Social Diary 10/19/05 - It's all good in New York

The boy on the barroom wall

The bar at Elaine's. 7:15 PM. Photo: JH.

Another beautiful October day in New York; warm and breezy. I went down to the Waldorf to the Grand Ballroom where Evelyn Lauder’s Breast Cancer Research Foundation was holding their annual awards luncheon.
This was a big day for BCR in New York. They started out at 9:30 in the morning. For the first time ever, the Symposium, entitled “The Impact of Breast Cancer on Quality of Life: It Isn’t What It Used To Be,” featured an all-female panel of five of the world’s leading scientists.

The researchers presented their findings in a way which brings medicine from the esoteric to the accessible, from the molecular to the manageable, to educate their peers in the ways in which research has changed their future.

Linda Stein and Evelyn Lauder

Survivorship is a highly current topic as science advances. As odds of beating breast cancer increase every year, new issues are constantly arising concerning quality of life after the initial triumph over the disease.

The panelists were: Patricia A. Ganz, MD, of UCLA; Pamela J. Goodwin, MD, MSc, FRCP, of Mount Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto; Electra D. Paskett, PhD, of Ohio State University; Edith A. Perez, MD, of Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville; and Annette L. Stanton, PhD, of University of California at Los Angeles.

All five of the scientists’ research has led to advances, not only in more effective breast cancer treatments but also in better quality of life for those who are facing diagnosis or have been treated for breast cancer. At noon (promptly as promised) everyone moved to the Grand Ballroom where they were joined by a greater number of guests. This year’s crowd was so large that they filled both first and second balconies as well. Rene Syler was mistress of ceremonies and introduced Myra Biblowit who is the president of BCRF since April 2001. Ms. Biblowit introduced the video presentation. And then there was lunch which consisted of Lemon and Pistachio-crusted Halibut, Haricots Vert, Red Grape and Parsley Salad with Black Truffles, followed by Low-Fat Chocolate Mousse topped with Vanilla Pannacotta and Strawberries. And coffee. The wine was a Pinot Grigio 2004 from Sauter Home Vineyard.

This year’s research grantees

Then Evelyn Lauder took the podium. Looking like the billion bucks that she does. Mrs. Lauder either started this whole thing, or had a big hand in it, about fourteen years ago. She is an organizational dynamo for one thing, and with the power of her own personality and the Lauder family’s company behind her, she was able to muster support that has built BCRF into one of the top medical philanthropies in the world. And in a very short time. This year, she announced that they had $22 million to give away to medical research. They had raised $25 million! They are also very proud of the fact that only 10.6 cents of every dollar donated goes for administration. The rest is straight research. And as a result, BCRF was the major funder of three major advances in breast cancer this year. THREE!

After her opening remarks, Mrs. Lauder introduced Libby Pataki, First Lady of the State of New York, who has always lent her helping hand to these proceedings. She presented the BCRF Humanitarian Award to artist Chuck Close. Mr. Close who is nonambulatory because of a sudden illness in 1988 that led to near-complete paralysis (he’s made great recovery). He told the audience that his wife Leslie and her mother Shirley were both diagnosed with breast cancer on the same day!

Chuck Close

Dr. Larry Norton

He talked about his own debilitating illness which he felt was even harder for those around him than for him. He said that when his wife Leslie first learned that she had breast cancer, the first person she called was Evelyn Lauder who was enormously helpful in guiding her, advising and counseling her. I was thinking while listening to Chuck Close that I’ve known several women with breast cancer who first thing they did was call Evelyn. I wondered how she processed all the calls because she seems to do everything effortlessly.

After Chuck Close, the great Dr. Larry Norton from Sloan-Kettering presented the Jill Rose Award to Dr. Patricia Ganz from UCLA. Dr. Ganz was one of this year’s research grantees. Then Mrs. Lauder and Rene Syler announced the Grant Awards and personally handed them out to all of the doctors who’d come from all over the country and the world to accept their honor. At 1:50, all the New Yorkers present got an extra surprise: the luncheon was over before 2 pm. A miracle of sorts although nothing like the miracle that Evelyn Lauder and her merry bands of supporters, workers, researchers, and friends have wrought for this disease that has afflicted so many many of our loved ones.

Benefit Chairs were Anne Eisenhower Flottl, Betsy Green, Ronnie Heyman, Gail Hilson, Evelyn Lauder, Gigi Mortimer, and Elizabeth Rohatyn.

And what did they do? For one thing, they filled the house and raised a lot of money for the cause. And got a lot of their friends to attend including: Roslyn Goldstein, Sue-Ann Friedman, Patricia Quick de Visscher, Milly Glimcher, Ann Soloman, Roberta Amon, Denise LeFrak, Leslie Model, Donna Lapkin, Susan Mendik, Susan Finkel, Carlene Safdie, Allison Koffman, Jennifer Diggins, Trish McEvoy, Harriet Weintraub, Leslie Schlesinger, Gretchen Grisanti, Adrienne Vittadini, Vera Blinken, Jamee Gregory, Denise Saul, Catherine Cahill, Anne Bass, Hyatt Bass, Helen Marden, Katherine Bryan, Alexandra Shiva, Samantha Bass, Charlene Marsh, Dr. Jim Watson, Nina Griscom, Allison Sarofim, Holly Brubach, June Schorr, Veronica Hearst, Thorunn Wathne, The Honorable Helen Marx, Charles Prizzi, Elizabeth Kabler, Magda Bleier, Anne Sitrick, Susan Burke, Wendy Carduner, W. Dillaway Ayres, Karen LeFrak, Laura Breyer, Coco Kopelman, Sheila Labrecque, Norma Dana, Nancy Smith Lesher, Dr. Bruce Stillman, Dr. James Hicks, Leonard Lauder, Leslie Close, Rene Syler, Ronald Klein, Richard Kaufman, Muriel Siebert, Adam Weinberg, Jane Lauder, William Lauder, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer.

Veronica Hearst and Dr. Jim Watson

Susan Burke, Dr. Bruce Stillman, and Karen LeFrak

I have long had this theory, having lived in Hollywood (or thereabouts) for many years, that when a star’s star begins to wane, they (he or she) should move to New York and take up permanent residence. Because in New York, when it comes to Hollywood stars, once a star, always a star. New Yorkers love to make fun of Hollywood but they never quite get over the thrill. Last night at Elaine’s Tab Hunter’s presence made that very very clear.

Gene Schoelkopf and Tab Hunter

Tab next to Tab on the cover of MovieLand

We went over (JH and the Digital and I) to Elaine’s about six-thirty for a book party for the 1950s sex idol (1950s’ style) who has just published a memoir (with Eddie Muller) called Tab Hunter Confidential with a picture on the cover of the twenty-something sun drenched star who at the time was the idol of millions. There are lots of book parties in the pre-dinner hours of Elaine’s because .... well, it’s the literary mecca of the media crowd ... and they always get a pretty good crowd. Tab Hunter got the closest thing to a mob. At least around him. In fact there were so many people around him you could barely get near him. Teen idol that he was/still is (I guess) to some people.

We pushed through the crowd and I went up and introduced myself (ho-hum). He looked very serious. I mentioned a mutual friend we have in Montecito where he lives. He said something ... I can’t remember what. I’m not sure he heard me. Or knew who I was talking about. (Although I know he knows him – his name is in the index twice.)

At 74, Tab Hunter doesn’t quite look like the guy who raged the raging teen hormones at 21. Not quite. And there were old movie magazine posters of him all around the joint to verify that. But ... at 74, Tab Hunter looks ... well, he still looks a lot like Tab Hunter. And we all should look like that at 74. Or even 34. He’s just a good looking guy. And that was his ace. And his meal ticket.

I haven’t read the book yet although the talk is (and you’ve probably heard it) he reveals he had an affair with Tony Perkins. Which in these days is like … “and so what’dja have for lunch?” or, “wait a minute, my cell’s ringing ....” It doesn’t matter. For real honest-to-God movie fans, the book will be an interesting report on “what it was like” to have been a movie star back then when it was magic and they filled the national psyche with nocturnal and not fantasies and innocent hearts with fluttering amore (like the song of the time, “That’s Amore”).

Ann Richards and DPC

Meanwhile JH got some shots of the guy looking like he was not uncomfortable but intensely serious about shaking everyone’s hand and being very polite and giving us that million dollar smile. In his heyday the studio demanded that of their stars. You had to look good and you had to smile that million dollar smile. And if you didn’t know how, they spent hundreds if not thousands of hours training you before the photographer’s camera until you got it. And if you got it, and you had it, well, you became Tab Hunter.

The title of the book, whether it’s intended or not (and I haven’t read it, as I said), must be an allusion to the magazine of the time Confidential which was the no-no must-read publication of its day. A real pulpy rag with big black bolded headlines on the cover and a lot of flesh and a lot of famous faces, they revealed the “inside” stories on the sex lives of the movie idols of the day. For a time there, Confidential was the biggest selling magazine of the moment because they not only mentioned the unmentionable – they talked about it in spicy detail.

It was in one issue in the late 1950s when they revealed that Tab Hunter, né Arthur Gelien, was present at a pajama party of homosexuals that was raided by the police one night in L.A. I remembered it because being the gossip monger that I was even in those barely pubescent days, Tab Hunter was big stuff and “homosexual” was a word that I’d never seen or heard before. (Actually I’d never even heard of sex – seriously.) And it was certainly not something anyone ever talked about at the dining room table with Mother and Dad. And Gay Lib was quite a ways off in the future.

Tab Hunter wasn’t the only one who was “outed” by Confidential, and however it affected his career I don’t know, but there were others who were ruined by the revelation. What happened to him obviously, is what happens to all stars (along with the rest of us) sooner or later – times change and people move on.

Tab Hunter maintained his dignity, nonetheless, rides his horses and lives comfortably if not grandly in the rather grand community of Montecito outside Santa Barbara and has written this very possibly fascinating account of Hollywood in its hey-day. And as for his very private life, like most of the rest of us, it’s probably ... so what’dja have for lunch?

Tab on the cover of Movie Life

Tab on set with Maria Cooper

Tab and Natalie Wood on the cover of Screen Stories

L. to r.: Bobby Zarem; Amy Fine Collins; Wayne Lawson and friend.

L. to r.: Tab with Maria Cooper; Hiram Williams, Liz Smith, and Peter Rogers; Peter Bogdanovich.

The Whitney Museum of American Art held its annual fall gala last night and as it always is, it was an artist’s showstopper. The party and the After-Party (mainly for the much younger set and a few of us perpetual hanger-onners) were designed by artist Richard Tuttle whose first full-scale retrospective of his nearly forty year career will be on view at the museum from November 10th through February 5, 2006.

The theme of this year’s gala was “Art Into Life” and the special honoree was Flora Miller Biddle who was once president of the Whitney’s board (from 1977 through 1995) and also the granddaughter of the museum’s legendary founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

Although her personal history is filled with such grand names in the history of American society, Flora Biddle herself is an unassuming woman of modest yet stealthy presence who steadfastly remains devoted to her grandmother’s concept and legacy. She embodies the celestial consciousness of the Whitney which carries with its now 75-year-old history the continuing controversy of what art historian Robert Hughes refers to as The Shock of the New. And the new and/or the shock isn’t always, shall we say, copasetic.

The dining room at The Whitney gala

Last year they raised almost $2 million at their gala and of course this year naturally they were hoping to raise that figure. The Gala dinner draws some of the most important philanthropists and opinion makers (and dealers) in the art world and is always a spectacular occasion if for no other reason than the gallery-cum-dining room is a fantastic sight. Furthermore the women attending are often inspired to push the envelope just a little bit more fashion-wise. That is not to say that you see much if any of the far-out, but you do see the occasional strong statement of the creative will.

Richard Tuttle installation for the gala

Julie L. Macklowe

View of the bar from above

Chloe Sevigny giving an interview

Steven Mnuchin

Putting the finishing touches on the goody bags

Joanne Cassullo and Brian Saltzman

Bill Rudin and Beth DeWoody

Brian Stewart and Stephanie Krieger

Leonard Lauder

David Brown and Helen Gurley Brown

Melva Bucksbaum

Carlton DeWoody

Dolly Lenz with Ronald and Harriet Weintraub

Donald Marron

Richard Ziegelasch and Dana Hammond Stubgen

Bob Pittman and Alice Tisch

Micky Wolfson and Michele Oka Doner

Veronica Hearst and Evelyn Lauder

Claudia Cohen and Ross Bleckner

Jesse Araskog and Muffie Potter Aston

L. to r.: Agnes Gund; Leslie Stevens; Leonard Lauder and Aileen Mehle.

Afterwards, about nine, nine-thirty, the younger set arrives to party on the subterranean floor of the museum where the daily restaurant (and outdoor café in warm weather) exists. It was here that JH and the Digital were wandering about.

More Whitney Gala pictures, especially from the cocktail hour and dinner later this week.