Growth period

Park Avenue over last weekend, our most recent glimpse of warm and sunny weather. Photo: JH.

April 23, 2009. Yesterday in New York was damp, grey and lush. The tulips are out, the daffodils, the dogwood, the magnolia. The pears are turning green and the bushes in the parks are bursting with fresh and bright green buds.

Beth DeWoody’s birthday today; traveling somewhere across the planet, wherever she may be; friend of many, a leader among legions of art mavens, collectors, curators, designers, dealers, artists, actors, writers and such. She and I met 35 years ago in the hills of Connecticut about this time of year. She was a kid who collected old magazines and sheet music and was drawn to talent, all kinds of talent. Now she’s a connoisseur, a personage, and it’s been fascinating to observe the development of the girl to woman, the child to the mother; all one in the same and yet not. Kisses to her.


	Dolly

It was Wednesday at Michael's, meaning startime. And the star yesterday was the inimitable and fabulous Dolly Parton who was lunching with Showtime’s Matt Blank and Bob Greenblatt who is producing the Broadway musical version of “Nine to Five” for which La Dolly has written the score.

If you’ve never been in her presence, Dolly is tiny. Maybe 5’3” in heels, with tiny waist and hips, slender shapely legs and that big, baby, big mass of blonde Dolly mane that probably adds six inches to her height and makes her head look large.

The impression (our table was no more than a foot away from where she was standing, talking to fans on her way out): a lovely woman. Gentle, genteel, courteous, kind and focused. There are some people who maintain a star’s presence. And only some. Streisand sure as hell doesn’t. Nor Madonna; certainly not Gwyneth, and of course none of the guys. They may be fun to see, to gawk and gape at but ... Fonda, maybe; who looks so good. And definitely Dolly.

It’s a kind of inner energy, a certain centeredness that may just be ego but beautifully composed. They’re just there and within proximity you’re just in their orbit. And serious; oh, very serious. That’s what it took; that’s what she’s got.

Also in the Michael’s mix: The governor’s beautiful (and soft-spoken, gracious) wife, Michelle Paterson with Our Lady of the Haute Couture, Jackie Rogers; Les Moonves and Philippe Dauman; Stan Shuman with Steve Rubenstein; da boys for all seasons: Jerry Della Femina, Jeff Greenfield, Dr. Gerry Imber, Andy Bergman Michael Kramer. Peggy Siegal was lunching with Jennifer Creel. Talking about the great success of Matt Tyrnauer’s “Valentino; The Last Emperor,” Peggy told me that the DVD will also have all the outtakes. Everybody who sees this film loves it.

Also in the mix: Jack Myers, Harrison LeFrak et cie., Toni Goodale with Meredith Brokaw; Judy Price and Kathleen Lacey; Cindi Lieve and Carl Ross; Linda Wells et al; Linda Wachner, Ron Mwangaguhunga (of the internet’s Corsair), George Malkemus, Fredi Friedman, Keith Kelly, Sid Holt, Susan Magrino, Dan Abrams with Brian Steel, and on and on.

Colored coordinated, 57th Street and Park Avenue at noontime.

The night. More raindrops although nothing like the night before. I put on a black tie and took a cab over to Fifth Avenue to the apartment of Georgette Mosbacher who was entertaining the troops at a book party for her pal Randy Jones and his “The Richest Man in Town; the Twelve Commandments of Wealth.”

Randy, who has had a long and successful career in media is a man of ideas that seem to center around initiative, information and entrepreneurship. His book is a kind of tribute to the system of the American Dream. He visited 100 cities and sought out interviews with the richest man in town. Any of us who grew up in a place large enough and small enough to be a town, had one of these. He asks the questions that you might ask.

[1]

Randy Jones signing a copy of The Richest Man In Town. Click image to order. [2]

Trip Gabriel, Michael Gross, and Randy Jones.

The richest man in town where I grew up was a man named F. Stanley Beveridge. Mr. Beveridge made a fortune although he didn’t live in the biggest house (although one of his daughters and her family did), but he did drive a brand new Cadillac – one of only two or three in the entire town -- a black four-door sedan.

He built a large private park (open to the public) in a former woodland, with a carillon tower. Where he held company parties and picnics as well as allowed the public to use by appointment. In summertime there were often concerts with the carillon and they could be heard for a mile or two.

Mr. Beveridge founded a company called Stanley Home Products which was an exponential idea of the Fuller Brush Company where Mr. Beveridge got his start. He was also famous in the town for paying his employees, no matter how lowly, very well. It was said that Stanley Home never had a union because the workers preferred the boss’ idea of compensation. When Mr. Beveridge retired from his position as the head of the company, he was succeeded by a woman, one Catherine O’Brien who had started out as his secretary. This was in the 1950s.

Inside the Mosbacher apartment.

So, I and many others grew up associating great fortune with generosity and good works, as well as fairness. And new Cadillacs. That’s what the image of Frank Stanley Beveridge did for his community.

Randy Jones met more than a few of the Frank Beveridges of our country in putting his book together. People who had an idea and went out and did something about it. His book naturally develops into a kind of primer on the nature of the entrepreneur whose progress often touches the community.

Meanwhile Mrs. Mosbacher was not to be seen at her own party, having come down with strep throat. Her sister Lyn Paulsin kept the locomotive on the tracks.
The Mosbacher-Paulsin parties, often book parties are yakky and elegant. There’s always a table of canapés in the dining room and passing trays of pigs-in-a-blanket. On one coffee table I spotted a big silver bowl of chocolates in their brown pleated paper cups. I was tempted to wrap up a few in a napkin and stuff them in my pocket. Except I was wearing my dinner jacket and not going right home. I resisted by focusing on getting some pictures. I went through with a camera, fast as I could.

Kitty and Bil McKnight with Ann Sutherland Fuchs

Lyn Paulsin

Carl Bernstein and Robert Friedman

Felicia Taylor and Barbara Taylor Bradford

Felicia Taylor and Nancy Silverman

Marjorie Reed Gordon and Annette Tapert

Alice Mason and Mario Buatta

John Cahill, Anne Slater, and Richard Turley

Sara Vass

Nancy Collins, Patricia Duff, and Amy Fine Collins

Gerry Fabrikant and Robert Metz with Wilbur and Hilary Ross

Carmen plays the book ... Carmen with George Yeager ... and also with Gerry Fabrikant.

From there it was down the avenue to the Pierre where the Versailles Foundation/ Claude Monet-Giverny was holding a black tie benefit In The Presence of His Imperial and Royal Highness Prince George Frederick of Prussia.

Prince George is a Hohenzollern. Remember that name from your class in European history? His great-grandfather was Kaiser Wilhelm II who was exiled to Holland after World War I. Prince George’s great-great grandmother, Vicky, was the sister of Prince Charles’ great-great-grandfather Edward VII of England.


	HRH Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, His Imperial and Royal Highness Prince George Frederick of Prussia, and Barbara de Portago

The difference is, of course, Prince George no longer had a kingdom in any way, shape or form. And the Windsors, formerly the Saxe-Coburg (a surname they changed to get away from any association with their cousin, the dreaded Kaiser) still have a kingdom. So to speak. In fact the Hohenzollerns got their name changed by law to Prince of Prussia.

Mrs. de Portago’s annual parties have a certain Old World flavor. Although she is an American, she is quite continental in her approach to entertaining the troops. In these annual dinners, she includes the Cadets and Heralds of the Valley Forge Military Academy and College, which her son Russell Grant attended. So it’s very military although in an almost Franz Lehar-ish in tone. Almost but not quite. Although the boys who range from high school to college age, aside from their military posture, are very American through and through.

They also supplied their regiment band which seemed properly Germanic for the moment. And the escorts for the ladies to the table. Even Prince George was impressed by their uniforms, declaring them better than the German military.

Then when everyone is seated, the guest of honor takes the podium for his agreed upon fifteen or twenty minute speech. Up to that point everything about the evening is almost like a stage set. The speaker defines it. They are always interesting. Romanoffs, Bourbons, Hohenzollerns, all the royal houses of Europe eventually deliver representation to this dinner. Most are defunct, of course, but it is still interesting to learn of their sense of duty and responsibility that these people feel for their countries. More than once it has occurred to me that they might make better leaders than our politicians. This is pure fantasy of course.

Bill Cunningham sets up his shot ...

... and completes it.

The Valley Forge Academy and College band.

The talk is also a historical lesson of what a royal family is. Last night Prince George told us about a business meeting he attended in London where each man had to give a little bit of background of his family. There was evident pride of position as they placed themselves as third, fourth, even fifth generation in their family businesses. Until it came to Prince George who carefully explained that indeed, he was 22nd generation reaching back to the 11th century.

The royals of Europe, so many of whom go back hundreds or even more than a thousand years are eventually all related to each other. Their existence articulates the political evolution of the Western Civilization and also provides the genetic map to explain us today. At the center of the family is the ideal: authority, responsibility and accountability. Over the centuries that many of these dynasties actually ruled, they lost that ideal to the politics and economics of the times. Today they are memories but their exponents, their descendents often extol those ideals in their communities.

Geoffrey Bradfield and Lucia Hwong-Gordon

Amb. John Loeb and Sharon Handler

Donna Solloway, Janna Bullock, and Richard Solloway

Denise Wohl and Debbie Bancroft

Steve Hoeksema, Barbara Tober, Collin Hills, Debbie Bancroft, and Patrick Jenkins

Melissa Morris

John Punnett and Carole Holmes

Martin Sexton, Peter Ford, and Robert McCollum with an admirer of the cadets

Sabrina and Carl Forsythe with Mrs. Marriott

Enter your email address below to subscribe to NYSD's newsletter. It's free!

Also last night at Cipriani 42nd Street, City Harvest held its annual gala benefit “An Evening of Practical Magic." David Arquette hosted. Match Box 20’s Rob Thomas and composer Marc Shaiman performed under the direction of Adam Shankman. They honored Rachael Ray and Eric Ripert.

The evening traditionally pays tribute to the “efforts of individuals and organizations who have gone above and beyond in their commitment to help City Harvest feed New York’s hungry.” City Harvest’s efforts to feed hungry individuals and families by rescuing food that would otherwise go to waste has been referred to as Practical Magic. In today’s economy increasing numbers of the city’s most vulnerable are now in need of emergency food; many for the first time.

Nina Rennert Davidson, Pamela Kaufmann, Simone Levinson, and Heather Mnuchin

Several hundred attended. Last year they took in more than $1.3 million. I don’t know what this year’s final tally was but let’s hope they made as much as last year.