE HER PART OF B.’S LIFE

- Sandra Sobieraj Westfall & Diane Herbst

The glamour and poise of Barbara “B.” Smith’s life before Alzheimer’s—the 1970s cover modeling, the late- 1990s TV show, magazine and cookbooks—is all gone now. It’s been six years since her diagnosis, and as she and her husband of 26 years, former TV producer Dan Gasby, get ready to go out for supper near their East Hampton, N.Y., home, B. seems unaware that she’s wearing only one shoe. She claps her hands as Dan gently brushes her hair in their kitchen. “Ri-i-ight now,” B., 69, singsongs. “We’re going to an office right now!”

When the couple arrive instead at a favorite place, the Restaurant at the Maid stone Hotel, there are fleeting glimpses of the charm that made B. a success at three restaurants that bore her name. Before swanning around the bar, she leans into the entryway mirror and kisses her own image. “Hi, honey!” she coos. Then she smiles at Alex Lerner, the woman who helped with B.’s missing shoe back at the house (“She hides things and hoards things,” Alex explains)—and who is her husband’s girlfriend. “Hi, pretty lady!” Smith says.