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A
slew of photographers review their photos of Catherine
Deneuve. 8:00 PM. Photo:
JH.
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Last night in New York was about Catherine Deneuve. For me anyway,
and surely for a lot of other people.
It was at a benefit the French Institute Alliance Francaise held
at Restaurant Daniel. They called it La Nuit des Etoiles (“celebrating
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema”).
They honored Jacques Bouhet, the Chief Executive Officer of SG
Americas and Jacqueline Chambord, the Artistic Director of the
French Institute Alliance Francaise. There was a Tribute to French
Cinema by David McKenna, a professor of film on the faculties of
Columbia University, Barnard, NYU and the State University of New
York at Buffalo.
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Catherine
Deneuve
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There was a video salute to the honorees – very amusing home
movies that told you not only about them but also about their personalities.
M. Bouhet is a very funny fellow who loves to ham it up although
in real life he is a banker. He’s been married to the same
woman for thirty-seven years. They have three children and two
grandchildren. The footage goes all the way back to their meeting.
You could see how jolly a fellow he is. It’s always interesting
watching footage of any couple, but especially a French couple
because after seeing all those French movies, you get ideas – you
know what I mean? Anyway, the Bouhets look like a very happy couple.
Not always so common an observation, don’t you think?
Then came the video of Mme. Chambord who had a long
career as an actress. And very glamorous. She was
a member of the Paris Opera. In film she appeared in Sascha
Guitry’s Napoleon, Max
Ophuls’ The
Earrings of Madame De..., Christian-Jacques’s La
Dubarry and Claude Autant Lara’s Marguerite
de la nuit. She came
to this country in 1957 and appeared in Joe Papp’s
New York Shakespeare Festival production of Henry V, and has since performed
in many other stage productions. But in 1972, she started working
with the FIAF in cultural programming.
Professor McKenna delivered a short tribute to French film, spoken
from a personal angle about an American boy growing up in the late
60s, early 70s with his hormones raging and finding something entirely
relatable (and hot!) in French films. We saw several clips including
one with Gerard Depardieu (Going Places) and
two with Mlle. Deneuve (Belle du Jour and Les Parapluies
de Cherbourg). Since 1957, when
she was 14, she has made more than 90 films!
So the Question is/was: how does she look? The
great beauty of Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The face of ...
what was it ...?
The Chanel No. 5 ads? Before dinner there was a cocktail hour in
Restaurant
Daniel’s small cocktail lounge. It was mobbed and everyone
was waiting for her to arrive including the bank of photographers
at the end of the room. About ten to eight, it went through the
crowd that she was in the room. I was looking for that face and
when she first passed by, I didn’t recognize her because
she has a quality that some great stars have of disappearing in
the sea of faces. So she passed by without my noticing her. |
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L.
to r.: Catherine Deneuve;
Catherine Deneuve and Consul
General Francois Delattre.
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Then
I got my table placement and discovered much to my great pleasure
that I was seated at her table – three over from her. Once
seated, I could not take my eyes off her and at the same time
kept averting them so that she wouldn’t think I was staring.
Which is what I wanted to do. I don’t speak French (and
she does speak English) but she was surrounded by people with
the exception of me and Charlie Rose (who was
seated directly across from her) who spoke French to her. And
I couldn’t think of a thing that was clever enough to amuse
or distract her, so I said nothing. Just stared while faking
not staring.
She is very beautiful. The face has matured, of course, but the beauty remains
captivating and even mesmerizing. Actually compared to that beautiful young girl
in Umbrellas, this was an even more beautiful countenance, for time
had added mystique. So I sat there, talking to my dinner partners and sneaking
glimpses of her - the eyes, the smile; the smooth and serene elegance, the beautiful
blondeness. It’s powerful stuff. She wears her beauty without advertisement,
like Garbo. I wondered how such a beautiful woman, and such
a famous face, handles the awkwardness of having so many people wanting to just
stare at her. It doesn’t matter. Her conversation was quite lively with
those she conversed with (I had nothing to say to her so I kept my mouth shut).
She talked in both English and in French.
At the end of the evening, one my dinner partners, Nathalie Gerschel
Kaplan was kind enough to ask her if I could take her picture (I didn’t
have the nerve — I didn’t want to bother her). She said it was fine.
I took two: one with her and Consul General Francois Delattre and
one alone. My photos serve to provide the pleasant memory but the pictures just
don’t do it. They hardly convey the enormous charisma she radiates. Enough/cool
it David!
One other lovely moment for me. I heard that Anka Muhlstein was
in the room with her husband, the novelist Louis Begley. I found
someone who could not only point her out but introduce me to her. Mrs. Muhlstein
wrote a book I read a few years ago about a French noble who was born during
the French Revolution and led a very interesting and somewhat controversial life
afterwards. His name was the Marquis de Custine. He wrote a
seminal book about Russia after touring it called Russie 1839. So influential
was his book that when George Kennan was made American ambassador
to Russia after the Second World War, he requested everyone working with him
read it. Some of the marquis’ observations about the Russian people are
in Mrs. Muhlstein’s book. They are interesting to all of us.
She also published a two volume translation recently of the Diaries of Comtesse
de Boigne, a French woman who was born at Versailles during the reign of Louis
XVI and Marie Antoinette and lived through Napoleon,
the Restoration and the Second Empire and wrote all about the experience up until
1830. Also a terrific read if you are fascinated as I am by history. So we spoke
just long enough to make myself cloying. Mrs. Muhlstein’s dinner partner
took a picture of us and I was on my way. Star-struck all around. A special evening
in New York, and only – for me anyway – in New York.
Oh, and of course, there was the great Daniel Boulud menu:
Peeky Toe Crab Salad with Grapefruit – Mandarin Gelee Fennel Mousseline,
Frisee and Crispy Coriander Tuile
Served with Chablis Saint Martin “Domaine Laroche”, 2002
Dover Sole Rissolee with a Celery Triology
Mache Salad and Black Truffle Dressing
Veal Trio:
Braised Veal Cheek, Glazed Sweetebreads and Roasted Loin
Creamy Potatoes, Porcini and Wilted Spinach
Served with: Knights Valley, Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands, California
2002
Duo of Desserts:
Single Estae Venezuelan Chocolate Fondant
Tangerine Trifle with Ginger Sabayon
Petits Fours, Chocolates and Madeleines. |
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David
McKenna
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Daniel
dining room before dinner was served
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Jacques
Pepin and Marie-Monique Steckel
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Geoffrey
Holder
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Elizabeth
de Cuevas and Hal Witt
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Charlie
Rose and Lloyd Grove
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Jacques
Bouhet and Olivia Flatto
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Sharon
King Hoge
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L.
to r.: Anka Muhlstein and DPC; Nathalie Gerschel
Kaplan; Jacqueline Chambord.
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L.
to r.: Billy Rayner, Phyllis Collins, Kathy Rayner,
and Maurice Sonnenberg; Glen Lowry and Michèle Gerber
Klein.
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Rae
Scarton and Gina de Franco
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Maggie
Norris and Joe Cheng
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Jano Herbosch
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| BOB
SCHULENBERG'S MANHATTAN DIARY |
When Schulenberg first arrived in New York, from
California in the early
1960s, he was enchanted by the variety and richness of the public
places
where people congregated at all times of the day and night for
drinks, for
tea, for cameraderie.
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The
Plaza's legendary Palm Court is about to become a memory,
swept away by the mania for condos and shopping malls. Rumpelmeyer's
in the Hotel St. Moritz at Central Park South and 6th Avenue,
which also had an outdoor café in the warmer weather,
was famous for its ice cream. The very classy meeting place,
like its possessor, the St. Moritz, is now also gone, replaced
by the Ritz Carlton. The Algonquin, however, home of the
legendary Round Table of the literary wits of the 1920s and
30s, remains,
intact and flourishing.
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Right: At
the San Remo bar in the Village.
1-15-60.
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Palm
Court at The Plaza Hotel, 2-26-61
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Algonquin,
3-29-61
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Rumpelmayer's
at the St. Moritz, 4-11-61
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Rumpelmayer's
at the St. Moritz, 4-11-61
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