ollie Wilmot, the socialite with the oversize white sunglasses who rose to celebrity in 1984 when a tanker ran aground at her Palm Beach, Fla., mansion, died on Sept. 17 at her apartment in Manhattan.

She was always reluctant to give her age, and ages from 73 to 78 have been reported. The Times Union of Albany, which regularly noted her attendance — and choice of jewels — at horse races in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., said longtime friends estimated that she was in her early 80's.

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Paul Wilmot, a former husband, guessed 73 was closer. At least that is what she told him.

The cause of death was not disclosed.

Mrs. Wilmot had no children, and her sole immediate survivor is her sister, Francice Bushkin, of Santa Barbara, Calif.

Mrs. Wilmot rose to prominence the day after Thanksgiving in 1984, when a maid awakened her. Madame had callers to her one-acre oceanfront estate, next door to the estate of Rose Kennedy on North Ocean Boulevard Drive.

"I thought it was the man who was coming to photograph my home for Town and Country," she said in an interview in The New York Times.

Instead, in a town that reveres privacy, it was visitors who arrived unannounced — something frequent visitors like the Duke and Duchess of Windsor just would not do.

"Let's have coffee first," Mrs. Wilmot said with a sigh.

She finally padded out to the patio in her dressing gown to find a 197-foot Venezuelan freighter pounding her seawall into concrete chips. A freak tropical storm had driven the ship, a rust bucket named the Mercedes, hard against her wall.

She overcame her dread of escaping Venezuelan rats and served finger sandwiches, caviar and coffee to the crew of 10, and martinis to the journalists who showed up.

She also fed the ship's cat, which the crew later gave to her. The cat, by then known as Mollie Mercedes, was passed on to her neighbors, the Pulitzer family, who sent it to the beauty parlor for a thorough fluffing and then outfitted it in velvet collars decorated with gold.

Such trappings were typical of the Palm Beach way of life that Mrs. Wilmot had known since she bought her mansion in the early 1960's. She brought her touch to the house, covering the walls of the grand drawing room with leopard-print fabric and laying the skins of lions and zebras on the gleaming floors. She displayed oceans of flowers, always white. Her own elegant, sometimes ostentatious, costumes also had a decidedly personal signature, particularly those sunglasses.

Soon after her purchase, Mrs. Wilmot was forced to put up with Secret Service agents who overran her property to protect her neighbor, President John F. Kennedy. The agents were less of a bother than a large boat in the backyard. But still.

Mollie Netcher was born in Chicago. She was named after her grandmother, who began as a clerk and underwear buyer in the family store and became known as "the merchant princess of State Street." Her parents, Charles and Gladys, inherited the business, the Boston Store.

Mrs. Wilmot graduated from the Foxcroft School. She was married to and divorced from Eddie Bragno, a wine merchant who is now dead; Albert Bostwick, of the polo family; and Mr. Wilmot, a fashion publicity agent.

She exuberantly moved from charities, particularly ones related to dancing and horses, to art auctions. Her philanthropy included the New York City Ballet, the National Museum of Racing, the National Museum of Dance and equine research at the Veterinary College of Cornell University.

Her most dramatic moment occurred when the ramshackle freighter visited her. Helicopters carrying cameramen buzzed overhead for months, after it turned out that the ship's owner was bankrupt and it was stuck.

Palm Beach residents became nightly visitors, sipping cocktails and offering tongue-in-cheek suggestions on what Mrs. Wilmot might do about her problem. A bar had Mollie Wilmot look-alike contests, and many customers wore blond wigs and large white-framed sunglasses. Mrs. Wilmot judged.

After she had waited more than a month for the Mercedes to be removed, which turned out to be just a third of its stay, Mrs. Wilmot was convinced of one thing.

"There's a strong possibility," she said, "that if the boat had washed up on the Kennedy property, it would be gone already."

If it all sounded like a movie, that is exactly what the Walt Disney Company thought. For 10 years, it tried to make a film, "Palm Beached," that was supposed to star Melanie Griffith or Bette Midler. It languished in development and died.

Mrs. Wilmot came out strongly against having Ms. Midler portray her. The actress had just appeared in "Down and Out in Beverly Hills."

"Disney wants to be flamboyant, to turn Palm Beach into a Beverly Hills," Mrs. Wilmot said. "And I don't think that's fair."