Mica Ertegun, seated on a table in her New York, wearing a magenta bolero jacket ornamented with gold coins over a pink turtleneck and pantaloons by Adolfo. Hair by Marc Sinclaire.Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, August 1969
Her husband, Ahmet Ertegun, is a complex, polished, fast-moving man with a subtle and stringent wit, who is rarely to be found in the place he was last seen. It is part of his unpredictability, yet completely in character, that he should have a passion for backgammon, a game usually played by men with rather more leisure—and he has two backgammon tables in his house. As head of Atlantic Recording Corporation, he has a knack for pouncing on potential, for finding and encouraging embryonic talent, and he travels constantly in search of new musicians and new sounds. He seems a glossily incongruous figure in the soul-rock world. “But,” said a Californian colleague, “he’s right there when it’s happening, and the artists know it and respect him.” Stories about him abound—few seem to be apocryphal. “He’s a perfectionist propelled by ambition” is how he’s summed up by someone who has known him for years. The same person added, “And Mica complements him exactly and sees to it that everything is as near perfect for him at home as it can be.”
Mrs. Ertegun likes the diversity of their interests, the way their many worlds meet. “In one way I lead a double life,” she said. “Ahmet can forget his work when he comes home, and does. But we do go to recording sessions all the time, to concerts in New York and in California, and we have musicians and managers here often. But I don’t move in that world of music and my role, really, is to stay in the background.”