Claudia Cohen

Claudia Lynn Cohen was born on Dec. 16, 1950, in Englewood, N.J. Her father, Robert, was president of the Hudson County News Company, a major distributor of newspapers and magazines. Ms. Cohen earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 and afterward was on the staff of More, a progressive journalism review. She joined Page Six as a reporter in 1977, serving as its editor from 1978 to 1980. In 1985, with her marriage to Mr. Perelman, now the chairman of Revlon, Ms. Cohen became a boldface name herself. (Their union was Ms. Cohen’s only marriage; she was Mr. Perelman’s second wife of four.) The public scrutiny of Ms. Cohen’s private life only intensified with her divorce from Mr. Perelman in 1994. As was widely reported, she received an out-of-court settlement of $80 million. Ms. Cohen is survived by her parents, Robert and Harriet Cohen of Englewood and Palm Beach, Fla.; a brother, James, of Alpine, N.J.; and a daughter, Samantha Perelman of Manhattan. After her divorce from Mr. Perelman, Ms. Cohen, a Democrat, was romantically involved for about a year with Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, Republican of New York. In early 1995, at the start of the relationship, Senator D’Amato called a press conference to announce that he was in love. He was, according to news reports at the time, the first senator in the history of the United States to do so.