Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the National Association of Scholars on July 25, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission.
Marilyn Penn, wife of attorney, art collector, and eclectic investor Arthur Penn, passed away on July 20, at age 84. Marilyn was an important figure in the history of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). For more than a quarter century, she held gatherings—soirees, really—at her and Arthur’s Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park. These were occasions in which authors of recent books, usually academic, spoke to NAS members, and the New York branch of NAS debated the issues of the day.
Marilyn’s public life and contributions extended well beyond NAS, but I pay tribute to her as a NAS patron.
From near its beginning or perhaps right from the start, NAS gained her support. Marilyn had been a teacher in New York City public schools in the 1960s and was devoted to education. She was, however, under no illusion that the local schools reached much beyond mediocrity in their best days. She was a sharp-eyed critic with a fine sense of irony. I don’t have at hand any of her essays on education, but a 2014 review she wrote of the movie, Boyhood, opens with a salvo that is pure Marilyn:
The greatest thing about movies is their ability to conflate reality with illusion, not just regarding special effects but in convincing us that actors are the characters they portray on screen. Movies made us believe that John Wayne was a war hero though he never served a minute in combat; we believed that Vivien Leigh, a neurasthenic, fragile British beauty was a southern belle with enough pluck to get her hands dirty in Tara’s soil; we believed that Rock Hudson was the ultimate lady’s man who enjoyed the many love scenes that he played with the screen’s sexiest women.
Her apercus were not limited to movies. Here she is in 2012 skewering Peter Wells, a disdainful restaurant critic for the New York Times:
Mon Dieu! All those stereotypically bored and jaded old-timers loaded with dough but devoid of sound bites – c’est affreux! Sounds like Pete might be more comfortable handling the $25 And Under column, where he wouldn’t have to rub up against these offensive rich people who can afford to eat in the restaurants that get the primary reviews in the New York Times. Don’t bother wondering about the food itself – it’s geared to this clientele and therefore only deserving a tasteless one star … It’s interesting how racism, disabled-ism, sexism, and genderism are all verboten by the old Gray Lady while ageism, lookism, snobbism and moneyism are perfectly acceptable.
Marilyn became connected to NAS through her friendship with Peter Shaw, one of the founders of the NAS. I don’t know how or exactly when they met, but Shaw made a deep impression on her. He was a former English professor (Stoney Brook) and biographer of John Adams, and was among the handful of academics who joined in 1982 to form what eventually became the National Association of Scholars. He died in 1995, but part of his legacy was Marilyn’s continued devotion to NAS.
David Gordon, the head of NAS’s New York affiliate, wrote to me that “Marilyn was a clear thinking and well spoken advocate of many of the NAS’s core values, as well as an energetic supporter of democracy around the world.” That she was, but she was also a fierce combatant in the culture wars with a keen eye for ethnic and religious dispositions. After I mentioned my taste for a notorious cheese, she sent me a note:
You had me with Stinking Bishop which I discovered several years ago, then had trouble finding again and suspected that the Church took umbrage (rightfully so) and to be honest, I would never have bought it with the name Stinking Rabbi.
Which was a prelude to her analysis of black and Jewish voting patterns in New York City. I have kept my correspondence with Marilyn, which is both intellectually vibrant and wickedly funny.
I first met Marilyn in 2007 and from the start she wanted to know what I knew about Shaw—which was very little. NAS has an award named after him but he and I never met. She eventually forgave me that fault and we became good friends. There was some bravery in this. During the depths of COVID-19, while she and Arthur lived in fear of the contagion, she had Jody and me over for dinner. We saw them at their house in Southampton too, and on various occasions met some of their grown-up children and grandchildren. The professional connection clearly grew into a warm friendship. Marilyn was a champion Scrabble player, at least within local circles, and an excellent ping pong player. (I pride myself on my ping pong prowess and was astonished when she beat me.)
Along the way, Jody and I became involved in one of Arthur’s projects: producing a documentary on the life of his grandfather, who had pioneered black theatre in Harlem before the Harlem Renaissance. The work meant many meetings in their apartment, where we also filmed some of the interviews. Marilyn graciously tolerated what had to have been major disruptions to her routine.
In her last few years, Marilyn and I fell out of touch, which I deeply regret.
Her history with NAS, however, cannot be erased or forgotten. She brought elegance, wit, and flair to NAS and lifted its charter organization to social prominence. I will miss her greatly.
Image by tomertu on Adobe Stock; Asset ID#: 170057278
