4.3.09: Lunching over nostalgia | New York Social Diary

Lunching over nostalgia

Spring has arrived in the West Village. 5:30 PM. Photo: JH.

April 3, 2009. A beautiful sunny day in New York in early springtime.

I went down to Michael’s to have lunch with Liz Smith and Elaine Kaufman and Anne Slater. This was organized by Liz back in February when she and Elaine of the one and only Elaine’s were both having birthdays.

The birthday for Elaine was number 80. If you knew Elaine you would be amazed at the number because she’s not like a kid or a girl; she’s definitely a grown-up woman, but she doesn’t have an age; she’s Elaine.

Liz thought it would be fun to lunch at Michael’s where she and I often lunch (separately). Elaine, as far as we know, doesn’t go out to lunch that often. She’s a night person who doesn’t head home until about three ayem. I asked her today if she ever had lunch. She said, “oh yeah, sure ...” But where and when she did not say.

Anne Slater, Elaine Kaufman, Liz Smith, DPC, and John Cahill (who joined us after lunch) at Michael's, yesterday afternoon.

The girls I was with are icons of New York life, all New York life within living memory, and full of memories and insights and details of what came before today.

They were talking, for example, about nightlife back when Elaine was first starting out in the club business in the early 50s.

Liz remembered the first time she went to Elaine’s first club which was downtown on Thompson and Bleecker. Liz went there with a woman named Francis Carpenter, a very glamourous lady of the day, married to a DuPont heir. Elaine wasn’t there when they arrived and Elaine’s partner, a man, told them they had to leave.

Single women (without male escorts) were generally not welcome -- or even accepted – in bars. Or many restaurants. PJ Clarke’s, for example, which was so popular, it was hard to get into. And not because they had bouncers making the selection but because there wasn’t any more room under the fire laws. Furthermore women were not allowed at the bar at all, unescorted or otherwise.

Toots Shor.

Elaine recalled how it was at PJ Clarke’s in the back dining room one night when she met Toots Shor. A name unknown to young New Yorkers today, Toots had a club/bar/restaurant of the same name, which was a haunt of New Yorkers of the day. He was famous across America, a rough talking Noo Yawk bon vivant, lionized, mythologized in the press, heavy drinking back when it was just considered heavy drinking, and host to the most including a lot of athletes and male movie stars. And Jackie Gleason when he was at the top of his television career. Women were NEVER allowed unescorted to Toot Shor’s. Unless they were school chums of his daughters; then it was open arms.

So Elaine was at PJ’s one night and Toots, who by then was by then getting on and not ambulatory, was there also. Elaine was at a table when some guy she knew came up and said: “Toots Shor would like to say hello to you.” Elaine said okay and was about to go over to him. “No,” the man said, “he’d like to come to you.”

A couple minutes later, Toots, propped up by the elbows by two men on either side of him, slowly made his way over to Elaine. “I just wanted to say hello to the next Toots Shor.” She’d been anointed. It turned out to be prescient.

The New York, in the memory of these three women who had lived and seen so much of it, was one of incredible nightlife. Their earliest memories were in the early 50s when the nation was finally home after the War and ebullient with fresh prosperity. New Yorkers went out at night all the time. Nightclubs, bars, restaurants, jazz joints, it was a going out town more than even now. Furthermore, they’ve seen and lived as fully in all the decades that followed right up to this moment. This is when you get into the area of Remarkable People.


	Doris Day and Rock Hudson.

Coincidentally at the next table over from us at Michael’s was Barbara Walters and Shirley Lord Rosenthal. Back in the days these girls were recalling, Barbara’s father Lou Walters owned the Latin Quarter, one of the biggest, glitziest and most famous nightclubs on the Great White Way.

Somewhere in the conversation I reminded everyone that tomorrow (today as you read this) is the birthday of Doris Day. Ahh, Doris Day. (It’s also Marlon Brando’s birthdate too.) Everybody has such soothingly fond memories of Doris Day the movie star.

The biggest box office star for almost two decades (50s/60s) Liz – with Barbara Walters next door in mind – Liz recalled the time when Doris had just published an autobiography ghosted by A.E. Hotchner. She was interviewed on the Today Show by Barbara Walters (who rose to national prominence on that show).

It was publicly known at the time that Doris had been married to a man named Martin Melcher who was also her manager, and who, over the course of their marriage had dissipated Doris’ multi-million dollar hard earned fortune on bad investments. She was broke by the time it was over. An old Hollywood story.

So, in this particular Today Show interview with the trenchant-to-the-point Ms. Walters, Doris was asked if that were true (as it had been written in her autobiography). When Doris heard the question, she asked: “is that in the book?” Yes. Then she said something like, “well then I can’t do this,” and she got up and left the set while they were on-air.

Doris marked her 87th birthday this year. As far as I know, she’s still living out somewhere around Carmel, California. She was a most amazing performer. Actress/comedienne/popular recording star/television star, Doris Day was without peer, and yet, as Liz pointed out yesterday, despite all of her talent, her audience and her box office success, she never received an Academy Award.


Debbie Reynolds.

Then I brought up Debbie Reynolds whose birthday was the day before (April 1st). I had ghost-written Debbie’s memoir. Debbie just turned 77. That makes for sixty-one years in show business, earning a (good, sometimes spectacular) living, and still at it. I don’t know this for a fact (the still at it part) but I’m making a very good guess since I know the lady and I know she likes to work. Six decades at any gig is a tribute to life itself. Six decades in show business is legend material. This lady personifies it.

Coincidentally, both Liz Smith and Anne Slater had read Debbie’s book (Debbie, My Life; William Morrow Publishers 1988). Liz said it was one of the very best celebrity memoirs she ever read, and Anne told how when she was reading it, her friend John Cahill just happened to pick it up and didn’t want to give it back. Although I was “the writer,” I had nothing to do with why these women loved this book. The life was some life, and the girl is/was pluck and talent and drive. And thank god for that.

When I sat down to write this Diary after a long but action packed day in New York, I had no idea that we were going down the memory lane called Broadway and the Big Apple. However, one of the gifts of this experience for me is the exposure to personalities who have been so much of the fabric of New York at this time. They have lived what I call Big Lives (although I’m sure all would dispute that as hyperbole). Furthermore, they’re still in the thick of it. Elaine’s at her place presiding seven nights week. And believe me, she’s presiding. You might see Anne or Liz there any one of those nights because they too still are out there, taking it in, participating.

New York is a city of dreams, of big lives, of invention, innovation and big energy. This big energy, in my humble opinion, drives the culture that we know as America. For better or for worse. We’ve living through a period now which is showing us the Other Side of this golden equation. These three women with whom I lunched yesterday at Michael’s, have been residing and presiding in the thick of it for quite some time and with natural, unflagging alacrity. That’s what makes New Yorkers and that’s what makes New York.

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Signs of spring while driving through Central Park.

Meanwhile, last Friday night at the Bowery Hotel, The Young Friends of Save Venice (“YFSV”) hosted a festive evening of dancing, delectable desserts and revelry in designer Antony Todd’s brilliant recreation of Venice in the springtime.

The move to the Bowery from uptown and its traditional venue (The Metropolitan Club) was a big statement about the changing times as well as the consciousness of the organization. Ten years ago, this event was haute glamour for the late 20/early 30-somethings in New York. Today that group is now taking the reins of senior groups in these organizations.

At Friday night’s gala, a bright and beautiful international group of Save Venice supporters danced the night away while sipping Solerno Bellinis and intrigues abounded behind elaborate masks in the magical space. “We created a large rambling palazzo,” says Antony Todd, “with warm colored fabrics, flowers and hundreds of candles.”

Augustus Rylands and friends.

Mask by Will Cotton.

Mask by Matthew White.

Event Chairmen Olivia Chantecaille, Luigi Tadini and Antony Todd, along with Honorary Benefit Chairman Susan Shin, greeted guests such as Alexandra Lind Rose, Adelina Wong Ettelson, Beatrice Rossi-Landi, George Rudenauer, Tinsley and Topper Mortimer, Will Cotton, Alina Cho, John Demspey, Lil Phillips, Maggie Katz, Amanda Hearst, Lara Meiland-Shaw, Elena Baguci, Valerie Boster, Peter Davis and more, as cameras clicked away to capture happy moments and gave way to intense bidding on the much anticipated mask auction.

Proceeds of the evening will be directed toward restoring the church of San Sebastiano, filled with masterpieces by Paolo Veronese, in the world’s beloved Venice, thanks to CHOCHENG as Presenting Sponsor and Tod’s for its additional support.