Ed Koch and former Miss America Bess Myerson were inseparable during the late 1970s and his rise to power in City Hall.
They later parted ways under the cloud of scandal — and it was unclear Friday whether the Bronx-born beauty queen was aware her feisty friend had died.
At her luxurious apartment overlooking Santa Monica’s shoreline, Myerson was unable to speak to the Daily News, her nurse said. The elegant brunette who often held Koch’s hand and was his campaign co-chair and cultural affairs commissioner now suffers from dementia.
Myerson, 88, was the first Jewish Miss America, a panelist on the 1960s TV show “I’ve Got a Secret” and an aspiring candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1980.
She suffered a stunning fall from grace in the mid-’80s when she was accused of getting alimony reduced for her sewer-contractor boyfriend by giving a low-level job to the judge’s troubled daughter. Myerson was ultimately acquitted. Then, in 1988, she pleaded guilty to shoplifting in Pennsylvania and paid a fine.
In 1977, as Koch campaigned for City Hall, she vehemently denied she was in a fake relationship with the peppy pol.
“I am outraged by the charge in the campaign that I was Ed’s coverup — there just to dispel rumors that Ed was gay,” she told New York magazine.