Who

The daughter of billionaire financier Fayez Sarofim, social fixture Allison has dabbled in writing, restaurateuring, acting, and art collecting.

Backstory

Born and raised in Houston, Allison is the daughter of Fayez Sarofim, the Texas-based, Egyptian-born banker who manages money for oil gazillionaires. (He's the 664th richest person in the world, according to Forbes, worth $1.5 billion.) Allison graduated from Rice and studied at the Institute of Culinary Education before spending a year working at Le Bernardin, where she "tasted recipes" for the restaurant's owners Maguy Le Coze and Eric Ripert. She later went out on her own, opening the now-defunct restaurant Vandam with partner Frederick Lesort.

Currently she wiles away her days writing, acting (she's played a centaur in the Chronicles of Narnia and made a star turn as "Eating Disorder Mom" in The Nanny Diaries) and collecting mid-century expressionist art. She's also active with various arts-related non-profits around town. She's on the director's council of the Whitney and the acquisitions committee of the Guggenheim, and has put together fundraisers for the Public Theatre and the New York City Ballet.

Personal

Fat-free, permanently tan, and heavily nipped and tucked, Allison divorced her first husband in the late 1990s. She's now involved with furniture designer Stuart Parr. She lives in a Miles Redd-designed West Village townhouse on Bank Street, purchased from model Linda Evangelista, the site of her famous annual Halloween party.