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Vivian Gillies had a gift for making anyone feel like an old friend.
Warm, gracious` and endlessly supportive, she was at the heart of her family and a quiet force behind the career of her husband, Long Island Journalism Hall of Famer and Brookhaven Town Director of Communications Drew Scott.
Gillies died Jan. 29 at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead due to complications from colitis. She was 78 and was laid to rest Saturday in a private ceremony.
“She was always by my side. To know her was to love her,” Scott of Westhampton told Newsday. “She could make instant friends and she could talk to anybody. She was an integral part of my career.
“She would always give me story suggestions and sometimes made calls, and she was always encouraging me to move on and to reach out to better things,” he added.
Born Vivian Marturano in Brooklyn on April 6, 1947, she was one of two children of NYPD officer and World War II Army veteran Ross Philip Marturano and Sally Mary Mangiamele Marturano. After graduating from the now-defunct Andrew Jackson High School in Queens in 1964, she began work as a secretary for Pfizer in Manhattan.
She met Scott in 1969 and they married in October 1970, with Gillies taking surname from Scott’s birth name, Stuart Gillies, Newsday reported. The couple had four children together and shared both joys and sorrows, including Gillies’ breast cancer in 1993, which required a mastectomy, and the death of their granddaughter, Hallie Rae Ulrich, from an overdose in 2017.
The couple moved frequently early in Scott’s career, from Queens to Central Islip, then Fredericksburg, Virginia, and back to New York, ultimately settling in Westhampton in 2000.
During that time, Gillies worked in a doctor’s office while raising her family, supporting Scott as he anchored for stations including WGBB/1240 AM, WOR/9, WPIX/11, WLIG/55 (now WLNY), News 12 and Newsday.
Scores of friends and family have shared condolences and memories online.
Paulette Perrault Phillippe wrote on Facebook, “What a beautiful woman inside and out, I loved talking with Vivian. She will be missed by so many of us. Holding all of you in my heart, sending love and prayers!”
Scott, who now works as the director of communications for the Town of Brookhaven, thanked friends for their support.
“Thank you so much for your kindness, prayers, and love,” he wrote on Facebook. “Vivian would have been so happy to be able to speak to you directly.”
Gillies is also survived by her children, Sally Gillies of Westhampton; Sara Garber of Williston, Vermont; Sandi Gillies of Sag Harbor; and Scott Gillies of Brentwood, California. She additionally was a loving grandmother to five grandchildren, a great-grandmother to one, and a dear sister to Ross Marturano Sr. of Kennewick, Washington.
