2.3.10: Joan Rivers hosts daughter, Melissa Rivers

Joan Rivers hosts daughter, Melissa Rivers

Joan Rivers hosts Daughter Melissa Rivers

Looking northwest towards the Manhattan skyline from the W Train. 1:15 PM. Photo: JH.

February 3. It was cold yesterday in New York and last night about 8:30 the snow began to fall softly, brightening up the night.

Midnight on East End Avenue.

Joan Rivers hosted a reception at her sumptuous East Side duplex for her daughter Melissa Rivers and Melissa’s new book: Red Carpet Ready: Secrets for Making the Most of Any Moment You’re in the Spotlight (Crown Publishers), which she wrote with Tim Vandehey.

This was a good party and I knew it would because first of all Joan is a most gracious and welcoming hostess, and her digs are spacious, rarefied and glamorous.

For a little New York history, Joan lives in an architecturally famous building that was designed and built in 1903 for Alice and John Drexel by Horace Trumbauer who built that famous E.T. Stotesbury house, Whitemarsh Hall outside Philadelphia, that was featured on these pages last week. Mr. Stotesbury started out in business working for Mr. Drexel’s father, Anthony J. Drexel. Young Drexel didn’t see eye to eye with the up-and-coming E.T. Stotesbury, and at the elder Drexel’s suggestion, the son left the business. Forever. And moved to New York.


	Click to order Red Carpet Ready.

Mrs. Drexel especially, coming from Philadelphia, wanted to impress New Yorkers with her house. And she did. And no doubt, as well as impressing the succeeding tenants who came after, such as Ms. Rivers, a century later (Ernest Hemingway kept a pied-a-terre in the building also.) As you can see for yourself.

Impress aside, Joan Rivers off-camera is slightly more subdued, although still effusive, warm and outgoing, and lovely as a hostess. For all that brassy, zany yada-yada, just below the surface is a refined and intelligent hard working woman and great friend. And daughter Melissa is her mother’s daughter with many of the same qualities (albeit a brunette), as millions of television viewers know better than I.

Melissa’s book is not so much about the spotlight but about what she’s learned from her ma and her work. She spells it out in the introduction:

Red Carpet Moments aren’t limited to the red carpet, and it’s not just the stars who have them. All of us have (them) throughout our lives. They’re weddings, bat mitzvahs, and interviews for dreams. They’re also breakups and painful apologies. (And) what I’ve learned in watching thousands of celebrities have their Red Carpet Moments is that nobody turns in a star performance in the spotlight by accident.

That last sentence sounds so simple but it’s the key to anyone’s success in all business, not only Show, and the greatest tool in making things work: know what you’re doing.

Melissa made her first Red Carpet appearance in 1996. There are millions out there who might remember it. Making your way in Hollywood is 90% work and 10% luck, no matter who your mama is and whom you know. Melissa’s ma knows that and so the girl had a good tutor, without a doubt. Her book has some lessons that are good for all of us who are out in the world. Such as: Be comfortable in your own skin; get some perspective; Fall forward; take a risk; Be nice on the way up; Trust your gut, and Be Prepared!

The gathering at Joan Rivers' apartment for Melissa Rivers' book party last night.

Rosanna Scotto and Wendy Williams.

Nancy Collins and Liza Persky.

Melissa Rivers and Rosanna Scotto.

Joan’s apartment was packed when I arrived. Several waiters were passing the hors d’oeuvres and the champagne, white wine and sparkling water. Joan was making her way around the room looking very glamorous in diamonds and pearls and black pailetted pajamas, seeing that guests were meeting each other. I found myself watching Wendy Williams, as bubbly as a glass of champagne herself – a big, tall, commanding presence with a warm smile for everyone.

Rosanna Scotto and she were having a catch-up. Rosanna’s digital was busy too. Wendy’s husband was nearby on the sofa (but he’s not into being photographed and leaves that department to his wife). Commissioner Bill Bratton and Nikki Kleiman were there, having recently arrived back in New York to live fulltime after seven years in Los Angeles – their house in Beechwood Canyon’s “on the market.” They’re glad to be back: Nikki likes the New York walking.

Around the room: Deborah Norville, Robin Quivers, Rex Reed, Crystal Hunt, Hoda, Bernadette Peters, Nancy Collins, Megan Meany, Sara Gore, Scott Currie, Debbie Bancroft, Tiffany Dubin. This was one of those cocktail parties where two hours into it, nobody was leaving. A good time at Joan’s; a good time for Melissa.

Rosanna Scotto and Wendy Williams.

Tiffany Dubin and Debbie Bancroft.

Rosanna and Wendy.

Debbie and Tiffany.

Melissa and Joan Rivers with Robin Quivers.

Melissa and Joan Rivers.

Rikki Kleiman and Bill Bratton.

Bernadette Peters talking to Rex Reed.

Blue skies over Joan's dining room.

Looking south (the Hotel Pierre on the left).

I think I was one of the first to leave at about 8:15. I had to get up to Deborah Buck’s Buck House (at 93rd Street and Madison Avenue) where she and Susan Cohn Rockefeller were launching RocknRola Jewelry with a special sale for Valentine’s Day Season. Special because the pieces (on sale for $100 each) and ALL proceeds were going to Oceana, the organization that is support ocean advocacy.

Ocean advocacy. Oceana was established in 2001 by the Pew Charitable Trusts, Oak Foundation, Marisia Foundation (formerly Homeland Foundation), the Turner Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Click to learn more.

It was these foundations that in 1999 commissioned a study that discovered that less than one-half of one percent of all resources spent by non-profit environmental groups in the US went to ocean advocacy. Their mission is protecting and restoring the world’s oceans.

The window at Buck House, designed for last night's benefit for Oceana.

Global Warming aside, no matter what you think of it, we’re losing the ocean’s marine life. Without this work, the human race is finished, and not within thousands of years or even hundreds of years. The time has come. If this sounds extreme, consider that the human population has overfished in the last few decades to the point where marine life can’t reproduce fast enough to replenish and the pollution of the ocean is thwarting what replenishing that is going on. One day soon, this will be everybody’s business. It’s called survival, and we’re in it together no matter one’s religious beliefs, politics or nationality. Also visit: www.aseachange.net.

Susan Cohn Rockefeller and Deborah Buck.

Deborah and Christopher Buck.

Last night’s event was to remind and to raise money to expand Oceana’s work. RocknRola was formed by Susan Cohn Rockefeller (her husband David Rockefeller Jr. is actively involved with Oceana and its work) and Carol Mack to inspire people to think about the state of our planet and the state of their hearts. Susan is also the chairwoman for Oceana’s Ocean Council. Each piece of their jewelry reflect a deep commitment to nature and the creativity that it inspires. All materials used in the jewelry are sustainable and sourced through an environmental lens. Last night they sold out of the jewelry.

The RocknRola jewelry on sale last night at Buck House with proceeds going to Oceana.

Leaving Buck House, I noticed the windows of my friend Linda Horn's shop across the avenue. The theme of her always-intriguing windows was clearly silver (and vermeil).

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, fifteen blocks to the south on Madison Avenue at the Gagosian Gallery (980 Madison), last Saturday night, they had an opening reception for artist Damien Hirst and his new exhibition: Damien Hirst; End of an Era.

It was a star-studded one as art exhibitions go with the famous artist himself present along with pals such as Mick Jagger, Bono, Takashi Murakami et al.

The exhibition takes its title from the central sculpture in the exhibition, a severed bull’s head with golden horns and crowned with a solid gold disc. Suspended in formaldehyde and encased in a golden vitrine, this totemic sculpture acts as a powerful coda to The Golden Calf (2008).

Also included in the exhibition is Judgement Day (2009) a thirty-foot long gold cabinet filled with close to 30,000 manufactured diamonds. A series of photorealist paintings of famous diamonds including The Golden Jubilee (2008) The Agra (2006) and The Premiere Rose (2006) are shown together here for the first time.