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Children's
clothing shop on Madison Avenue. Photo JH.
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was a damp night in New York, with the softest gentlest drizzle,
the kind that cleans your woolens
better than the dry cleaner. And New York was busy from one end
of town to the other.
John Baldessari, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Eli Broad, Pierre
Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau, Target
Corporation, and Kerry
Washington were
being
honored over at Cipriani 42nd Street at the Americans for Arts’ National
Arts Awards. Plus there was a tasting benefit for Partnership With
Children at the Kentshire Galleries. Then over at the Yale Club,
the New York Coalition of 100 Black Women were holding their 35th
anniversary Founders Dinner where they honored Dr. Louise
Mirrer, President of the New-York Historical Society with
their 2005 Beacon Award. Plus, over at the Pierre, Deborah
Roberts was emceeing the
Skin Cancer Foundation’s Skin Sense Award Gala.
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Back
with the Big Rich Kids
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Derek and Nicole Limbocker were hosting a cocktail reception to
celebrate the Grand Opening of Mr. Limbocker’s WineCare Storage (New
York’s premier wine storage facility) down at 628 West 28th
Street (between 11th and 12th), so you know even the hold-out Upper
East Siders are beginning to move downtown. At least the major wine
aficionados among them. But we didn’t get there, so more
on that later.
And over at 979 Third Avenue, at the D&D there
was a book party for Adam Lewis’ new book on Albert
Hadley (Albert
Hadley: The Story of America’s Preeminent Interior Designer, Rizzoli),
one of America’s greatest interior designers and for a
longtime the partner of Sister Parish.
Mr. Hadley is known for his modesty and diffidence when it comes
to talking about himself. Nevertheless, Mr. Lewis befriended
the man while researching another book on Hadley’s revered
friend and mentor Van Day Truex. For his miles
and miles of decorating fans, the Lewis book is a treasure trove
of Hadley’s
recollections and details of his work, along with 200 color photos
of beautiful
rooms he’s designed, as well as a catalog of hundreds of
articles and references to Hadley’s work for future design
scholars. Annette de la Renta in an introduction
in the book said “He
instinctively knows what’s important and eschews the pompous.” He’s
also been a teacher and has passed on much of his wealth of knowledge
of design history to former assistants such as Mariette
Himes Gomez, David Kleinberg, David Anthony Easton, Thomas Jayne,
and Bunny Williams.
We went over to Judith Ripka’s salon at 777
Madison where Ms.
Ripka, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan and Somers
Farkas were hosting a
cocktail reception celebrating the upcoming “Meet Me At the
Stork Club,” the 2005 Alzheimer’s Association Rita
Hayworth Gala which this year is honoring furrier Dennis
Basso and Robert
H. Benmosche, the chairman of the board and CEO of MetLife, a big
contributor to the cause. Lotta speeches there; (too many speeches
rains out the party, girls).
The big gala itself takes place November 1st at the Waldorf.
Rolex Watch is the underwriter. Princess Yasmin started this
more than
20 years ago in response to her famous mother’s affliction.
Her efforts brought the dread disease into the public forum and the
national consciousness and she’s raised more than $40 million
for the cause so far. The gala itself is always a big fun party
and this year Natalie Cole will be making a special performance
(see
NYSD calendar for details).
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The
scene at Judith Ripka
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From
there JH and the Digital and I hiked down the avenue
and over to the Sherry-Netherland where Hilary and Wilbur
Ross were throwing a cocktail reception for the world
famous prankster and interior decorator Mario Buatta who
recently completed the decorating of the Rosses’ new apartment
with its magnificent views of Manhattan, left right and center.
The apartment is the cover story in November's Architectural
Digest.
There was a big crowd already tasting the pink champagne and the excellent hors
d’oeuvres when we arrived. In fact some were already leaving – Betty
Sherrill, John Marron, Barbara Walters – moving on to the next,
no doubt. I saw Peter and Jamee Gregory, Susan Gutfreund, Katharine Bryan,
Muffy Miller, Leonard and Allison Stern, Harriet and Ron Weintraub, Christopher
Mason, Susan Brody, Daisy and Paul Soros, Heather Cohane, Alice Mason, Dominique
Richard, Chris and Grace Meigher, Brian Stewart, Stephanie Krieger, Pat Altschul,
Carolyne Roehm, Nina Griscom and Leonel Piraino,
Anne Eisenhower and Wolfgang Flottl, Dominick Dunne, Jackie and Rod Drake, Lee
and Jane Gammill, Mary Hilliard with her camera.
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Wilbur
and Hilary Ross
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Shortly after our arrival, a very tall Dame Edna look-alike
(actually quite a bit taller, and somewhat slimmer – ahem), wearing a cotton-candy-pink
coiffure and a kinda-magenta Chanel-y suit, came tearing through the crowd in
that precious Dame Edna strut, with a bouquet of posies in hand, to wish the
famously infamous prankster-decorator a Happy Birthday. For Mario will be marking
a New Year in just a few days.
The Dame Edna bit was a reference to Mario’s utter devotion to the Aussie
former housewife-turned-Broadway-star whose show Mario saw sixty times. That’s
right, Six-O. He liked it, as you might surmise.
Anyway, the Rosses’ exquisite Buatta rooms were filled with talk-talk-talk,
as is always the way when Mario is around. I met Julie Baumgold, the
authoress of a new book, The Diamond, who was with her husband Ed
Kosner. Coincidentally I had started reading the book over last weekend.
A historical novel (and I am not a regular reader of historical novels) based
on the famous Regent diamond that belonged to several famous proud (and ill-fated)
possessors including Louis XIV’s sister-in-law known to
the court of Versailles as Madame, and later Napoleon. I’m
not sure what it’s all leading to but there’s a certain air of that “don’t-wish-too-hard-for-what-you-want” aphorism
lurking.
Ms. Baumgold, whom some will remember (and occasionally, some socialites will
recall with a frisson or two) for her penning of the weekly “Mr. Peepers” social
column in New York magazine a few moons ago, has written a compelling
story full of compelling historical characters from 17th- and 18th-century France,
and I’m hooked – but more about that when I’m finished. |
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Lee
Gammill, Barbara Walters, and Jane Gammill
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Mario
Buatta and Jamee Gregory
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Dominick
Dunne and Enid Nemy
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A
Dame Edna look-alike towers over Mario |
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Hilary
and Wilbur get a laugh on Mario's expense |
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Mary
Hilliard, Rod Drake, Hilary Geary, Barbara Bancroft,
and Allison Stern
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Connie
and Randy Jones
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Julie
Baumgold and Ed Kosner
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Jackie
Weld Drake and Muffy Miller
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Mark
Gilbertson with his mom Ellen
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Marilyn
White, Roger Webster, and Eva Dillon
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James
Reginato, Heather Cohane, and Angus Wilkie
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Carolyn
Roehm and Barbara Bancroft
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Stephanie
Krieger, Brian Stewart, and Pat Altschul
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Susan
Gutfreund and Christopher Mason
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Leonard
Stern, Daisy Soros, and Ronald Weintraub
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Katherine
Bryan and Allison Stern
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Jackie
Weld Drake and Debbie Bancroft
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Muffy
and Donald Miller
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Christina
Gerardo
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Nancy
and John Novogrod
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Carolyne
Roehm and Mai Harrison
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Nina
Griscom and Leonel Piraino
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Paige
Rense and Kenneth Noland
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The
sitting room
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The
living room
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Muffie
Potter Aston
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Bravo
Buatta! hats
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Barbara
Goldsmith and Mai Harrison
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After
our quaffing of the excellent pink champagne at chez Ross, I moved
on to the Regency Hotel for the opening
night of Carol Channing at Feinstein’s-at-the-Regency.
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Carol
Channing as Dolly
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I saw Carol Channing for the first and only time (until last night) on January
17, 1964, the second night of the original Hello Dolly at the St.
James Theater here in New York. Forty-five minutes into the show Dolly
Levi (played
by Miss Channing) comes through the door at the top of the staircase and the
chorus goes into that song. Wow! I will never forget the thrill of the electricity
that filled the St. James’ Theater as she descended the staircase. It was
Broadway baby like I saw only once again in my life (and that was the second
night of Streisand on the stage at the Winter Garden in Funny Girl singing “I’m
the Greatest Star”).
Carol Channing was already one of the great, practically immortal musical stars
by then, having starred fifteen years before as Lorelei Lee in Gentleman
Prefer Blondes where she introduced “Diamonds are a Girl’s
Best Friend.”
Last night at Feinstein’s, like Dolly, the lady was in red
with the signature platinum blonde tresses and that voice, that
big sorta husky-as-taffeta voice
and those big round eyes, and she wowwed ‘em again. Wowwed us again. You
don’t know what to expect when you go to see a stage legend who's been
wowwing ‘em longer than most people (well, not all) in the room have been
on the planet. But from the opening moment when the musicians warm up the audience
with some intro notes of “Hello Dolly,” and the star appears, you’re
spellbound. |
Carol
Channing performing last night at Feinstein’s-at-the-Regency |
It’s
impossible for me not to analyze the wonder of watching this
famous persona, now 85, stand before us, lithesome and limber
(putting a lot of the rest of us to private shame), not more
than six or ten or fifteen feet away, spending the first fifteen
minutes moving around the stage captivating, breaking up her
audience with her patter, her stories, her jokes, bawdy and sorta,
and then stop, in the middle of it, and sing her first number — “I’m
Just A Little Girl From Little Rock” (“we lived on
the wrong side
of the tracks”), and bring down the house as if we’d never seen or
heard the likes of her before. Before the night was over, she turned the audience
into her own private chorus doing “Hello Dolly” while she repeated
her star turn.
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Bobby
Harling, Steve Paul,
and Beth Rudin DeWoody at opening night
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Besides every
soul who just wants to have a wonderful hour of brilliant performance
to go home and sleep peacefully on, every performer or would-be
performer within
reach of Feinstein’s at 61st and Park in Manhattan should get right over
there to see just how it’s done when it comes straight from heaven.
She calls her show “The First Eighty Years Are the Hardest,” and
sweetheart, she makes it look like it was a breeze. Brilliant is what they call
it because brilliant is what it is. She’s there until October 22, so hurry
on down. |
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