George O'Neil

Ask almost anyone in the dog show world about George O'Neil and they will know who you mean.

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At various times and to various people, the chain-smoking, seventyish O'Neil has claimed to be an expert in a wide range of subjects, including real estate and dogs. In the real world, his claims most likely would count for little. But in the dog show world, which is, after all, sort of the French Foreign Legion of the sporting world, things were a little different. That sense is reinforced as one wanders among the women in long gowns chatting with women in flannel jackets and men in tuxes with pooper-scoopers at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Even now, both Camilla Lyman and George O'Neil remain almost mythic figures figure among the owners and handlers. In their own way O'Neil and Lyman were, many admit, the personification of one important aspect of the dog show subculture. It's an ethos, which as Allen describes it, "is so eccentric that you don't have to really adhere to any real norm. You can be who you want to be."

Camilla at dog show, dressed as a man

Few people thought of George O'Neil as an expert on antiques and a maven of high finance. The one exception seems to have been Camilla Lyman.

Even from the beginning of their relationship, there were many who were skeptical of O'Neil's intentions. As Doris Maitland put it, "he sort of dominated and took over Camilla's life," so much so that ultimately, Camilla and Doris drifted apart. "I don't want to say parted ways, because we didn't part ways," Doris had said. "But he was way too controlling of her." It wasn't that he was intimidating, not exactly, she had said, but there was something about the guy that troubled her. "This was someone I didn't want around me or around my family," Doris had said. Even more troubling was the sudden and troubling influence he seemed to exert over Camilla. "All of sudden Camilla was asking him if he could do something," Maitland had said. "Never in her life, had I ever heard her ask somebody anything. It was always her telling somebody else, 'This is what I want to do.'"

In a way, according to several people who witnessed the burgeoning relationship, O'Neil managed to envelop Camilla, even in the crowded infield of a dog show, and he did it with the same kind of cold but familiar isolation, a kind of cocoon, in which she had grown up. In interview after interview, her acquaintances from the dog world had painted the same picture. "He did sort of make it difficult for some people to get around her," Allen would later say. "It was almost like having like a perimeter around Camilla so some people just didn't real feel comfortable going over to talk to her because he'd just come right over and be standing right there in their face."

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