Did you pay much attention to that glamorous celebrity in the big hat who owns Birdstone, the racehorse that stunningly edged Smarty Jones at the Belmont Stakes?

Her name now is Marylou Whitney. She’s come a long, long way from her days at Kansas City, Mo., Southwest High.

Yep, she’s that same Marie Louise Schroeder who spent part of World War II as a flirtatious, patriotic disc jockey at radio station KCKN — which once featured all the great “music of our times.” She spotlighted stuff from the likes of Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Harry James.

Always ready with a quip or a catchy label, the articulate Marie Louise chose the radio persona of “Private Smiles,” focusing on music that military people in particular devoured back around 1944 and 1945. Her ratings in the Kansas City area were higher than those of the inimitable Bob Hope when he dominated the national radio scene. The gal could charm the birds off power lines and sell cold chili to Antarcticans, at a big profit.

Met her briefly once in 1945 when my wife Bev worked part-time in the station’s music department. She was some dish, folks. And Marylou didn’t reach where she is with all her wealth and fame by getting any uglier. Still a mighty attractive, striking, dynamic scene-stealer at around age 79. And she’s as tough as she has to be.

Word is that she’s worth at least $200 million. She owns acreage galore in some of the most scenic parts of New York state and has 11 homes in places such as Majorca (an island located in the Mediterranean off the east coast of Spain), Florida, New York, Kentucky and Alaska — where she met her current husband, John Hendrickson, who’s 39 years younger. (They said it wouldn’t last, but it has.)

Heck, if Marylou wanted, she could inveigle some scrumptious seats for basketball games in Allen Fieldhouse. She could rack up more than 2,000 points with just the spare change from her makeup kit and wind up on the chancellor’s lap (he should be so lucky).

After Southwest High, Marylou attended Iowa University but had to come home and go to work when her father died. That’s when she headed for the big-time via radio. From K.C., Marie Louise went to New York to become an actress. Promising, but didn’t make it, except for one movie. Friends said she was more interested in marrying a rich guy anyway. Which she did. Smart and focused.

The drop-dead looker from the prairie was a fixture at all the big parties with all the dandy names and was a clever publicity hound who could handle reporters by “telling them everything but telling them nothing.”

She became noted for her grand entrances at parties, many of which she gives herself nowadays in the Saratoga Springs, N.Y., region. Her husband once said she’d weigh 50 pound less if she took off her incredible jewelry. She always has name people such as Susan Lucci, Mary Ann Mobley, Joan Rivers — you name ’em — on the premises. And do the Republicans love her.

Marylou Whitney, left, feeds grass to her horse, Birdstone, the winner of last weekend's Belmont Stakes at the Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Whitney attended Kansas City, Mo., Southwest High and was a popular disc jockey in K.C. before moving on to New York.

Adept with surprises, Marylou’s Birdstone had just staged a major upset at Belmont and her first remark was a tearful, “Oh, I’m so sorry … Smarty Jones is so popular.” Sorry for a while, maybe, but always ready to handle the spotlight with charm, grace and grit … don’t forget that grit. And intelligence.

Marylou’s first marriage was in 1948, to Frank Hosford, heir to the John Deere fortune. Rich guy mission accomplished. That lasted until 1958 when she did even better — Sonny Whitney (Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney), investor, industrialist, racehorse and land owner, what didn’t he have?

The Whitneys were long involved in big-time politics, racing, society. Not bad for a onetime flatlands disc jockey. In 1992, after 34 years of marriage, Sonny Whitney died at the age of 93 leaving Marylou his full estate. The widow partied hard for a while. She had the equipment, personal and financial, to make one big splash after another. But she had taken a special shine to the horse business and loved the people involved in it.

The Saratoga area had begun to wane in the 1950s but Marylou (with Sonny’s approval) wouldn’t let it. Whitneys had been around there over 100 years. Staying where she and Sonny enjoyed life so much, she threw one big bash after another, brought in megabucks for the race track and is regarded as the savior of the operation, a genuine icon in the horse-racing world. Marylou talks, people listen.

She works hard at the horse business, often traveling by private jet to sites to scout out new blood for her Kentucky farm. It took awhile, but with Birdstone she hit the jackpot, even though she regrets spoiling Smarty’s Party — for maybe 10 seconds (friends say she’s a fierce competitor as well as a charmer).

In 1994, Marylou went to Alaska where she was a friend of Gov. Walt Hickel, a Kansas guy she’d known as Secretary of the Interior in the Nixon Administration. Marylou was the sponsor of an Iditarod dog sled team. She got to know and enjoy John Hendrickson, Hickel’s top aide. He insists to this day he had no idea how rich she was. A 39-year difference, gold-digger, what a mismatch. Not.

Turns out the former tennis pro was no dummy. He orchestrated deals, including the sale of vital Adirondacks acreage. A tough bargainer, he fattened Marylou’s purse by $27 million in a single year, including a controversial sale of 15,000 of their Adirondacks acres.

Turns out Private Smiles was as smart in picking her third husband as she was catching the second. Acquaintances say they still seem deeply devoted to each other and enjoy life to the fullest, which can be pretty full with their loot and holdings.

There are four kids in the mix and some are involved with the family businesses. Marylou is older than her mother-in-law and Hendrickson is younger than all his stepchildren. But it seems to work.

You see her pop up on television during racing events but that only scratches the surface of the way she’s climbed the ladder of success. Phased-out Southwest High, now housing a charter school, holds fond memories now for a lot of folks, while Marie Louise Schroeder just keeps on wheeling, dealing and having a ball.