Who

Buxbaum is the New York chief of ID PR, one of the biggest publicity firms in the entertainment business.

Backstory

Buxbaum began her PR career in 1989 as an assistant to all-star publicist Lois Smith at PMK, where she worked with longstanding Smith clients like Cher, Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton. In 1993, Buxbaum left to join the in-house publicity department at Columbia Pictures; she eventually returned to PMK as a senior publicist, taking over publicity duties for the likes of Christina Ricci, Winona Ryder and Sean Penn. In 1999 ID's LA chief, Kelly Bush, hired Buxbaum to start up the firm's New York office. She's been at ID ever since, and works closely with Bush as well as Ina Treciokas, who recently returned to the LA office from New York.

Of note

Buxbaum's stable of clients has included Robin Williams, Christina Ricci, Winona Ryder, Sean Penn, Mary-Louise Parker, Luke Wilson, Christopher Walken, Rachel Weisz, Mary Tyler Moore, Ethan Hawke, Gina Gershon, Julia Stiles, Phil Collins, Kevin Kline, Michelle Williams, and Mira Sorvino. It goes without saying that every once in a while Buxbaum is forced into serious spin mode on behalf of a client. In 2001, she was on the defensive after Winona Ryder's infamous shoplifting spree and subsequent trial. In 2003, she had to spin the news that Mary Tyler Moore had been dumped by Neil Simon from his off-Broadway play after she'd failed to learn her lines. And she had some explaining to do in 2006 after client Robin Williams checked into rehab after 20 years of sobriety. But Buxbaum faced the biggest challenge of her PR career when client Heath Ledger suddenly died in January 2008. The ferocious curiosity of the celebrity journalism establishment was trained squarely at Buxbaum, with reporters barraging her with questions over what pills Ledger had taken, whether he'd overdosed deliberately or accidentally, and how his ex, Michelle Williams—another Buxbaum's client—was holding up. Needless to say, her name appeared in the paper about a million times alongside the phrase "declined to comment."

Personal

Buxbaum is married to attorney Michael Geschwer. The couple lives in a West 13th Street apartment that they purchased for $2.85 million in 2007.

On screen

As Gina Gershon's publicist, she made a brief appearance on an episode of Gershon's short-lived reality series Rocked.