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Looking
north on Park Avenue and 72 Street. 9:30 PM. Photo: JH.
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Audrey
Gruss and Wendy Carduner
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Karen LeFrak |
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Doubles,
the private club for prominent New Yorkers has one of the best (and
healthiest) buffet lunches in the City. At holiday
time,
their Christmas luncheon has become an annual tradition. With so
many people coming into town from Europe, the West Coast and Palm
Beach, it’s become a meeting place and entertaining place at
these luncheons.
It’s also very convenient for those shoppers
who’ve just come from Bulgari and Bergdorf’s, Tiffany
and Cartier, Bendel’s and Prada, Brooks Brothers and Bloomingdale’s.
Doubles becomes their serenely chic respite from the madding crowds.
Their famous red staircase is decorated with beribboned garlands.
The clubs guiding light Wendy Carduner has created the warmest way
we know to celebrate and share the season with friends with sumptuous
decorations, Christmas trees, strolling carolers and the chef’s
legendary dessert buffet.
Joanie Schnitzer Levy flew in from Texas to host a table, joining
Joan Collins, Joan Rivers, Jamee Gregory, Caroline Roehm,
Audrey Gruss, Evelyn Lauder, Daryl Roth, Jessie Araskog, Jean Little
FitzSimmons,
Felicia Taylor, Karen LeFrak, Tina Flaherty, Hilary Geary Ross, Marianna
Kaufman, Thorunn Wathne, Elizabeth Stribling, Mark Gilbertson, CeCe
Black, Karen Black, Cornelia Bregman, Martha Fox, Amanda Haynes-Dale,
Christina Rose, Susan St. James, Lucia Wong Gordon, Andrea Donahue,
Julie Kammerer, Jacqueline Arnold and Hunt Slonem to name just a
few. |
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Carolers
at Doubles
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Tina
Flaherty, Joan Schnitzer Levy, and Hilary Geary Ross
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Amanda
Haynes-Dale, Marianna Kaufman, and Allison Stern
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Renée
Wood and Jessie Araskog
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Cornelia
Bregman, Martha Fox, and Amanda Haynes-Dale
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Elizabeth
Stribling and CeCe Black
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Tommy
Corcoran, Joan Rivers, and Hunt Slonem
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Joan
Collins
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Jackie
Weld Drake, CeCe Black, and Karen Black
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Andrea
Donahue and friends
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Christina
Rose and Susan St. James
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Marianna
Kaufman and Virginia Melhado
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Mrs.
Powers, Julie Kammerer, and Jean Remer Little Fitzsimmons
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CeCe
Cord, Joanne de Guardiola, and Mai Harrison
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Daryl
Roth, Wendy Carduner, and Joan Schnitzer Levy
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Mary
Schott, Felicia Taylor, and friend
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Ellen
Graham, Joan Schnitzer Levy, Hilary Geary Ross, and Virginia
Melhado
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Caroline
Roehm and Joan Schnitzer Levy
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Evelyn
Lauder
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Jacqueline
Arnold and Jamee Gregory
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Lucia
Wong Gordon
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Ellen
L’Esperance
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Somers
Farkas
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Last
Thursday night Mary Hilliard held her annual Christmas cocktail
(and buffet) party. Mary is a fixture in the New
York social scene although generally she is unknown in the lore
of New York
celebrity-dom. She is NOT unknown, however, to the players — for
a variety of reasons, the first of which is that she’s
been taking their pictures for years now. And the second being
that before she got into the business of society photographer,
she was ... one of them ... born and bred (“Cookie” is
the nickname that her schoolmates and childhood chums still call
her — and she doesn’t like the name particularly).
Even more than one of them, having been brought up in it.
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Mary
Hilliard
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Not one for
the charity circuit or the fashion circuit or the cocktail or dinner
party circuit, she passed on all that after
the end of
her first marriage (with children). And since then, at least
in the years I’ve known her, she’s had a steady relationship,
maybe a living relationship (she’d have to answer that one)
with Leonard Harris, who is recognizable
to some as the presidential candidate in the now immortal Martin
Scorsese film “Taxi Driver” which
made a star out of the kid – what’s-her-name. Leonard,
however, is by day, and by profession, a highly regarded writer,
broadcaster, and a very genial fellow as well.
Mary’s parties are like your family parties,
in feel. Relaxed;
couldn’t be formal if they tried. The dining room table covered
with home-made and delicious buffet items, a very much lived-in
apartment with reminders and memorabilia of a long life of family
and friends and the basics. Mary’s social background is what
is authentically, if not interestingly, WASP, and pretense for
her is nothing more than something to be observed (and even bored
by) in others.
I wanted to take her picture at her party (she was talking to a
cousin when I asked). She didn’t want it. I protested in
the way you protest to a friend or a member of the family – because
Mary’s nature offers that kind of intimacy almost immediately – and
she remained unmovable.
“But why?!” I protested once again.
“Because,” she said, “I’m a private person and
I don’t want my picture taken.”
“But you’re in the business of taking people’s pictures,” I
protested again.
“Yes, but they like it,” she explained with her mild-mannered
exasperation, “and I don’t.”
I knew she didn’t. Actually I wasn’t surprised by her
reaction; I always knew that about her. It’s one of the things
I really like about her anyway.
Mary really isn’t interested
in anything that promotes her image. Her reputation professionally,
is another thing because she’s very much the pro. But that’s
another thing. And the clients (which include Vogue) like
her for that reason, and like her for no reason; Mary’s very likeable.
Like your best friend, or your big sister or the girl next door
who’s a good kid. I mean, really a good kid. We love Mary
and we are not alone. |
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Leonard
Harris
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Ashley
Williams and Jay Gunther
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Tory
Burch, Richard Mauro, and Sara Vass
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