Chris Madden, Life-style Creator and Character, Dies at 73

Her journal At House With Chris Madden was printed by Hearst and despatched to subscribers of Good Housekeeping for about two years beginning in 2005.

She married Mr. Madden, then promoting director of New York Journal, in 1974. He would go on to be writer of Self, Home & Backyard and Bon Appétit, after which chief government of his spouse’s firm, Chris Madden Inc.

Ann Christine Casson was born on June 1, 1948, in Rockville Centre, N.Y., on Lengthy Island, certainly one of 9 youngsters. Her father, Edward Gaynor Casson, was a gross sales government on the Mohawk Brush Firm. Her mom, Ann Marie (Hill) Casson, was a homemaker who taught her youngsters to stitch and cook dinner, and even upholster furnishings.

Chris was a mannequin as a toddler and an adolescent. She majored in trend merchandising on the Style Institute of Expertise in Manhattan, although she dropped out in her senior 12 months to work as an assistant within the photograph division of Sports activities Illustrated.

She labored within the publicity departments at a number of publishing homes — when she was simply 24, she was employed as director of publicity at Farrar, Straus & Giroux — till being fired by Simon & Schuster within the late Seventies, Mr. Madden stated, for not being aggressive sufficient. She then began her personal publicity firm, Chris Madden & Associates (there have been no associates), of their condo on East 84th Avenue. Her shoppers included guide publishers, an anti-censorship nonprofit and Ford Fashions.

On the similar time, she started to provide coffee-table books. She first wrote a cookbook (“The Compleat Lemon,” with Susan Lee, printed in 1979) after which a guide on New York Metropolis (“Manhattan,” with Jean-Claude Suares, printed in 1981). After her guide on decorators, “Inside Visions: Nice American Designers and the Showcase Home,” was printed in 1988, she started to concentrate on inside design.