Berkshire Bulletin Summer 2020

THE CAMERAS LIKED ME

Dorinda Cinkala Medley ’83 is featured on “The Real Housewives of New York City.”

By Megan Tady

Last year, Dorinda Cinkala Medley was touring an open market in Dubai when residents began approaching her saying “I can’t believe it’s you.” Medley, who is featured on the reality TV show “The Real Housewives of New York City,” couldn’t believe she was being recognized.

“The most amazing thing about the ‘Housewives’ franchise is the incredible reach it has,” Medley says. “I find the whole experience fascinating—reality shows have this powerful message which can be both positive and negative. When I’m filming I forget that this is going to be broadcast all over the world. The bond is that people are people, and we are all going through the same stuff everywhere.”

“RHONY,” as it is coined, is in its 12th year on the Bravo TV network and follows the personal and professional lives of a group of women living in New York City. Medley, who is embarking on her sixth season, has an Instagram following of over 900,000. Her fans have deeply connected with her vivacious, funny, tell it-like-it-is personality; her off-the-cuff one-liners, termed “Dorinda-isms;” and her ’80s-themed aerobics classes, also with their own name: “Dooorobics.”

Medley graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 1986, worked for Liz Claiborne, and then relocated to London with her first husband. In London, she started DCL Cashmere and counted Princess Diana and Joan Collins among her clients. After her divorce, she and her daughter, Hannah, moved back to Manhattan. In 2005, she met and married Dr. Richard Medley, who tragically passed away in 2011. Medley was reeling from the loss when “RHONY” cast member and friend Ramona Singer suggested that she join the show.

“Ramona came to me and said, ‘Why don’t you try it for a year? It’s a great distraction, and I think it’d be good for you,’” Medley recalls. “I went on the show, and the cameras liked me, and I liked the cameras. So off to the races we went.”

During her first season in 2015, Medley was honest with the audience about her grief. Medley told the magazine Saratoga Living: “One of the most powerful moments for me after the first season was when I was at a fruit stand in front of my building, and this woman walked up to me and said, ‘Can I just say how powerful it is that you spoke about Richard and his passing, and that you spoke about becoming a widow?’”

Each season requires months of intense filming. While cameras don’t follow Medley 24 hours a day, she is required to film scenes several times each day, and she simply allows the camera crew and producers to showcase both the glamour and the everydayness of her life.

Photo courtesy of Dorinda Medley

“They literally just pick you up in your life,” she says. “I know it sounds crazy, but it works. If you try to create a storyline or try to push anything, it never ends up how you think it’s going to.”

Viewers are glued to “RHONY” for the drama that unfolds—gaffes, intense discussions, and emotional outbursts. “Our show in particular is very much based on resolving, getting things out in the open, being real and saying it the way it is, and having people take accountability,” she says. Medley adds that she isn’t allowed to retract anything caught on camera. “You sign that privilege away! Once you’re mic’d, you’re mic’d.”

At the same time, Medley says the audience is drawn to moments that portray normal life. “People love to watch us pack for trips,” she says. “I think it brings comfort to let people see that we’re all just doing the same stuff, dealing with the same problems, handling the same issues, whatever it may be: death, divorce, aging, dating, finance, and motherhood.”

On and off camera, Medley is also known for her many philanthropic endeavors to benefit causes near and dear to her heart, including Lalela Project, Ronald McDonald House, Ali Forney Center, Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation, and many others.

Medley, who grew up in Great Barrington, Mass., says her penchant for outrageous one-liners comes from her mother, who always “said whatever needed to be said.” As one of four children in a large and diverse family— Italian, Catholic, and Polish—she needed to vie for attention. “I think I’m a comic by nature,” she shares. “There was always a lot of banter and stories being told, usually over a lasagna, and you weren’t noticed unless you had a colorful story to tell, because there were so many of us.”

It was Medley’s mother who insisted that she and her siblings attend Berkshire School. “My mother had a vision for us,” she recalls. “I grew up locally, my dad was a telephone man and my mother was a bookkeeper for my grandfather. They didn’t have the opportunities that they wanted to give us through education, exposure, and athletics. Berkshire School was pivotal in changing my mindset. It made me realize that there was more than Great Barrington, and that the opportunities were endless.”

As a day student, Medley says she was actively involved in athletics and extracurricular activities. “It really kept us out of trouble because we were just so athletic and engaged, and we were basically exhausted. If we weren’t doing academics, we were doing athletics, if not athletics, student council. All that was left was sleep.”

One of Medley’s favorite Berkshire memories is of students and faculty members dining together. “I felt like it was an extended family and everyone was rooting for each other to be the best we could in the world,” she said. “It really set a tone.”

Medley is often back in her old stomping grounds. Her second home in the Berkshires called Blue Stone Manor is a 1902 Tudor-style cottage with seven bedrooms. The house, which was a wedding present from her late husband, has a rich familial history: her great-grandfather and grandfather were masons who helped build it. Medley often daydreamed about one day owning the home with its expansive 18 acres.

“The Berkshires are a very special place,” she said. “When I get there, it’s a relief and a release from all of the worries that I have when I’m in New York. I’m with my family. I relax, read, cook, take walks, and get back to nature. It’s a very spiritual retreat for me. It’s where my heart and my parents are, it’s home.”

As for the upcoming season of “RHONY,” Medley doesn’t have any predictions. “Each season is a different animal,” she says. But fans near and far can expect Medley to be her tried-and-true self. “It’s a pretty realistic look at me in my life,” she says. “What you see is what you get.”

bravotv.com/people/ dorinda-medley

Medley in her living room at Blue Stone Manor, her second home in the Berkshires

Photo by Mick Hales, www.mickhales.com