The Right Places (28 page)

In “dining-out” cities, such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco (as opposed to eating-at-home cities, such as Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit), it is possible for the rich to entertain very cheaply simply by going to the most fashionable restaurants. Odd though this sounds, it is much easier to sign an imposing dinner check at a restaurant such as New York's elegant Le Pavilion than it is to pay cash. The ensuing bill can then be ignored for months—sometimes for years. The richer one is, the longer one can put off paying bills like these. The fancy restaurant (unlike the plumber or even the dentist) would not dream of suing to collect a bill from a rich or famous customer. If it did, it would mean losing that customer's prestigious, decorative, and publicity-valuable trade. Stuart Levin, the usually unflappable owner of Le Pavilion, merely rolls his eyes and groans when asked about the frequency with which his wealthiest—and most regular—customers pay for their meals and parties.

It is also possible for the rich to entertain in certain restaurants, and never get any sort of bill at all. This is particularly true in New York, a city which has become restaurant-poor, with more expensive dining-out places than it really seems to need. All one needs to give a lavish party for nothing is determination, a certain amount of
chutzpah
—and an ability to sniff out the right restaurant. Ideally, it should either be a new and therefore struggling place, or one that is older and having trouble clinging to the prestige it enjoyed in an earlier day. Truman Capote's celebrated party at the Plaza Hotel is an example of the latter sort and, though those who were not on Mr. Capote's guest list were offering bribes for invitations, the great bash itself cost the author rather little. The publicity the affair engendered helped reestablish the old ballroom as New York's best address for public functions, and the hotel, in gratitude, picked up most of the tab.

Truman Capote, you say—of course, a famous author;
he
could get away with it, but what about an ordinary person? Well, what about Mrs. Edwin I. Hilson? Hers was not exactly a name to conjure with, but she did get the late Duke of Windsor and his Duchess to agree to come to a party and, led by the Duke and Duchess, all sorts of other famous and social people fell into line. The Four Seasons restaurant was happy to provide the place and the party—no charge.
If, in other words, you are not a famous person yourself, all you need is a famous friend to use for social leverage.

If you happen to be the least bit shy, in New York, about operating this way (it requires, after all, telephoning restaurants and laying your cards on the table, and restaurant owners are generally a hardboiled lot), you can always hire a publicist to do the below-stairs work for you. Your friendly publicist, who will work for a mere five hundred dollars a month, will not only help you put together free and near-free parties, but will also see to it that you get “on the list” for all the other free and near-free parties. Considered the
grande dame
of
haute publicité
in Manhattan is a pretty, vivacious blonde named Marianne Strong. No one knows quite how “Mimi” Strong does it, but when she issues a casting call, out from the woodwork come the old guard, the new guard, and “hot” new actors and actresses, best-selling authors, rich people, beautiful people, right people, and just enough of the wrong people to reassure all the others of their vast superiority. Mrs. Strong's specialty is finding new, offbeat—and therefore fun—places to have parties. She was the first, for example, to toss a party at the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin, a public marina operated by New York's Recreation Department—which charges only a trifling sum to people who want to have parties there.

New Yorkers have become so blasé about the dozens of free parties that are available on any given evening that they hardly give the matter any thought. One night at the Grenadier Restaurant—a slightly newer and more hungry one—one could have spotted Patricia Kennedy Lawford, Keir Dullea, Tammy Grimes, Maureen Stapleton, Joan Bennett, Patricia Neal, and some twenty-five other people, all sitting down to a dinner that had started with unlimited cocktails, and that had a menu headed by filet de boeuf Wellington and two wines. No one was under any illusions that this was anything but a party that no one was giving—except the promoters of the restaurant—nor did anyone care. Next day, a paragraph in
Women's Wear Daily
made it a success.

In Philadelphia, meanwhile, which is not at all a dining-out sort of town, things are somewhat different and, at the same time, somewhat the same in that they prove that the rich, when they entertain, operate under different rules and get away with more—up to, if not
including, murder. In the bosky exurbs around Unionville, an area heavily favored by members of the du Pont family, a du Pont hostess announced to recent house guests that she thought it would be fun to cook dinner herself, since her cook had taken to her bed with a cold. “I can do either spaghetti or chop suey,” the hostess announced. The vote, after some discussion, was for chop suey.

The hostess departed for her kitchen and emerged, several hours later, looking weary but happy, and bearing a large serving dish which contained a very strange-looking, dry, and lumpy concoction. Eagerly—since they were by now quite hungry—the guests dove in. But soon there were expressions of concern. “This doesn't taste like
most
chop suey,” someone said. “Well,” the hostess explained cheerfully, “I telephoned the grocer and asked him to send over everything that goes into chop suey. He did, and I put it all in a frying pan and heated it through.” After several throat-clearings, another guest said, “It seems to need—more moisture.” “Oh,” the hostess exclaimed, “that must be what this is for—” and she hurried to her kitchen and returned with a bottle of soy sauce.

In glamorous Hollywood, meanwhile, entertaining is done with perhaps even less glamour and more dispatch. Several years ago, Elizabeth Taylor discovered the chili served at Chasen's restaurant in Beverly Hills. She became addicted to Chasen's chili, and even had it flown to her, frozen, while she worked on
Cleopatra
in Rome. Eventually she wangled the recipe out of Chasen's chef. Today, it is the dish the Richard Burtons serve most often when entertaining. Here is the recipe for Elizabeth Taylor Burton's chili, as passed along to the author:

Wash beans. Soak overnight. Simmer until tender in soaking water. Add tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes. Sauté peppers in salad oil. Add onions
and cook until tender. Add garlic and parsley. Sauté meat 5 minutes. Add to pepper mixture. Add chili powder and cook for 10 minutes. Add beans and spices. Simmer covered for 1 hour. Uncover and simmer 30 minutes. Skim off fat.

The above recipe, Mrs. Burton says, will serve eight handily, and can be put together for under ten dollars at most supermarket prices.

And so it would seem that the rich do have it better than the rest of us when they entertain. Not that they give better parties, but they're privileged with more freedom from troubles. They are either, like the du Ponts and the Ingersolls, too confident and secure in their positions to worry about how to do it, or even to take the time considering which fork to use. Or else they are like jet-setty New Yorkers, too cynical and aware of what's in their publicity-oriented world to mind that much of the entertaining that goes on is commercial, or ego-centered, or meretricious. It's all a part of the scene. Pauline Trigère, the enormously successful designer of expensive dresses, was being picked up by her escort at her Park Avenue apartment the other day. After a drink at the apartment, Miss Trigère and escort headed for a taxi; and, in the taxi, Miss Trigère stifled a yawn and asked, “By the way, who's giving this party, anyway?” Her escort, stifling another yawn, replied, “I really don't know. It's probably just another freebie. If you like, when we get there, I can ask.”

United Press International Photo

The Annenbergs at peace with the Embassy eagle. (Mrs. Annenberg's

daughter, Mrs. Wallis Weingarten, at left)

15

London: His Excellency, the Ambassador

Eero Saarinen, in an institutional mood, designed the United States Embassy which occupies the entire western flank of London's Grosvenor Square. “Occupies” is the right word. The huge structure, of glittery Portland stone and glass, is certainly out of harmony with its neighbors, all stately Georgian mansions of mellowed brick, and the British, who relish nothing more than criticizing American taste, have made the building the subject of attack ever since its completion in 1960. Vulgar Americans have been taken to task for “spoiling” London's loveliest square, and the Embassy façade has been likened to everything from a recumbent air conditioner to the grille of a giant Edsel.

A feature of the design is an enormous eagle, as big as a World War I biplane, which perches on the roof and which seems about to sweep down on all the pigeons in the park (who, with pigeon-like perversity, ignore the threat and line up along the eagle's broad wingspan). And, to the British critics, this monster bird represents American aggression from 1776 to our present involvement in Vietnam. Thus it was when Walter H. Annenberg, the Philadelphia communications tycoon newly appointed United States ambassador to Great Britain by President Nixon, announced, in all innocence, that one of the first things he intended to do in office was take the eagle down.

His gesture, obviously, was meant as one of goodwill to the British critics. What ensued, however, was the first of a series of tempests in
English teapots, large and small, that have made Ambassador Annenberg the most controversial and most criticized ambassador to Britain since Joseph P. Kennedy. Once more a rich man seemed not to know how to do it.

Immediately, art and architectural groups flew to the defense of the building, the eagle, and the ghost of the late Mr. Saarinen. The eagle, they pointed out, was an integral part of the building's total concept, had been commissioned and approved by Saarinen himself, and could be stripped off the top of the building only at great aesthetic peril. The eagle's sculptor, Theodore Roszak of New York, cried out that any attempt to tamper with his eagle would be a violation of the First Amendment by denying an artist his freedom of expression. Various congressmen, meanwhile, pointed out that Mr. Annenberg had grossly overstepped his authority. It is not up to an ambassador to make architectural decisions about public buildings, including embassies, which are the property of American taxpayers. Senators who had been opposed to the Annenberg appointment to begin with muttered darkly that he would be lucky if he got to choose the color of the carpet in his office, much less tear down eagles. Senator Karl Mundt, in an attempt to make light of the matter, announced that he would agree to the removal of the eagle if, in return, the Queen would take down the pair of lions that guard the entrance to the British Embassy in Washington. Finally, admitting that he had spoken unwisely, or at least naïvely, Mr. Annenberg announced that he and the eagle had arrived at “a firm and friendly understanding,” and that “the eagle speaks no ill of the Ambassador, and the Ambassador speaks no ill of the eagle.”

For years, it has been standard American political practice to appoint wealthy men to prestigious diplomatic posts in glamorous European capitals. These appointments are given out, as everybody in the world realizes, as rewards for generous political contributions. London's American Embassy is one of the right places where a rich contributor to a winning presidential candidate can expect to find himself. It has been a long time since such men as Benjamin Franklin, the first Minister Plenipotentiary from the American States to France, have been expected to have real diplomatic training and the power to negotiate important treaties, sign world-shaping documents, or even
remove mighty eagles from their perches. Today, with such men as Mr. Henry Kissinger roaming the world on vital and secret missions, the role of American ambassador has shrunk to that of a social functionary with little more to do than make friends and shake hands and smile for photographers. Clearly, to President Nixon, Walter Annenberg was one of the right men for one of these socially and politically right posts. Then why did he seem, all at once, so inexcusably wrong?