‘She was just one of the girls’

Friends say Debra Simon was the picture of humility in the face of extravagance.

In the middle of a storm, you could count on her to be graceful and wear a smile.

On Sept. 10, the Newport Beach socialite who, friends said, never forgot her humble New York roots, took her own life in her Harbor Island home. Orange County Sheriff-Coroner’s officials have ruled Simon’s death a suicide. She was 53.

“She was down to earth, but she had two sides to her. She had the high-sophisticated side and could just take that all off and be one of the girls,” said Caren Lancona, who worked on the Miss Newport Beach pageant with Simon and has known her for the last eight years.

In 2001, Simon moved into Newport Beach’s exclusive Harbor Island community from New York. For at least the past six or seven years, she traveled back and forth visiting her three children in New Jersey and appearing in court for contentious divorce proceedings with her husband, friends said.

But while Simon may have had a stressful home life, to her friends and people she met at galas and balls throughout Orange County, she was just Debbie.

“When I started working with her, she was more of a rarity in a sense,” said Grace Meyer, manager of special events for the Hoag Hospital Foundation. “She truly was down to earth. We used to always comment, ‘You’re just so real, Debbie.’ And she’d reply it was because she grew up from nothing like every Joe Schmoe.”

Simon used her wealth to help nonprofits around Orange County. She worked with the Hoag Hospital Foundation, Angels of the Arts of Orange County and was a member of Dream Guild of the Orange County chapter of the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation.

“Even though she lived in a mansion on the water and had the best of everything, she was still just one of us girls and knew how to have fun,” Lancona said in an e-mail. “Debbie was consistently Debbie, whether we were going to a casual event or a black-tie social affair. She always kept the best composure, outlook and emotional strength in public.

“I only wish I could talk to Debbie one more time, hold her hand and take her to church to put it all in God’s hands,” she said.

Friends said she lit up every room she walked into and used her ever-growing network of friends to better the community.

Lancona said she will start the Debbie Simon Scholarship Fund through the Miss Newport Beach Pageant to award one scholarship to a pageant contestant.

“She never really forgot her roots,” Meyer said. “She didn’t care. She always dressed and looked spectacular, she could never hide in a crowd because she was so beautiful.

“She was honest and frank about her life.”

Simon’s family already had a memorial service in New Jersey, but friends and loved ones are scheduling one locally, Lancona said.

Details on the services were not immediately available.