Indyssey Entertainment’s Grand Classics film series, which attracts New York’s and London’s hottest actors (Jude Law, Benicio Del Toro, Natalie Portman, Patricia Clarkson, Dennis Hopper, Kevin Kline, and many more) along with the most fashionable and notable cinemaphiles, launched in LA recently. Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, along with YSL, hosted the first Grand Classics evening in Hollywood at the famed Playboy Mansion, with a screening of "Sweet Smell of Success", the brilliant 1957 flick which starred Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster.

Christine Taylor and Rebecca de Mornay

Ben introduced the film by saying "this movie is to publicists what ‘The Godfather’ is to the Mafia. I love it because it's cynical, has weird sexual undertones, got no nominations, lost money, and here we are saluting it tonight. It gives us all hope."

Among the LA movers and shakers in attendance at Hugh Hefner’s revered Hollywood hideaway were Trudie Styler and Chris Egan, Gael Garcia Bernal, Michael Vartan, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, Thora Birch, Bolt Birch, Rose McGowan, Rebecca de Mornay, Daphne Zuniga, Jaron Lowenstein, Bridget Moynahan, Alan (“Dodgeball”) Tudyk, Jacqui Getty, Lisa Eisner, Richard and Robert Dupont, Vanessa Getty, Shane West, Stacey Dash, Patricia Reeves, Hugh Hefner, Miramax's Stuart Ford, producers Edward Pressman and Marc Abraham, Untitled's Jason Weinberg, Christine Peters, Daniel Benedict, Nikki Haskell, writer/director Zak Penn, Eduardo Ponti, Kelly Bush, Mitch Davis, YSL America President Laura Lindrum, YSL’s Claudia Cividino and Shirin von Wulffen, and Indyssey Entertainment and Grand Classics’ executive team Katrina Pavlos, Vanessa Wingate and Andrew Saffir.

The evening also marked the launch of YSL’s new fragrance, Cinéma, and YSL made a generous donation to the British Film Institute for the night.

On Monday, last October 18, The Frick Collection hosted its annual "Autumn Dinner" which is the museum's major black-tie benefit dinner of the year. There was a reception for approximately 200 guests in the Fifth Avenue Garden, and then everyone went to dinner in the Garden Court and Oval Gallery.

They honored Robert Hughes, writer and historian (The Shock of the New, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America, and Goya), and between dinner and dessert, there was what has been described as “an engaging series of remarks” by the Board President, Helen Clay Chace (great granddaughter of Henry Clay Frick) who introduced Anne L. Poulet, The Frick’s Director. Ms. Poulet, who is just passing the one-year mark, presented Robert Hughes with a gorgeous engraved silver tray donated by Cartier, a commemorative award, in a sense. He, then delivered heartfelt remarks entitled “Why The Frick Matters."

Anne Poulet presents a Cartier commemorative silver tray to Robert Hughes

I think that’s an essay a lot of us could write and even get a passing grade. I’ve been going to The Frick since I first lived in Manhattan in the early 1960s. In those days you could go there on a Sunday afternoon and there might be only a dozen or twenty people taking in the exhibitions. Of course the Met’s Sunday traffic was a trickle then compared to today’s. But what amazed me about The Frick was the freshness of the collection, in the sense of it being a “personal” museum, with a definite sense of someone having lived there. It was so otherworldly in and of itself. It’s a gem whose value is incalculable to the citizens of New York and their visitors.

Through the years as my education has continued, I’ve naturally learned more about the art of the collection, be it the painters, the sculptors, the history of the interiors, so that each visit is more rewarding than the last. As it happens I am now reading Meryl Secrest’s biography of Sir Joseph Duveen, the art dealer of the late 19th and early 20th century, who highly influenced so many great American collectors of the age, including Mr. Frick. The history of collections, the how, where and why of their creations, is fascinating in the telling, and to look at the Fragonard room after reading Duveen is to get a whole new focus on it.

Nicholas H. J. Hall was the Chairman of the event and former Director Charles Ryskamp was Honorary Chairman. Among those in attendance were Irene Roosevelt Aitken, Margot Bogert, Helen Clay and Minturn Chace, L. F. Boker Doyle, Helen C. Fioratti, Frederick Hill, Martha and Thomas Loring, Lynn Nesbit, Patricia Patterson, Carl Pforzheimer, Elizabeth Stribling and Guy Robinson, Suzette de Marigny Smith, Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, Beatriz and The Honorable Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Ambassador Enriquillo del Rosario and his wife Audrey, Jourdan Arpelle-Ziegler and Henry Steinway Ziegler, Mary Lou and George Boone, Virginia Burden, Benjamin Doller, Joanne du Pont Foster, Martha Hare, Drue Heinz, David Owsley, Mr. and Mrs. Chips Page, Dr. Marilyn Perry, Eugene V. Thaw, and Mrs. Frederick Stafford.

The American Friends of Jamaica was built on the premise that Americans who loved Jamaica would want to help Jamaicans. It has been a valid presumption, since Americans with homes, businesses, familylinks, or other strong ties to the island have supported theirs efforts with almost $10 million in contributions during their 23 years of existence.

AFJ now wants to grow and expand. They want to grow in professionalism as they focus on priority areas – education, health, and economic development. And they want to expand by attracting new donors and extending their reach to new beneficiaries.

Loyal donors who support their annual charity dinner in New York, including such familiar names as Ralph Lauren, Jockey International, the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, and General Cigar (Macanudo). Their contributions are complemented by some of Jamaica's most successful enterprises — Sandals, SuperClubs, Round Hill, Tryall, Half Moon, and Air Jamaica, to name several.

In the past year, they’ve have added a new executive director who is a former acting ambassador in Jamaica. Their Board is expanding. New contributors, to include Western Union and Jamaica's Grace Kennedy, are joining, and a new partnership with Jamaica's investment-promotion agency, JAMPRO, is emerging. The collaboration they have enjoyed with the American ambassador in Kingston is, if anything, growing even stronger under the current incumbent. Their list of Jamaican grantee organizations is growing in both education and health, and will encompass this year grants to fight AIDS.

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