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Hadn’t we heard it all?  No?  Serving Uncle Sam for three years as we did, our army buddies cursed loud and long and imaginatively.  Nothing, however, compared to the invective from talent agent Sue Mengers, when we experienced her Big Mouth.

The incident came to mind as we prowled into Brian Kellow’s mightily entertaining and richly readable biography. Can I Go Now? The Life Of Sue Mengers, Hollywood’s First Superagent, about the highs and lows of her tough, screw-you personality.   A character with a raging ego that likely underscored a raging insecurity.

Barbra Streisand became Sue’s Big Kahuna client, others included Candice Bergen, Michael Caine, Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, Ali MacGraw, Gene Hackman.   When Barbra voiced fear about safety after the Manson murders, Sue countered, “Don’t worry … stars aren’t being murdered, only featured players.”

Her dinner parties were hot stuff.   Floating in her designer caftans, Sue never stopped smoking pot in one hand, a cigarette in the other.  The press crowned her a Big Deal. 

About that tongue-lashing we received from Sue, the encounter revolves around fashion empress Diana Vreeland (editor of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar), who was visiting family in Los Angeles. 

Jean Howard was hosting a dinner party for Diana.  A former Ziegfeld Girl from Texas, Jean had been pursued by Charlie Feldman, a Casanova of a talent agent wooing new beauties for stardom.  Charlie represented Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall.  After   Jean and Charlie married, their Saturday night parties at the 2000 Coldwater Canyon villa were the talk of the town.

The notoriety of the Jean/Charlie good times established Jean as a hostess you should know.   Excited about being invited to her first Jean Howard party, Sue asked us to pick her up.  We had a complex deadline for our Great Life column in The Hollywood Reporter, planned skipping drinks and arriving later for Jean’s Texas-themed dinner.

“I’ll let you off the hook,” Sue said. “Do me a favor and find someone who’s young and blond, blue-eyed and straight and hot-blooded as my escort.”   We politely sent a taxi to deliver Sue, and asked for an okay to quote her in our column about the Straight and Hot Blooded date. 

“You like that?” she replied.  “Be my guest.”

The weekday “trades,” so-called of The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, were delivered early to the Hollywood players, and at 9 A.M., the phone rang, and we heard Banshee screeches.  Curses with volcanic vulgarity.

“How dare you write I wanted somebody straight to pick me up.   Where the hell have you been all these years, asshole,” Sue  screamed.   “Hollywood’s full of gay clients, and I have to work with them.”   She was stoned. We hung up the phone. 

Oddly, several nights later we bumped into each other, and we anticipated another tongue-lashing.  She was at full gallop, calling me “honey”, “darling” and “sweetie pie.”

For many, Sue’s alias could have been Madam Goddam, and we’re convinced the local crowd and global Hollywood fans will relish Brian Kellow’s roundly researched biography. More than 200 interviews, with a marathon of anecdote,.  Brian has her down pat.  Even as to how she spellbounded Israel President Shimon Perez with gossip about the sexcapades of Tinsel Towners.

Cavalcades of celebrities parade through Brian’s 326 pages.  Diana Ross, Paul Newman, David Geffen, Barry Diller, Robert Evans, Jacqueline Bisset, Joanna and Sidney Poitier, Gore Vidal, Princess Margaret, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, Julia Roberts, Warren Beatty,  Dyan Cannon, Ann-Margret, Burt Reynolds, Rod Stewart, Anjelica Huston, Eliott Gould, Jessica Lange, Cybill Shepherd,  Peter Bogdanovich, Steve McQueen.  On and on.  Dish upon dish.

Billy Wilder was not a fan, describing her as “nothing worse than a self-hating Jew.”  Brian Kellow reports a friend of Sue’s believed, “Her Jewishness was a Jewishness of convenience.  She was Jewish when she was with Jews, and wasn’t when she was with anti-Semites.”  Introduced to a mountain climber, she balked, “You know what?  Jews own banks.  We don’t climb.”

In Saint-Tropez one summer, Sue and Jean-Claude were houseguesting with Joan Collins and Robin Hurlstone, with Jean-Claude confessing “his decades-old affair with Jean-Pierre Aumont … and the conversation turned to married men sleeping with other men.  ‘Oh, my honey had a few experiences like that when he was a baby,’ Sue sighed dismissively, with Jean-Claude pointing out that at the time of his affair with Aumont he was 28.”

When the conversation turned to circumcision, Sue said, “‘My honey is circumcised.’ 

“’No, I’m not,’ said Jean-Claude.

“’Yes, you are.’

“Jean-Claude was incredulous.  ‘For God’s sake, we’ve been married all these years, and you don’t know?’

Sue purred, “I thought it was rude to look.’”

She could be fiercely witty, her barbs amused the Who and the Who.  She retired during the mid-’80s, her career viewed as passé.  Her health waned.   Heart disease, a quadruple bypass, throat cancer (that smoking!), diabetes.  She lost her life in 2011 at age 79. 

“Sue bathed in her clients’ fame,” recalled Tuesday Weld.

Brian Kellow arrived from Manhattan this week with partner Scott Barnes.  Welcomed and feted they were by Sherry Lansing (forever known as Our Girl), who’s devoting philanthropic energies to battling cancer, and her man about cinema and opera, Billy Friedkin (The French Connection, Exorcist).  They celebrated the book’s publication with an at-home drinks party for Brian and Scott at their luxurious Bel-Air hilltop estate.

Once you spot the valet runners and their maestro Joel Groves from Chuck’s Valet Parking, you know you’re in the right place.    As we were,  running into Universal’s Ron Meyer and the reliable health consultant Dr. Wendy Goldberg.   In a minute, we were cheerfully embraced by the beloved event-planner Allison Jackson, who perennially plans Microsoft’s Paul Allen’s yacht soirees during the Cannes International Film Festival.   We asked after Allison’s daughter Spencer, one of the best and brightest youngsters we met as a pre-teen who we adored when Spencer charmed the bejesus out of us years ago. 

Stepping into the spacious, high-ceilinged salon, we sat by Sidney Poitier and his gorgeous Joanna, who, with her Parisian credentials, created the chateau-esque decor into a polished tableaux of high elegance with antique treasures.   Admiring the spacious rooms, we concluded to Sidney that “space and light are the great luxuries of today.”   Sidney concurred.   

We discovered that Sidney and Joanna are proud grandparents with daughters Annika and Sydney adding to the family tree, and that unless they are on the town,  Joanna puts on the chef’s toque and and apron to cook chez Poitier.  “Tonight?  Braised veal with vegetables, salad, etc.”       

How does she keep in shape with her schoolgirl figure?  Kathy Griffin vows it’s “the gym every day,” and that beau Randy Vick, a marketing executive, inspires her.    

The friendly crowd reminded Brian that Sue might be pissed that he’s written the biography without her approval, but, then again, pissed that she was forgotten.   Of course, the yea-and-nay talk, talk, talk centered on Sue, Sue, Sue. with Brian Kellow offering that writing Can I Go Now was “exciting and pleasurable.”

In the chatty mix, Wendy Goldberg talked about being in love with grandmothering daughter Amanda’s charmers Cecilia Jean and Josephine.   Next month, Wendy will spring an enterprising surprise on us.

Among our best-looking Hollywood couples, Mitch Glazer and Kelly Lynch, architectural preservationists who own John Lautner and Richard Neutra houses, pleased us with their news.   That they decided to marry during one of our luncheons for the Toronto International Film Festival.  They credit our event as the “matchmaker” for their togetherness.  “You can’t imagine how madly in love I was over Kelly, and still am,” beamed Mitch.  Daughter Sloan bartenders at Jeff Klein’s Tower Bar.  Mitch and Kelly informed that Jeff’s transforming the gay San Vicente Bungalows (known as Sin Bin) into a “boutique-y hotel,” where naked guests may roam whenever they want. 

Here and there were Jeff Klein with mate John Goldwyn, Wendy Stark, whose daughter Allison wed this spring,  Michael Black, Jay Kantor, who brought Marlon Brando to Hollywood and is now involved on a megabucks project near Florence, Italy, Peter Bart, Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss (daughter Prentiss is now a happy mama),  John Burnham, Judy Balaban, Elaine Thomas, Anjelica Huston (best friend of multi-billionaire Jerry Perenchio), Alana Stewart, Risa Shapiro now managing Jennifer Connelly, Cher, Andie McDowell and her modeling beauties Rainey and Margaret Qualley, L.A. Opera’s music director James Conlon with his beautiful wife Jennifer, who were leaving the next day for the Vienna operas.

As a violet twilight descended on Bel-Air, Brian finished autographing books, with one bozo shouting, “Can we go now?”    

Which was Sue’s signature sign-off after a long conversation.

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Is it true that very few knew about Jackie Collins’ terminal breast cancer.   That she refused chemotheraphy treatment, after having undergone a lumpectomy.  That’s the word out there.

The sudden and shocking news of her death shook up the entertainment community.

“Not even her closest friends knew … Joanna Poitier, Shakira Caine, Anne Kopelson.”   So claims a loyal pal, although her business manager Laura Lizer knew, having traveled to London weeks before with Jackie while she publicized her current novel, The Santangelos.  Her longtime publicist Melody Korenbrot only knew four weeks ago.  Insiders lay claim that daughters Tracy, Tiffany, Rory were aware, her devastated sister Joan Collins only recently.  Companion Barry Krost…?

Apparently, Jackie was doctorphobic, but did take medications.  Living secretly with this tragic diagnosis had to have been hell.   One courageous and noble lady. 

People magazine published a cover stor this week, having initially broken the news the afternoon of her death.  That Jackie was suffering from stage four breast cancer, discovered six-and-a-half years ago, and yet Jackie went on to write five books afterward.   

Only a month prior, we visited with Jackie at length on the phone about The Santangelos, also to ask for her wine-and-dine hangouts in Beverly Hills for our column’s readership.   

Jackie loved good food.  Gifted with an excellent palate, she became an adventurous diner, seeking the best from local restaurants and cafes. 

Two days after our telephone interview, we published a full column about Jackie’s hot spots (BH Courier 8-14-15).   The Ivy and the lobster stuffed with crab, the crab cakes.   Craig’s on Melrose Avenue for its fist-sized meatball and fried chicken, along with a dozen more spots.    

Two or three times a week, she dined at Craig’s, often with big sister Joan Collins.  Both London-born and both seated in full view in a front corner booth, where the coming and going admirers were seduced by their gorgeous smiles and joyful personalities.    Glamour girls to the max: flawless complections, perfect maquillage, impeccable attire, sparkle-plenty jewels, notably from Cartier for Jackie.   Cynosures on the town, indeed.   Their talent agent dad Joe Collins would have been proud.

After her first novel, The World Is Full Of Married Men, topped the bestseller lists, Jackie published The World Is Full Of Divorced Women. All told, she wrote 32 bestselling novels in her distinctive penmanship in schoolgirl composition books that are dutifully preserved, sold more than 500 million copies translated in 70 languages, her net worth listed by Forbes as $180 million.   

The novel, Hollywood Wives, paid for the handsome modernist residence she designed for her and the family in the heart of Beverly Hills.   

She cooked, too.  Shepherd’s pie and die-for English roasted potatoes.   Cheesecake was a weakness.  (As were leopard prints, often said she wished to return to this life as a leopard.)

Soft-spoken, kind-hearted, with a quick-wink sense of humor, Jackie was innately generous.  Days after our column appeared in the Courier, she mailed us an autographed copy of The Santangelos, published by St. Martin’s Press.  A follow-up story about the “dangerously beautiful” Lucky Santagelo, the charismatic powerful daughter of gunman Gino, who warns “never cross a Santangelo.”

A high school dropout, Jackie was now writing her autobiography, Reform School Or Hollywood, noting that the first thing she does upon getting up at 7 A.M. is go straight to her desk and write a sentence.  “That’s the secret.”

Honored with the Order of the British Empire, Jackie was eminently quotable:

“I write about real people in disguise.  If anything, my characters are toned down – the truth is much more bizarre.”

“I have this theory that people in Hollywood don’t read.   They read Vanity Fair and then consider themselves terribly well-read.  I think I can basically write about anybody without getting caught.”

“I’m a born storyteller …the biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.”

“Who is ready to settle for five minutes when three hours does nicely.”

“We hear that there is only one life to live, but I believe in the afterlife.”

Some time ago, Jackie decided her tombstone should read:  “She Gave a Lot of People a Lot of Pleasure.”

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Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shining. 

As they were last weekend during the Remembering Pavarotti gala with two lauded performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.   A night when one of the world’s illustrious sopranos Renee Fleming dueted with the world-famous tenor Andrea Bocelli.  A house packed to the rafters with high-borne enthusiasms.   Los Angeles, you are no longer a dreamer on the outskirts of San Francisco or New York. 

Los Angeles is a beacon of cultural grandissimo with exciting opera, theatre, music, art, dance.  Young aesthetes find their place in the California sun and add to the exhilaration of our arts growth in this 21st century. 

“Hallelujah,” as Renee Fleming sang Leonard Cohen’s ode to life during the evening’s musical repertoire, which honored the memory of golden-voiced tenor Luciano Pavarotti with a montage of song-filled video clips that we’d love to view again.

How did this “happening” with Renee and Andrea come together?  Los Angeles’ pancreatic cancer specialist Dr. Bill Isacoff asked Barry Tucker for help, and help came to pass with both superstars.  “They had an open night,” says Barry, son of the late celebrated tenor Richard Tucker.    Dr. Bill was aiming to raise funds for pancreatic cancer research at the Salk Institute – that savage incurable disease that took Luciano’s life, as it did with Apple’s Steve Jobs, who died at the young age of 5l.    

Signed, sealed and delivered, with the extraordinary Liz Familian coming on board and organizing the night into a major event.  Bringing on planner Marsha Grant and PR whizzes Katy Sweet and Katy’s indefatigable Pam Giangregorio.  You may recall Liz as the publisher of the must-have Master Planner with its schedules of what’s going on in leading cities.   She also published Inside Events, for which we profiled new and vintage restaurants, and then launched her popular Biz Bash publication.  Busy lady, and a beauty, too.

The music was rapturous, with Eugene Cohn conducting, and cardiologist Dr. Stephen Corday assessing these first time duets as “fantastique.”

Renee’s rendition of George Gershwin’s Summertime from Porgy And Bess stirred heart and soul and will not be forgotten.  A native of Indiana, Pennsylvania (also the birthplace of Jimmy Stewart whose dad owned the local hardware store), Renee grew up in Rochester, New York.  Her thrilling soprano voice has embraced the great operas, theater, jazz on the world’s stages.   Her grandparents are of Czech ancestry.  And, yes, men turn weak at the knees looking at Renee’s meltingly beautiful eyes.

Andrea comes to us from the Tuscany farmlands near Lajatico, Italy, where his mother Edi and younger brother Alberto continue to live in the family home.  Born in 1958. Andrea was blinded at age 12 from a soccer accident, plays the piano, flute, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, guitar, drums.  A classical singer, he’s crossed over into opera, operatic pop and pop.

Concertgoers included Placido Domingo, who joined Renee and Andrea for an encore; the Salk Institute’s pancreativ cancer specialist Dr. Ron Evans; Jack Nicholson;  Goldie Hawn with Kurt Russell; Ambassador John Gavin with wife Constance Towers; Ginny Mancini; Steve Kaplan; Annette and Peter O’Malley; Jolene and George Schlatter; Glorya Kaufman; Eva and Marc Stern; Barbara Lazaroff; Ogden Phipps II with wife Ashley; Gina Furth; Jo Champa; Alexandra Dwek; Susan Niven; Karen and Gary Winnick.

Seated at our laugh-a-lot table during the post-concert supper were Liz Familian, Grand Central Market owner Adele Yellin, her associate Matt Nolan, Sandy Rapke, Alyce Williamson, Bea Bennett.

Now, an aside from concert pianist Byron Janis: “What an extraordinary gift music has given us besides its beauty,” Byron writes in the The Wall Street Journal.  “It has a scientifically proven ability to help heal both physical and psychological problems.”

Surely, a whole lotta healing’s going on for those 1,442 exuberant folks at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion during this night of nights.

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The impressive musicians with our L.A. Philharmonic stroll on stage with their violins and violas, cellos and basses, polished brass trumpets and trombones, silver flutes, tuba and timpani and the other instruments that create symphonic magic. 

Conductor Gustavo Dudamel arrives in his Armani tails to wield his baton for this fall’s opening night at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for the Philharmonic’s 97th season. The black-tie crowd explodes, as expectations run high, higher, highest.  Since 2007, Maestro Gustavo has been adored by our city’s music–loving citizenry, and his beloved Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela is performing with the Philharmonic.

The gala concert celebrated the Brilliance Of Beethoven, acknowledging the German-born child prodigy composer who was brutally beaten whenever he made mistakes by his father during his daily practice sessions.    Leaving one to wonder if these wretched whippings contributed to the tragedy of Ludwig van Beethoven’s lifelong deafness.

The festive opening launched the two weeks of the Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra from Venezuela dividing Beethoven’s entire symphonic cycle with rapturous performances as part of L.A. Phil’s Immortal Beethoven Festival.

After selections from the composer’s Egmont. Op 84 and The Creatures Of Prometheus.  Op 43, the concert concluded with Beethoven’s  powerful Ninth Symphony.  Accompanying the two finely tuned orchestras, the lusty voices of 102 men and the mellifluous harmonies of 102 women comprising the Los Angeles Master Chorale were conducted by Grant Gershon, miraculously overwhelming Disney Hall.  Their mastery of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy movement crescendo’d into a symphonic power destined to remain in our hearts now and forever.   Unending were the shouts and cheers and whistles, coupled with the audience’s thunderous applause.

It may be recalled that in 1824, when the now-historic Ninth Symphony premiered in Vienna, Beethoven sat onstage, albeit unable to conduct due to his total hearing loss.  After the performance ended with loving yells and screams, Beethoven didn’t hear any of it, and had to be turned around to face the roars of the hysterical crowd.

At Disney Hall last week, more than $3.5 million was raised for music education.  Congratulations, of course, to the ensembles of artists, to L.A. Phil’s president and CEO Deborah Borda, president chair David Bohnett,  L.A. board chair Diane Paul, along with embracing thank yous for gala co-chairs Joan Hotchkis and Lynn Booth.

A come-dance-with-us supper party, designed by Shiraz Events, followed across the street for the 650 major patrons in the ballroom-sized marquee covered with street scene murals of long-ago Vienna.   A menu of weiner schnitzel and pear-plum cake was served, with the Cowling Band courting diners to trip the light fantastic between courses.  Rolex sponsored the evening.   

Here and there were Mayor Eric Garcetti with wife Amy Wakeland, Julie Andrews, Gigi and Herbie Hancock, Ginny Mancini, John Williams, Gabriel García Bernal, Christoph Waltz, Elizabeth and William Shatner, Ambassador John Gavin with wife Connie Towers, Edye Broad, Joan and John Hotchkis, Anne Jeffreys, Soraya Nazarian, Barbara and Zev Yaroslavsky, Jane and Michael Eisner, Kate Burton, Hilary Swank (newcomer to the L.A. Phil scene), Larry Schmitt, Carla and Fred Sands, Alex Bouzari with screenwriter Alena Semanenka, Yuki Takei, Frank Gehry, Armani’s Wanda McDaniel and Barry Frediano,  Chris O’Donnell, Barbera (cq) Thornhill, Annette O’Malley, Bryce Dallas Howard, Yono and Anat Kreiz, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Matthew Lillard, L.A. Phil’s Gail Samuel and Chad Smith.

Stopping by our table, a politico praised the Philarmonic and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, and, soon enough, irresistibly talked politics.  Wondering how many multi-millions of dollars we American taxpayers are shelling out for the ongoing and exhausting investigations and revelations of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail scandals.  While we welcome a Madam President, the deceptions and distortions from Mrs. Clinton are disturbing.  Aren’t we all hungry for honesty?

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Calling all parents with youngsters who enjoy Italian food and are curious and excited about cooking.   Please consider this for a birthday present or simply a nice surprise.  Our suggestion?  The Frankie Avalon Family Cookbook – From Mom’s Kitchen To Mine And Yours, just published by St. Martin’s Press.  Written with easy, no-nonsense language by Frankie Avalon with Rick Rodgers, a publishing consultant for Williams-Sonoma and Tommy Bahama. 

Frankie describes 80 meals he grew up with that were prepared by mom Mary, whose recipes remain contained in a gravy-stained composition book guarded by his sister Theresa.  Dad was a butcher.

A teen idol during the ’60s, along with South Philadelphia talents such as Bobby Rydell, Frankie launched a musical career at age 13 playing the trumpet on the Perry Como and Jackie Gleason television shows.  Destiny led him to singing teen ballads and racking up Billboard chart toppers — Venus and Why and Don’t Throw Away All those Teardrops.

Movies beckoned, with Frankie and Annette Funicello (Fooney, if you will) co-starring in the romantically innocent Beach Blanket party comedies that became  summer sensations. Seven, all told, plus a sequel!   Here, on our West Coast, they inspired Bay Area theatrical genius, Steve Silver, a former street performer,  to create his Beach Blanket Babylon musical revue in 1974 in San Francisco’s North Beach.    Year in and year out, it sells out and most likely it will continue beyond eternity. 

After losing Steve ten years ago, his wife Jo Schuman took over.  Jo’s a great dame who we tagged as Dynamo Jo in our Great Life columns for the Hollywood Reporter. 

Beach Blanket Babylon was established long ago as the longest running musical in showbusiness history, featuring, as the San Francisco Chronicle claimed, “a cascade of showstoppers.”   Yes, it belongs to the ages, and remains the best fun, a pleasure to view time and again since the cast is ever-changing (we’ll explain later).  Bay Area retailing titan Cyril Magnin saw the show 350 times.

Now, about Frankie’s Italian dishes that his eight children and ten grandchildren dote on, prepared by Frankie and Kay, his wife of 50 years, through their “four generations of Avalons.”

The recipes are comfortable.   Even subteens, if they can boil pasta, may want to “play,” with some of Frankie’s favorites.   Grilled tomato caprese with pesto.   Italian tuna salad with arugula.   Stuffed eggs with mascarpone, basil and pancetta.  Clams oreganata.  Bruschetta.  Pasta with ceci (chickpeas).  Classic fettucine Alfredo.  Fettucine with classic lemon sauce.  Gnocchi with pesto.  Crab marinara.  Along with fish and chicken and meat dishes that may be somewhat complex and need more skilled hands down the line.  Yes, Frankie includes delicious cookie recipes.

Tradition is the key every Sunday, he says, when he’s not on the road. “Sunday dinner is part of most Italian Americans’ DNA, set aside for families and friends to gather, relax and create memories.”

In truth, a book is not easy to do, and we bravo Frankie for taking the time and effort to share his happy cooking moments.   We have a fond history, which he may or may not remember when, during the ’60s, we hosted ABC radio network’s George Christy’s Teen Town, our being the mayor of Teen Town, inviting Frankie and Elvis and Ella Fitzgerald, et alia, for 15-minutes of music and talk.   Frankie was delightful.   As he is with his culinary life and these drool-worthy menus.

As we noted in an earlier paragraph about Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon, the cast and costumes (ah, those infamous chapeaux!) keep changing hippety-click.  Snow White wanders the world pursuing her Prince Charming, while running into Mr. Peanut, Louis XIV, Carmen Miranda  Tina Turner, and dozens more colorful characters, thanks to Steve Silver’s soaring imagination.   Also lately updated with “Snow” meeting up with spoofs of Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey.  And it had to happen with Caitlyn Jenner parodying Peggy Lee’s I’m a Woman – W-O-M-A-N! sung by a man in drag (Stephen Brennan).

Not to be missed.  Adults may imbibe throughout the show.   At 678 Beach Blanket Blvd in North Beach, San Francisco.  Telephone: 415-421-4222.

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“My father believed everyone should write letters as much as they can.  It’s a dying art.  He says letters are a way of presenting yourself in the best possible light to another person,” reveals A. R. Gurney.   

Buffalo-born playwright and author Alexander Ramsdell Gurney graduated from the elite St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire and then from Yale.  His captivating and beautifully written comedies and dramas mirror the fascinating world of WASP society.  Among his most popular, Love Letters is performed perennially, and now completing a run through Oct. 25 at the Wallis Center for the Performing Arts.   Not to be missed  are the vibrant performances from Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal, two handsome and ageless actors.

Theirs is a casting coup, indeed, with charismatic chemistry.  Movie buffs will remember that Ali and Ryan  co-starred in Love Story, the 1945 movie based on the bestselling “weeper” novel by Erich Segal. 

Love Letters, directed by the Tony award-winning Gregory Mosher, is far removed from the film.   Ninety minutes of humor and melancholy nuances about two people who met one another as children and fostered a long-lasting epistolary relationship.  That grows more intense and warms the heart as you live with Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner through 50 years.

“I don’t think there are many men in this world who have had the benefit of such a friendship with such a woman,” reflects Andrew Ladd.  “But it was more than friendship, too.  I know now that I loved her.  I loved her even from the day I met her, when she walked into second grade, looking like the lost princess of Oz    I don’t think I loved anyone the way I loved her, and I know I never will again.  She was at the heart of my life.”

After the opening night ovations, Gregory Mosher informed, before departing for the East Coast, that he spends, at best, no more than eight hours working with the actors.  “And that’s it, a whistle-while-you-work endeavor.”

In 1988, after Gurney finished Love Letters, he sent it to The New Yorker.  “They rejected it, we don’t publish plays.”   He soon reworked it into a two-character comedy/drama.   Scheduled to speak one evening at the New York Public Library, he decided, rather than lecturing, to premiere his work with his friend, actress Holland Taylor, and himself as the co-star. An instant win, of course, that established a proud future.

Love Letters begat theater history.  Dozens of actors appeared smitten.  Inviting themselves to perform, seated comfortably onstage while acting out the playscript to audiences.   A bonus: dialogue need not be memorized.

Since its premiere from the last century when Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst brought Love Letters to Broadway, Gurney’s melancholy comedy has embraced a royal roundup of actors, hither and yon across the country. 

To date, a mere sampling of Love Letters alumni include Elizabeth Taylor with James Earl Jones, Carol Burnett, Brian Dennehy, Mia Farrow,  Kathleen Turner, Alec Baldwin,  Anjelica Huston, Martin Sheen, Candice Bergen, Alan Alda, Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, Christopher Reeve, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Stacey Keach, Swoosie Kurtz, Christopher Walken, the list goes on.

The film’s illustrious director Arthur Hiller with wife Gwen joined the first nighters.   “Terrific” was his call on the performances and direction.   Also with us were Marty Singer with Deena Singer  (Marty’s no longer representing Bill Cosby with his legal travails), Corinna Fields and Carrie Brillstein,  Jay Weston with a tall blonde beauty, Patrick O’Neal with Summer O’Neal,  Kevin O’Neal, Hart Bochner, Alan Nierob, Arnold Robinson.

Also: Lois and Jerry Magnin, who love Edoardo Baldi’s good Italian food as much as we do at e.baldi, which is among our best, as is his late dad’s Ristorante di Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica that is overseen by Edoardo’s beautiful sister Elena.   Jerry has corralled philanthropic bucks for the Wallis, vowing that operating a legit theater is costly, and, yes, please, contributions are welcome.

About that Democratic debate on CNN last week, local viewers are disturbed with the controversial DNC’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz arrogantly limiting the future Democratic debates, along with disappointment from moderator Anderson Cooper’s low-ball performance. 

Several Beverly Hills ladies, among our longtime friends, expressed major curiosity about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s excellent cosmetic surgery.  Oh, how they would love to know “who’s her surgeon.”

Meanwhile, Wolfgang Puck opens his Cut Steakhouse near the World Trade Center in New York next summer – “We finally have the best team and the right location to rise and shine.”

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World class. 

An evening of fun, Joe Jonas and DNCE making music,  a boogie-down dance-a-thon from the Wayne Foster band and vocalists, and knowledge from People You Should Know.   Four hundred fifty tigers and lions in black tie and stunning gowns participated during the annual Caritas Gala that raised $600,000 for the Providence Saint John’s Health Center at the Beverly Wilshire. 

Caritas is Latin for justice, goodwill and love for all.

Our tigers and lions stand tall for the Mother Ship in Santa Monica.    Yes, that Mother Ship, a not-for-profit institution founded by the Sisters of Charity in Leavenworth in 1942, transferring last year to the Providence Saint John’s Health Center to impressive support.   The Mother Ship has looked after Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Nat King Cole, Maria Shriver, Katie Holmes, all nationalities and races in our Westside community and elsewhere.

Welcomed by Foundation President Robert Klein, produced by Paul Fagen and hosted by Saint John’s and the Irene Dunne Guild (named in 1993 for the beautiful, five-times Oscar-nominated actress), the Gala’s People You Should Know included Dr. Lawrence Piro.   The globally renowned oncologist presented his patient and honoree, Wendy Goldstein, a survivor of breast cancer, with the 2015 Caritas Award.    Wendy heads the Urban A&R division at Republic Records, overseeing the careers of Ariana Grande, Sage, Enrique Iglesias, and others.   Her proud nurses, Dawn Simms and Mary Beth Watson, dined with BHC’s Marcia Hobbs and Yuki Takei at our table, savoring the excellent menu of tomato and burrrata salad, followed by poached sea bass (thank you, James Cutfield, the Beverly Wilshire’s longtime director of catering).

Raylene and Bruce Meyer were honored with the 2015 Spirit of Saint John’s Award.   As were Merle and Peter Mullin.   A handsome foursome of People We Should Know, whose diverse philanthropies continue non-stop.    The awards were presented by president Donna Tuttle whose introduction for the honorees was flawless.

Founder of Meyer Pacific, the family real estate planning company, Bruce presided for 35 years over Geary’s, among our finest retailers in Beverly Hills now managed by nephew Tom Blumenthal.

Bruce is a major collector of vintage race cars and motorcycles and much involved in the great Petersen Automotive Museum.  Raylene’s charities are profound, from the Children’s Hospital, the Los Angeles Music Center, the Los Angeles, Junior League,  the 2015 Children’s Festival, which she co-chairs, and others.

Merle and Peter Mullin’s generosity remains unending, Peter being a trustee of Providence Saint John’s Health Center for 15 years.  He and Merle’s contributions created the Health Center’s Mullin Plaza and Mullin Gardens.   They support the Los Angeles Music Center, International Guggenheim Museum, the Art Center of Design, the Petersen Automotive Museum, the National Trust of Italy, the Davis School of Viticulture and Enology, plus more.

Merle and Peter offered their vast kingdom of an estate in the Scottish Highlands, complete with a prized chef and staff, to four couples for a week.   The auction fetched $50,000.

“Saint John’s will always answer God’s call,” declared Peter Mullin, “on behalf of those who come sick and frightened ‘to know me, care for me, and ease my way.’”

Adds Andy Trilling, vice president for Principal Gifts,   “For nine years in a row Saint John’s has achieved the highest distinction from Healthgrades for being one of the nation’s best hospitals, placing it in the top 1% of hospitals nationwide out of 4,500 hospitals evaluated.”

Andy bows to Saint John’s world-class physicians.    Cardiologists Dr. John Robertson and Dr. Paul Natterson; melanoma specialist Dr. Mark Faries; pulmologist Dr. Gil Kuhn (“one of the finest”); GI Surgery and research expert Dr. Anton Bilchik; surgeon Dr. Maggie DiNome, researching freezing tumors as an alternative to surgery;  urologist Dr. Timothy Wilson, one of top six surgeons who has vast experience with minimally invasive, laparoscopic, and robotic-assisted urology oncology, also robotic-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy.   

Also: Dr. Santosh Kesari, the world-class neurology oncologist working alongside Dr. Daniel Kelly, director of the brain tumor program, which attracts patients from around the world.   They can removebrain tumors through the nose with an endonasal “key-hole” approach!

Equally grateful we are with these latest milestones, summed up by Saint John’s chief executive Marcel Loh, who informs that the new branding for the Providence Saint John’s Health Center says it all: “A place you can believe in.”    

Milestones include:

Physician retension and recruitment to grow cardiology, uro-oncology, medical oncology, OB/GYN neuroscience, primay care, hospitalists.

Added three new robots in surgery to support minimally invasive surgery.

One of the first in the world to do the Watchman procedure for cardiac patients.

Added new EMR.

Brought all wages and salaries to market.

Signed a new three-year nurses’ contract.

Continued our planning for our South Campus.

Finished recruitment of my senior leadership team.

Successful Joint Commission 3-year survey.

Have a Saint John’s delivered world-class granddaughter!

Congratulations, Marcel!

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Sixth season coming up for Blue Bloods.   Starring the indomitable Tom Selleck as Police Commissioner Frank Reagan with beauty Bridget Moynahan as his wife, Erin, the CBS series developed a loyal Friday night following with great story lines and consistently high quality.   Entertainment that’s as good as it gets. 

The news this month is that St. Martin’s Press is publishing The Blue Bloods Cookbook with 120 recipes from Bridget Moynahan and Wendy Howard Goldberg.  Author Christopher Peterson supervised the luscious photography and tested the recipes.  Wendy’s husband, the TV producer and creative impresario, Leonard Goldberg, stands behind the series’ success, as he has with such standout fare as Charlie’s Angels, etc.

Bridget Moynahan arrived from Manhattan to celebrate the pub date with Wendy.  They greeted their People You Should Know guests at a posh reception hosted by friends at an historically luxurious Beverly Hills estate.

Having watched the series for many moons, Wendy’s favorite moments included the four generations of Irish-American “blue bloods” weekly gathering over dinner as they hash out the latest dramas of current cases and controversies.   Police Commissioner Frank Reagan and assistant district attorney Erin dine with their flock over a home-cooked meal around the old-fashioned oak table. 

“Meals cooked at home by everyone gathered together,” says Wolfgang Puck, “are an essential of a happy, healthy family life.”

Through the seasons, Wendy found herself convinced that a family cookbook seemed a “natural,” brought her idea to St. Martin’s Press, the publisher of daughter Amanda Goldberg’s two novels.  Both publisher Steve Cohen and editor Elizabeth Beier became immediate champions.   By chance, Wendy discovered that Bridget was a born cooker, and dreamed of writing a cookbook.   Destiny decreed that they would join whisks as partners.   Elizabeth Beier brought Portland’s “superhero” Christopher Peterson on board, along with photographer Ben Fink, whose food pages are exceptional.   

Rival publisher Judith Regan was in hot pursuit of the book, alas to no avail.

“These are classic recipes that have graced family dinners throughout time,” reveal the authors.  “Delicious, filling, soul-satisfying, loosen-your-belt food being the main attraction of any family dinner…  from chicken pot pie to crown roast of lamb … we’ve even included a short list of memorable menus that will help you plan any special occasion.

“We knew from experience that the smell of a pot roast straight out of the oven is a dinner bell that no mortal can resist.  Whether you’re a Blue Bloods fan or not, you’ll be amused at Tom Selleck’s dislike of anything resembling a vegetable or a salad.” 

For Thanksgiving,  the start of the holiday season, Bridget and Wendy offer recipes for a menu with spinach, avocado and orange salad, the Thanksgiving turkey, cranberry sauce, buttermilk biscuits, persimmons with pomegranate, candied yams, roasted garlic stuffing, pumpkin pie (two ways: traditional and “cheesecakey”).

Come Christmas, they suggest a Caesar salad, stuffed tomatoes, standing rib roast with onion sauce, popovers, roasted root vegetables, minty peas, and a chocolate roulade Leontine “that will be the high point of the meal.”

Mixing with the reception crowd:  Jaclyn Smith and Brad Allen had their gift books signed, as did Kathy and Rick Hilton who described daughter Nicky’s fabled London wedding this summer to banking heir James Rothschild, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Ron Meyer, Toni Howard, David Yarnell,  Melanie Cook, Marcia Hobbs, Judy and Bernie Briskin, Marg Helgenberger and Alan Finkelstein, Susan Dolgen, Lauren King, soon-to-be BH Mayor John Mirisch with son Vince, Susan and Peter Strauss, Leslie and Roger Birnbaum, Elizabeth Berkley and Greg Lauren, Armani’s Wanda McDaniel,  Dr. Charles Kivovitz with wife Alex.

Also:  Gelila and Wolfgang Puck, Joanna and Sidney Poitier, Lori and Mike Milken,  Nicole Avant and Ted Sarandos, Lyn and Norman Lear, Susie and Harold Becker, Sherry Lansing and Billy Friedkin, Jane and Marc Nathanson, Amy Ephron with Alan Rader, John Goldwyn and Jeff Klein, Mary Hayley and Selim Zilkha, Anne and Arnold Kopelson, Barbara Davis,  Ellen Meyer, Anne and Frank Johnson, Nadine and Fred Rosen, Barbera (cq) Thornhill, Jennifer Hale Smith, Amanda Goldberg and Philip Raskind, Judy and Jack Harris, Jason Sinay,  CBS’ Glenn Geller, CBS’ David Stapf, CBS’ Bridget Wiley, CBS’ Eric Kim, Carole Black and Dawn Ostroff, Stephanie Savage, Irena Medavoy, Joan Quinn, Dr. Andrew Charles, Jane and Michael Eisner.

Did anyone else notice, as we did, Jane Eisner’s fabulous Russian amber choker and earrings?  A pity, if not.   An imperial treasure.   C’est magnifique!

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“Music unlocks the frozen rivers of the heart.” 

A truism we adopted during our college days from The Notebooks Of Anton Chekhov, the idolized Russian physician, playwright and author (1860-1904).     Chekhov’s quote surfaced as we rapturously listened to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performing Vivaldi and Dvorak at the Bram Goldsmith Theater in the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. 

A cultural ambassador to the world, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) dates to 1936, having been under the baton of Zubin Mehta since 1977.  In its earlier years, the IPO was led by Leonard Bernstein, William Steinberg, and other  presences.

Conducted by the stately tall and commanding global superstar Zubin Mehta, the American Friends of Israel Debut Gala concert was co-chaired by Hollywood’s handsome power couple, Fox Filmed Entertainment chair Stacey Snider with music impresario spouse Gary Jones.  Honoring City National Bank chairman emeritus Bram Goldsmith, the real estate developer who built 30 towers in Beverly Hills, and most likely didn’t know what he was getting into when he embarked on the “impossible obstacle” of 14 years to realize his Wallis dream.  Bram’s son Bruce acknowledged his father’s philanthropic blood, sweat and tears to create this lovely 500-seat theater, a long-overdue venue of comfort and availability for the culturally savvy Westsiders.

Bram’s sculptor wife Elaine, whose dad Benjamin Maltz founded the City National Bank, remains active in charitable work.  Their son Russell Goldsmith is today’s chairman/CEO of City National that has served Beverly Hills and environs.

The changing of the guard at the Wallis also was announced, with proud civic leader Jerry Magnin handing over the Wallis’ chairmanship after three tireless years to philanthropic entrepreneur David Bohnett, previously chairman of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  Rachel Fine now steps into the role of managing director.   

A partnership between Israel and the City of Beverly Hills was announced by BH Mayor Julian Gold.   

The Wallis’ newly appointed Brit-born artistic director Paul Crewes was introduced, before Israel Consul General David Siegel explained: “With this partnership, we are committed to bringing the best of Israel’s help to confront the California drought, enhance cyber security, and share our best practices and technologies related to public safety.

“Israel is a small country, but we are recognized around the world as a super power when it comes to these critical issues.  Israel is the top water recycler in the world, approaching 90-percent in the coming years.

“Through recycling, reuse, and desalinization, Israel is able to leverage twice the amount of water provided by nature.  We brought drip irrigation to the world to allow for more efficient use of water while growing healthy crops.”

What better than Wolfgang Puck catering the post-concert dinner of grilled sea bass, and friends visiting with Susan and Gray Davis, Marcia Hobbs, Debbie Allen, Jolene and George Schlatter, Ginny Mancini with son Chris, politicos Marylouise Oates and Bob Shrum, Allison Janney, Vicki Reynolds, Murray Pepper, Burt Sugarman with wife Mary Hart.  On Jan. 2, Mary hosts the 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala honoring Cate Blanchett.   

The Palm Springs festival remains a favorite with past honorees.  The likes of Steven Spielberg, Julianne Moore, Eddie Redmayne, Chris Rock, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell and Ben Affleck.  They soak up the desert sunshine and bathing-beauty lifestyle.   Even for a day or two, thanks to the all-expenses-paid largesse of their Tinsel Town filmmaker sponsors.

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Arriving after the Norma premiere in the Founders Room at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the three stars were welcomed with a standing ovation.  As they were with “Bravos” and bursts of applause during their astonishing performances in one of the world’s grand operas.   For centuries, aficionados also championed  composer Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma as the greatest of all operas.

We were wonderstruck with the singers and the production during this opening night, as you will be during its engagement through Dec. 13, for the Los Angeles Opera’s Norma. Starring soprano Angela Meade, as the powerful Druid priestess Norma, and soprano Jamie Barton as a ravishing Adalgisa, the young and beautiful rival for the loving arms of studly tenor Pollione, played by Russell Thomas in an elegant choice of mixed race casting.   A brilliant ensemble that has come together from far and wide.   Angela, born in Centralia, Washington; Jamie from Rome, Georgia; and Russell who’s a Miamian.

Pollione falls for Adalgisa.   Betraying Norma, with whom he’s sired two children.   Not one to be scrapped, the scheming Norma boldly plans a killer revenge with her “display of vocal fireworks” during those violent and destructive times in the Roman Empire.   Norma director Anne Bogart finds somewhat similarities with the terrorism life today. 

His peers considered composer Bellini rising to the heights of his talent, with Norma premiering at La Scala on December 26, 1836, to envious and “hostile factions in the audience.”   (Does life ever change?)  Librettist Felice Romani described Norma as “the most beautiful rose in the garland” of his work with Bellini.   Recognized for its grandeur, profound success and “importance,” Norma received 208 performances at La Scala in Milan by the end of the 19th century. 

Norma’s now the signature role for Angela Meade, and what a demanding one it is, as we observed throughout the premiere, the “most taxing and wide-ranging in the soprano repertoire.”  Norma rarely leaves the stage while singing at full gallop.  Not to be missed! 

A favorite of the greats, including Maria Callas, Beverly Sills, Cecilia Bartoli, Grace Bumbry, Sandra Radvanovsky, Renata Scotto,  Joan Sutherland, who Luciano Pavarotti praised as “the greatest female voice of all time.” LA Opera music conductor James Conlon remembers his parents bringing him as a youngster to Norma at the Met in Manhattan with Monserrat Caballe as Norma and Marilyn Horne singing Adalgisa. 

The Founders Room receptions during intermissions and after premieres attract the beau monde of Los Angeles, and while this was a private party by invitation only, members of the Founders pay $100,000 for the pleasure of dining prior to the opera, and snacking afterward. 

Designed by Leonard Stanley, the preferred personal decorator for Dorothy Buffum Chandler, the powerhouse behind The Music Center, the luxurious setting is manorial with its French tapestries and Venetian glass chandeliers.  A stunning oil portrait of Mrs. Chandler by William Draper hangs in the magnificently high-ceilinged space.

Wed to Norman Chandler, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times,  Dorothy Chandler a department store heiress, known as Buff, enjoyed  considerable clout.   She fetched megamillions for her dream of a downtown cultural center, combined with her vision of a Founders Room for the Who and the Who. 

At the Founders, we met Fran Rizzi, the enthusiastic PR Director for the L.A. Opera, and the handsome and athletic Georgi Mitkov, the Bulgarian-born, catering service manager for the Patina Group, which oversees the Founders.

Founders members include the esteemed and beloved cardiologist Dr. Harold Karpman, an opera first nighter with wife Molinda and a major benefactor; Lennie and Bernie Greenberg, also major benefactors; Katy and Arpad Domyan; Ginny Mancini; Alyce Williamson, and hundreds more.      

Mrs. Chandler entertained Queen Elizabeth II at the Founders when Her Majesty visited California in 1983.  As they entered the Founders, Mrs. Chandler beamed at the Queen, “Welcome to my Palace.”

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Packed it was.   Opening night.  Not a seat available in the orchestra at the Bram Goldsmith Theater at the Wallis.  Affirming the longtime traffic snafus in Beverly Hills were worth it when the Wallis was being renovated from the old Beverly Hills Post Office into a lovely cultural center.

We bow to our local loyal legends such as the late philanthropist millionairess Paula Kent Meehan and the Elaine and Bram Goldsmith family, for standing behind their massive generosity to making the Wallis a reality.   Attracting Westsiders and theater, music, cabaret and dance buffs, who avail themselves of top talents such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival troupers.

Here they are through December 20th, the Oregonians enthusiastically performing Frank Loesser’s Guys & Dolls, A Musical Fable Of Broadway, the 1950s musical of Pulitzer amd Tony Awards fame.   A dream realized from such as Jerry Magnin, who’s devoted years of committed support so that we may have the pleasure of the arts within reach.  Also to spread the gospel of the power within the arts in California.  Not only emotionally and spiritually, but financially, as well.   Cities find that the arts, like sports, bring in the big bucks.

Guys & Dolls is an historic American treasure.  About the world’s longest shooting crap game, based on the Damon Runyonesque bimbos and babes from the 1920s and 1930s.

Terry Teachout travels across the U.S. as The Wall Street Journal’s drama critic, and seeks out the worthwhile pleasures of regional theater, in addition to reviewing Broadway openings.  Time and again, he reports there’s major theatrical talent out there.  This August, he flew to Oregon for the Guys & Dolls premiere in its Northwest setting at the Angus Bowmer Theatre.

“Well, hold on to your snap-brim fedora,” he wrote about director Mary Zimmerman’s racy production, “a fetching revival as good as it gets … of the golden-age musicals.”   Who would guess that sleazy strippers and craps shooters unexpectedly engage with missionaries and evangelists.  Sooner than later, they burst into song.

You’ll delight with the singing of Salvation Army lassie Sarah Brown (Kate Hurster, a sixth season OSF veteran) and Adelaide (Robin Goodlin Nordi, a 22 season OSF veteran), the stripper star at the Hot Box Club.   Also the singing and hippety-slick dancing of the OSF sixth season veteran Rodney Gardiner as Nathan Detroit, played by Frank Sinatra in the film.  And you’ll get a kick out of fifth season veteran Daniel T. Parker as Nicely-Nicely Johnson.

The score boasts such classics as A Bushel And A Peck,  If I Were A Bell, Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat, Luck Be A Lady, et alia.   Excellent production values—choreography, costumes, set and lighting design, etc.  We should note that the late Abe Burrows is a co-writer of the book with Jo Swerling,  Abe being the father of author and TV cooking star Laurie Burrows Grad and director Jim Burrows.  Laurie’s raised millions with her annual Night at Sardi’s fundraiser evenings for Alzheimer’s research (which dad Abe suffered from).

Established in 1935, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival remains among the oldest and largest professional regional theaters in the country.   The company numbers more than 550 (over 90 actors, many there for decades), and operates on a yearly budget of $34 million, with annual attendance topping more than 400,000.   As many as nine plays are performed concurrently.  Shakespeare, American classics, musicals, contemporary works, world premieres.   Bill Rauch serves as OSF’s fifth artistic director (since 2006), with Cynthia Riber becoming OSF’s third executive director since 2013.

Now off to France.  Those with an insatiable culinary curiosity, which includes us, wondered about the luncheon hosted by France’s Premier Francois Hollande for world leaders who met in Paris for the climate summit.  One hundred seventy attended. President Barack Obama, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. British Prime Minister David Cameron, China’s President Xi Jinping, plus others.

They dined at twelve tables at the Le Bourget Conference Center north of Paris (imagine the seating headache!), with five Michelin-starred chefs volunteering their services.  The luncheon lasted less than an hour, with the leaders returning afterward to continue their negotiations.

Turnip soup with scallops in floral steam was the beginning course, followed by free-range roast chicken, celery preserve with truffles, parsleyed creamed spinach.  Then, a cheese course of organic Reblochon, with the classic Paris Brest  for dessert served with stewed citrus fruit and praline cream.

Wine selections poured were the white premier cru Meursault Santenots 2011, the red Marquis d’Angerville Chateau Beychevelle, and the Philipponnat Champagne.

During another exclusive dinner, Mr. Hollande entertained 12 guests, including John Kerry, the U. S. Secretary of State, along with French dignitaries at the three-star (since 1986) L’Ambroisie on the Place de Vosges.  The creation of Bernard and Daniele Paucaud, L’Ambroisie, when in Paris, is not to be missed.

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He was on a roll, and you had to be there.    Laughing a lot, as we all were.   The Godfather of the Television Movie, Charles William “Chuck” Fries had the illustrious crowd of television visionaries and entrepreneurs in the palm of his hand.  We were celebrating Chuck being honored with the Caucus Legend Award, presented by Bob Papazian,  during the 33rd annual Caucus Awards dinner at the Skirball Cultural Center.

“To qualify for the Caucus Legend, you need gray hair, be over 75, and walk with a limp.  I qualify on all three counts,” he smiled.  “In that regard, Norman Lear, the other living member of the Founders of the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors, is 93, and deserves this.  But he was unavailable so I filled in.  I’m counting on Norman being here next year.”

Chuck let the fur fly with IMDB, the International Movie Database.  “I fought and fought to have my age changed … but there’s no way, they won’t budge an inch.”

Selfless as he is, Chuck immediately acknowledged his wife Ava Ostern Fries – “an executive in her own right, having produced Troop Beverly Hills, now a vintage classic at film festivals.   Starring Shelley Long and based on Ava’s hilarious experiences as a Girl Scout leader in Beverly Hills. 

“Also, a large sampling of the Fries clan is with me tonight, many doing their own duty in the TV industry over the years.”    Noting that he’s fathered eight children, who’ve blessed him with 22 grandchildren – “and another now on the way … isn’t there always another on the way?”

A distinguished native son of Cincinnati, Ohio (also famous for Graetzer’s ice cream), and a graduate of Ohio State,  Chuck’s career credits are legion.   He ranks among the most prominent successes producing television and film.  An author, American Film Institute vice-chair, plus a loyal chair of the Caucus for numerous terms.  In truth, he’s produced and/or supervised nearly 300 hours of television movies and mini-series.  A class act, Chuck stands tall amongst his peers.

Let us praise our evening’s host, Alfonso Ribeiro.  Saluting the indefatigable Chuck as the event chair, with Lee Miller as event vice chair “doing a great job as president of the Caucus Foundation.”  Other honorees included: Executive of the Year John Landgraph; Lifetime Achievement honoree Norman Powell; Caucus Chair’s Award honoree John Cassar; Tanya Hart acclaimed with the Distinguished Service Award. 

“Each year the Caucus Awards single out deserving and impressive talents for recognition, both our professional recipients and our student grant winners, having doled out $1.4 million for 147 grants to emerging creators,” informed Lee Miller.

Vin Di Bona, the Caucus’ first vice president (America’s Funniest Home Videos, etc.) walked away with the “no-contest” Best Dressed Award.  We discovered that Chuck’s son Mike Fries, president and CEO of Liberty Global, recently joined the Board of Lionsgate.    A kind good man you should know, Mike contributed to the cost of the evening’s tables.

A surprise photograph of the Fries family at Mike Fries wedding to Michele Malone on August 8 of this year at the Dick Clark estate in Malibu is included in the Caucus program, and we are grateful for the permission to publish it here.

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“The most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made … an apotheosis of Flash Gordon serials and a witty critique that makes associations with a variety of literature that is nothing if not eclectic.  Quo Vadis? Buck Rogers, Ivanhoe, Superman, The Wizard Of Oz, The Gospel According To St. Matthew, The Legend Of King Arthur And Knights Of The Round Table.”

Who could ask for anything more?

1977.  May 26. The New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote this sock-it-to-’em love letter during the openinig of George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away in Star Wars.  Nearly four decades later, with sequel after sequel, George’s firmament continues to detonate with Star Wars fireworks, as evidenced last weekend with the volcanic explosion for Disney at the record-breaking global boxoffice.   $526 million!  The world has spoken in behalf of this best investment ever made by a studio chief, Mr. Bob Iger.   

“One of Mr. Lucas’ particular achievements is the manner in which he is able to recall the tackiness of the old comic strips and serials without making a movie that is, itself, tacky,” assessed Mr. Canby  in his review.  “Star Wars is good enough to convince the most skeptical 8-year-old sci-fi buff, who is the toughest critic.”

Variety’s A. D. Murphy (Art) hailed  Star Wars as “a magnificent film … George Lucas set out to make the biggest possible adventure fantasy about his memories of serials and older action epics, and he succeeded brilliantly.”

“Star Wars will undoubtedly emerge as one of the true classics in the genre of science fiction/fantasy films … thrilling audiences of all ages for a long, long time to come,” crystal-balled THR’s Ron Pennington in his 1977 review.

Yes, the galaxy dazzles forever and a day.  Han Solo and Princess Leia and the Jedis and the glowing sabers carry on.  As John Williams’ Oscar-winning operatic scores thunder on.  Eternally!

Happiest Holidays To All!

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The weathervane see-sawed about what might happen.   Mercifully, the rain gods were kind for the 73rd Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on Sunday.  Say what you will, whoever you are who’ve bitched about the meaninglessness of the awards (including scurrilous host Ricky Gervais damning them as “worthless”), please concur that it has its fun moments.   Wild and wooly with leading Hollywood filmmakers and talents drunkenly fannybumping with their high fashions, while swilling Moet & Chandon champagne through the longeurs of this night of nights.   Sad to say, the booze predominates since there’s no limit to the fill-er-up champagne flutes, while the gourmet dinner of filet mignon and lobster remains mostly uneaten.   

In years previous, Frank Sinatra carried bottles of Jack Daniels bourbon that he poured endlessly for tablemates, vowing that it’s “what gets me through the night.”   A bottle of Jack Daniels is tucked into Frank’s coffin in the Palm Desert burial ground.

A Golden Globe memorable moment this year?  Tom Hanks’ eloquent presentation of the Cecil B. DeMille honor to Denzel Washington.  Man-about-town Howard Celnick suggests Tom would serve as a brilliant host for next year’s Golden Globes.  “Or during the Oscarcast, for that matter.”   In our opinion, Tom’s Bridge Of Spies, directed by Steven Spielberg, with Oscar-worthy performances by Steven, Tom and Mark Rylance will be lauded as a classic.

News of the winners, however, appeared eclipsed in some circles the following day with the announcement of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 84, who appeared younger and happier than we’ve seen him of late, about his engagement to blonde Texas bombshell Jerry Hall, 59. The former mate of Mick Jagger, Jerry has four children with him: daughters Elizabeth and Georgia, sons Gabriel and James. 

Jerry’s modeling career was launched when she was discovered on the French Riviera, flown to Paris where she bunked with model Grace Jones.  Soon enough, she found herself the highest paid cover girl, and then met Mick.  The twain morphed into their relationship of 20 years. 

“Above all, Jerry craves security,” a source is quoted in the Daily Mail.  “‘She likes to feel that she is going to be taken care of by a man – which perhaps comes from being raised poor in Texas, with an alcoholic dad who beat her and her four sisters so viciously that he ‘broke bones.’”   (Not unlike the Jackie Kennedy syndrome, Jackie’s security blankets being the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis and banker Maurice Templesman.)

Murdoch family members and friends recall Murdoch was downhearted and disturbed when his former wife, Wendi Deng, known as a Shanghai Girl, romanced British Prime Minister Tony Blair during their marriages, boldly shacking-up at Rupert’s estates, which the staff reported to Rupert.  Needless to say, Wendi walked off with a formidable divorce settlement.   Murdoch and Wendi have two heirs to the empire, Chloe and Grace, along with his daughters Elisabeth and sons James and Lachlan with his author wife Anna Torv, and daughter Prudence from his first marriage to Patricia Booker.

Well, they’re back.  That joyride of Louis Prima and Keely Smith bounced into the Geffen Playhouse this week, performing through Sunday.

They say … so they say …  that Dean Martin claimed, “You can’t buy happiness, but you can pour it.”   Whatever the hell that means.    Well, happiness is poured nightly at the Geffen by the Tony-winning and fleet-footed Anthony Crivello as the New Orleanian musicmaking maestro, the lion-hearted Louis Prima harmonzing his jazz-flecked repertoire with wife Keely Smith, played by the musical’s co-writer Vanessa Claire Stewart. 

Did you know Keely, whose voice is a God-given power unto its own, was born Dorothy Keely?

First nighters included director and co-writer Taylor Hackford (Ray, An Officer And A Gentleman) with wife Helen Mirren seated front and center.   Also: Louis and Keely’s daughter Luanne and producer Hershey Felder applauding Ray Litteral’s  good-as-it-gets band. 

Taylor departed the next morning on a dawn flight for Manhattan to meet with Robert De Niro, whose passion project is the “indie-financed” The Comedian that Jennifer Aniston just dropped out of.  De Niro stars as an aging insult comic (a la Don Rickles?), with Taylor directing, and the cast’s a runaway procession of comedic talent.  Taylor’s negotiating to round up others.

Will there be a day without more baggage bearing down on Hillary Clinton, who’s become the Compleat Baggage Lady on the political global scale.  Always quick-quick-quick to mouth apologies filled with untrustworthy excuses?   

Meanwhile, this from columnist Adam Brodsky on his New Year’s predictions in the New York Post:

“Hillary Clinton will go a whole year without being caught in a lie.

“Hillary Clinton will go a whole week without being caught in a lie.

“Hillary Clinton will go a whole day without being caught in a lie.

“Democrats will hold Hillary accountable for her lies.”

Matt Drudge briefly reported that Vice-President Joe Biden (who’s supporting Senator Bernie Sanders for the presidency), and Senator Elizabeth Warren are polishing their boots to step into the presidential power play arena.  C’est possible?   Who knows?

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“They’re very excited about getting married,” says spokesman Steve Rubenstein about media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 84, and former model Jerry Hall, 59, who had wed Mick Jagger during an exotic ceremony in Bali where a Hindu priest slit the throat of a chicken and spilled its blood to purify the venue.  The  marriage was legally meaningless and annulled.   

Mr. Murdoch and Jerry Hall were introduced four months ago in Australia by his sister and niece.   Socially, Mr. Murdoch’s attractively approachable, having met him, as we have, on various occasions.   At novelist Danielle Steel’s annual Christmas dinner-dances in San Francisco when Danielle was wed to financier Tom Perkins, a Murdoch friend.   Conversation was easy, and, the best way to inaugurate a conversation after an introduction to a guest, as our beloved mother Kaliope taught us, is to focus on “small talk.”   Such as:  Do you visit the Bay Area often … will you be spending Christmas here or at your Beverly Hills residence … Danielle serves these extraordinary rare vintage premier crus from Bordeaux, not often available.”  Ta, ta, ta.

We’ve visited with Mr. Murdoch briefly at the Greek Easter Sunday celebrations hosted by Fox Entertainment chief Jim Gianopulos and wife Ann in their spacious Brentwood garden, where the signature of this holiday party is fun.   Always good food from chef Ina.  Hot bouzouki music from bandleader Nandos’ quintet.   Dancing a la Grecque led by Rita Wilson’s schoolteacher sister Lily.  Gung-ho Tom Hanks takes over the microphone and croons improvised Greek numbers.  While the young Murdoch daughters, Chloe and Grace, play giggly games with Jim and Ann’s beauties, Alexa and Nicoletta.

Born to the purple of fine manners, Mr. Murdoch is a kind, friendly  and elegant guest.  Judging from the photos of him holding hands and cheek-kissing his soon-to-be-wife Jerry Hall, he radiates good cheer and happiness and a youthful spirit.  Shall we attribute this to Jerry?  What better than a new found love?  At any age.

Melania Knauss Trump greeted journalist Alex Kuczynski in the triplex penthouse of the 68-storey Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan.  Where the residence of Melania and presidential candidate Donald Trump and their nine-year-old son Barron overlooks the skyscrapers of this great and powerful city (sorry, Ted Cruz!).

“For her part, Melania has remained largely in the shadows of her husband’s campaign,” acknowledges interviewer Kuczynski in the February issue of Harper’s Bazaar. 

All by design, informs Melania, 45, described as “tall, lithe and limber at five foot eleven … incandescently beautiful.”

“We decided as a family that this was something we would do.  I explained it to my son a lot.  I said, ‘Daddy will run for president,’” noted Melania.   “‘They say I’m shy.  I am not shy … I chose not to go political in public because that is my husband’s job.   I’m very political in my private life, and between me and my husband I know everything that’s going on.  I know everything from A to Z …

“Donald is handling everything very well.  He is not politically correct, and he tells the truth … I give him my opinions, and sometimes he takes them, and sometimes he does not.   Do I agree with him all the time?  No.   I think this is good for a healthy relationship.  I am not a ‘yes’ person.  No matter who you are married to, you still need to live your life.  I don’t want to change him.   And he doesn’t want to change me.’”

For details about how Melania and Donald met, their Episcopalian marriage followed by the reception at his opulent Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach (Hillary and Bill Clinton were paid to attend), please access our BHC column from August 2l, 2015.

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At last.   Jean Stein’s long-awaited oral history of her Hollywood years, titled West Of Eden, An American Place, arrives in bookstores this week from Random House.   

West Of Eden is a gem.  Predictably a classic.

Jean’s the daughter of the late powerhouse Jules Stein, the Indiana-born ophthalmologist who booked and led bands, before launching the Music Corporation of America that later included Universal Studios.   Jules liked challenging us and friends to spell ophthalmologist.

We crowned Jules and his wife Doris Jones Stein as Hollywood’s Emperor and Empress, when we were writing “The Great Life,” our thrice-weekly column in The Hollywood Reporter (25 years).

Nobody was like them in Hollywood, living in Beverly Hills as they did, a duplex apartment at 2 East 70th Street in Manhattan and a London townhouse.  They entertained the international beau monde – Hong Kong cinema tycoon Run Run Shaw, Saudi sultans and British royals.

A “literateur” was Alfred Hitchcock’s description of their daughter Jean and others with a literary bent (Joan Didion and Gore Vidal), when we dined at the long-gone Chasen’s restaurant in West Hollywood.  Sorely missed on those festive Sunday nights when tout Tinsel Town tablehopped.  Mr. Hitchcock was a member of Jules’ Universal filmmaking family, with a bungalow on the studio lot where we first met him.   

Jean is a former editor of The Paris Review and a longtime editor of Grand Street, purportedly an investor.   Also renowned as the innovator of the oral histories of Robert Kennedy and Santa Barbara wild child Edie Sedgwick, a rich Andy Warhol groupie.

Since our datebooks were burglarized along with our irreplaceable possessions, we’re thinking aloud about when we met Jean for our luncheon interview.  Very likely during the mid-‘80s at the popular Orlando Orsini Ristorante on Pico Boulevard favored by Michael Douglas, Sean Connery, James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli with dad Cubby Broccoli, who hired snow machines to cover the lawn for his Beverly Hills Christmas parties. 

The interview went very well.  No hitches.  However, Jean phoned later that day and asked us, please, not to publish it.

Bewildered we were.  Until a source wondered that Jean worried we might expose her affair with the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Faulkner that, in truth, we had no intention of disclosing.  That clandestine affair is now legend, documented here and there.

Jean is the mother of daughters Katrina vanden Heuvel, the lauded editor of The Nation, and Wendy vanden Heuvel, actress, producer and philanthropist.  Jean’s sister, Susan Shiva, lost her life to breast cancer in 1983.  As did Jean’s mother the following year.

Quick and charming and worldly-knowledgable, educated at Wellesley and the Sorbonne and commited to the world of the arts, Jean profiles the compelling histories of five California families in West Of Eden.  The oil-rich Dohenys, the Jack Warners, Jane Garland, Jennifer Jones and her own fascinating family, the Steins.   Abounding with curious facts and anecdotal gossip, West Of Eden, dedicated to Katrina and Wendy, is a lively and rewarding read.  Truly unputdownable.  A book you’ll be pleased to gift fellow Hollywood insiders.

In Jean’s Welcome to Los Angeles prologue, she includes a harrowing interview with Gray Line bus driver Mike Davis about driving tourists and conventioneers.  He discusses the awfulness of his Hollywood At Night tours during the early seventies, with passengers jumping out and exclaiming over Ava Gardner’s footprints.  Meanwhile, the sidewalks teemed with “runaway kids, teenage prostitutes (male and female), people raving, heroin addicts with two weeks to live – the absolute epicenter of human misery.  It was absolutely eerie and sent me back to The Day of the Locust.  The point that author Nathaniel West made, of course, is that the masses want to kill and devour, to cannibalize their celebrity gods.”   

In her biographical notes, Jean mentions that Mike Davis became the recipient of a 1998 MacArthur Fellowship and is the author of several revelatory histories, including Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster and Planet of Slums.

The cast that Jean assembled over time for their oral histories is a heady and generous mix, every one speaking freely and vividly with vigor.   Not to be missed is a long, apologetic love letter from Jennifer Jones to husband David O. Selznick (pages 191-194).

We discover how Doris and Jules met from the recollection of Gerald Oppenheimer, one of Doris’ two sons from her first marriage to Harold Oppenheimer, a failed businessman who she divorced after seven years.

“Doris had gotten to know Jules through the Jewish community at the dances he would organize at the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City.  Every Sunday afternoon you’d go down there and dance and listen to the orchestras.  Jules was the leader of the orchestras. Like a Sinatra.  He owned a racoon coat and a Stutz Bearcat car …

“I understand Jules proposed to Mother over the telephone.  He married Mother despite her being a divorcee and having two children.   He softened a bit when you and Susan came along.  But he was a relatively cold individual, actually.”

Jean Stein on 1330 Angelo Drive:  “I remember listening at night to the coyotes around our family house, which was known as Misty Mountain.   It was built by Wallace Neff for Fred Niblo, the director of the first Ben-Hur.  Its site high up in Beverly Hills led me to imagine that we were far removed from town.  I recall my mother boasting that Orson Welles had come to the house with Dolores del Rio and praised it by saying, “This place reminds me of Berchtesgaden.”  In the mid-thirties when Katharine Hepburn lived there, she had to fend off snakes in the living room – or so I was told.”

Months after Doris died, Barry Diller negotiated buying the house for Rupert Murdoch.  “The price was six-two or six-seven or something like that.”  The Murdochs kept everything that was in the house, with its priceless antiques from Stair and Co., which Jules owned.  “Much less than the forty-seven million David Geffen paid for the Jack Warner house.”

“I remember we were standing around the entrance hall at Misty Mountain before we left for Father’s burial at Forest Lawn,” writes Jean. “And I heard Edie Wasserman say to husband Lew, ‘Well, it’s about time.’  Now, that’s too good to be true.  Edie was wearing a diamond pin that said Love.” The Wassermans were Jules’ heirs apparent for MCA  and Universal Studios.  Edie was considered difficult and controversial.

“When I visited the house a few years after the estate sold it to Rupert Murdoch,” says Jean, “It was a shock do discover that nothing had changed.  The Murdochs had even put up our family photographs from parties during the forties and fifties along the wall.  I felt like an apparition as I described the cast of characters to Murdoch’s estate manager, William Scheetz.”

More, much more, page after riveting page about the Who and the Who of Tinsel Towners.   The Jennifer Jones and the Warner Bros.’ histories could be books in and of  themselves.

“Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood,” decreed witty raconteur Oscar Levant,  “and you’ll find the real tinsel underneath.”

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“I went to visit Mother’s grave to see how everything looked, and as I was driving out of the Jewish cemetery, I saw a chapel with a huge Nazi flag on it.  I thought I was dreaming, and suddenly I felt a little scared, because the cemetery was completely deserted,” recalls Barbara Warner Howard, the beautiful and stylish daughter of Warner Bros.’ Ann and Jack Warner.  “So I drove around this chapel, and on the other side there were picnic tables and a film crew.

“They were shooting a movie, and they had just rented the building.  I went back to the main office, and I don’t believe I’ve ever been so angry in my life.  I said, ‘I don’t care how much money they’re giving you, you don’t let them desecrate a Jewish cemetery by hanging a Nazi flag!’  At the same time, it was hilarious.  It was better than a Mel Brooks movie.”

We are assuming that the cemetery is the Mount Sinai section at Forest Lawn. 

Barbara’s is among hers and other remembrances in the Warner Bros. chapter in Jean Stein’s just-published oral histories, West Of Eden, An American Place.   The Random House imprint is a triumph.   And as we noted in our column last weekend, “West Of Eden is a gem.  Predictably a classic.”   Exploring the lives of five California families through the mesmerizing remembrances of relatives, friends and observers.  The Warners; the oil-rich Dohenys; the bewildering Jane Garland; Jennifer Jones who wed actor Robert Walker, David O. Selznick and Norton Simon; the Emperor and Empress of Hollywood, Doris and Jules Stein, who we devoted our column to this last week. 

And, oh, what interesting characters we meet, and know much more about many others that we know.

“Jack Warner was a great character, like all of them.  They were remarkable guys, but they were monsters,” David Geffen tells Jean Stein.  “The movie business is a hard business, and you had to be a monster to create this industry.”

Ten days after Barbara’s mother died, David Geffen bought the Warner plantation-style mansionette in Beverly Hills, and invited his interior designer, Rose Tarlow, to tour it.   “I showed her all the original furnishings.   I said, ‘See this floor?  This floor was a gift from Napoleon to his sister.’  My designer said, ‘Really?  You think people give floors as presents to their family?’  We walked into the dining room, and I said, ‘This wallpaper was  from the imperial palace in China.’  She said, ‘This is French wallpaper from 1870 or 1880.’  I pointed to another piece and said, ‘This is Chippendale.’  She said, ‘You’re not going to scream at me, are you?’  I said, ‘What do you mean scream at you?’  She said, ‘The original is a Chippendale and is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.   This was made at Warner Bros.’”   

This from the Jennifer Jones chapter: “I met Jennifer Jones when I was twenty-six or twenty-seven,” says Tomoyuki “Yuki” Takei, her makeup artist and hairstylist.   “I traveled everywhere with her.  I spent more time with her than anyone, even Norton … It would take four hours … it was all for Norton.  ‘Norton deserves for me to be beautiful.’  I did her hair and makeup every day, an incredible cost.   For the cost of a whole year, you could buy a house in the Valley.   

“And  I did it for more than thirty years, every day, sometimes morning and night.  And she didn’t take off her makeup at night.  She’d leave it on until I arrived.  When she went to bed, she was all made up.   Do you know why? This was not for Norton, this was for herself.  She said it was ‘in case I get sick at night and have to go to the hospital.  Somebody’s going to take a picture of me, and I don’t want to be without makeup.’  She did this every night.”

The five chapters in West Of Eden simmer with Hollywood gossip, along with a plethora of true-blue recollections from the Who and the Who.  Fascinating, and not to be missed.

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Bright red Chinese lanterns garlanded the courtyard and bright red spotlights danced along the façade.  We were greeted by the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel’s parking wizard Jolene Taylor, as we joined the 200-plus guests celebrating the Lunar Year of the Monkey.    Shuttling to the rooftop garden, we found more red lanterns and red banners and armsful of cherry blossoms around the swimming pool.   Red, for the Chines, symbolizes good luck and prevailed through the night.

The hotel’s managing director, Offer Nissenbaum, appearing Very Beau Brummel in his Chinese black velvet blazer, bowed to the crowd for their loyalty since the Peninsula’s auspicious 1991 opening.  Was it that long ago, Offer, when we met for lunch at the hotel with wine dealer Steve Wallace?

Both swing tunes and Chinese music played, as young girls performed water acrobatics in tribute to the holiday, which lasts until Jan. 27, 2017.  Everywhere, tiers of luscious Asian delicacies prepared by chef David Codney beckoned from the buffet tables, as did the sweets by pastry chef Stephanie Boswell.  The gluttonous Roman Emperor Lucullus would have been highly envious. 

Offer remarked that the Belvedere dining room, seating 160, is now open, having been redesigned with toile du Jouy upholstery and with contemporary art, including works by Alex Katz, Sean Scully, Nancy Graves and Robert Indiana.   Along with a seafood-favored menu inspired by those fabled Milos restaurants created by Costas Spiliades, which we initially discovered at the first Milos in Montreal.  More are thriving in London, New York, Athens, etc.  Healthy Mediterranean cuisine, what better.

We must thank our rooftop server, the Calabasas-born Sean Runyon, who was there on the minute whenever needed, and who was two weeks back from a cousin’s three-day wedding in Punjab, India.  He gave away the groom who arrived, as is the custom, on a white steed.  Would that we were there! 

Offer informed that the Chinese New Year celebration dates back centuries. “‘Lai see’ is a traditional gift of money given in a red envelope.”  Lo and behold, as we departed, every guest was handed a red envelope with a crisp, brand-new dollar bill.  A class act, and thank you.

Born in the Year of the Monkey:  Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Queen Sirikit, Ravi Shankar,  Harry Truman, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Federico Fellini, Isaac Stern,  Mel Gibson, Mick Jagger, George Lucas, Diana Ross, Elizabeth Taylor, and Little Richard.

Those born under this sign are characterized as lively, clever, curious, innovative, quick-witted …

Also likely to be career-wealthy!

Having lived through the roughhouse theatrics of presidential campaigns before and after high school, college and our Uncle Sam’s army service, we considered them, and still do, YUGE entertainment.  Three-ring circuses, in fact, with the ringmasters battling endlessly.  Season after season.  Not unlike continual revivals on Broadway.   

Until November 8th of this year, the dogs will bark for grabs for the highest executive office of our country. “The dogs bark,” philosophized French author Andre Gide, a Nobel Prize honoree, “but the caravan moves on … and the shit stays.”  Incidentally, The Dogs Bark is the title of a terrific Truman Capote collection of favorite writings.   Meanwhile, the feral electioneering war for the 45th presidency will tax our patience and wreck lie detectors.   

Lie detector cases in point:  Was she named after the Auckland beekeeper Sir Edmund Hillary, as she claims.   No.   Sir Edmund’s mountain climbing fame came along six years after Hillary Clinton’s birth.   Was she under sniper fire when she landed in Bosnia as our then-First Lady.  No.  A video was released of a young Bosnia girl waiting on the tarmac to welcome her with a poem.   More lies about Bengazi, e-mail scandals, etc. 

Nor should we overlook the I-don’t-knows.  From the New York Post:  “She practically broke down when CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked why she accepted $675,000 in fees for three Goldman Sachs speeches … after a struggle, she answered, ‘Well, I don’t know.  That’s what they offered … ’ she said.”   Last year, she collected $30 million, as The New York Times reports, “from closed-to-the-press speeches to corporations, banks, etc.”

“I never thought I’d be standing here asking people to vote for me for President.”  We were reminded of Hillary Clinton’s statement by fiery feminist Samantha Bee during her Full Frontal debut on TBS this week.   “Makes me want to puke,” shrugged Samantha.   From her “listening tour” when she was aiming to capture the New York Senate office to being appointed Secretary of State for President Obama, wasn’t it obvious that Hillary’s brass ring was aimed for the presidency?  Nothing wrong with that, but we aren’t Low Dumb yet.  Our memory banks are still with us.

She’s now in media training, since the Washington Post’s editor Bob Woodward complained that she “shouts too much.”  Other Washingtonians complain of Pantsuit Fatigue.                     

“My Clinton Fatigue is acting up again,” confesses Mark Leibovich, the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, who describes when the Clintons “are at their best and most dangerous … their well-honed survival instinct kicks in.” 

Adding that “Joe Biden, who is tanned and tested, is ruling nothing out.”

Former New York mayor,  Mike Bloomberg, is anticipated to run as an Independent or a Third Party Candidate for the presidency, with a budget of more than $1 billion from his $36.8 billion fortune.

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The groom with the spikey hair wore his signature sneakers, and the bride was gowned by Vera Wang, the doyenne of bridal designers. She chose two gowns – one for the ceremony and another for the reception.   The newlyweds were “too much in love to say good-night,” and so it was with the wining, dining, dancing and late-night romancing at the wedding of marketing executive Veronica Smiley, 42, to megaproducer/author/man-about-the-world Brian Grazer, 64.  The bride walked down the aisle with her mother, Alicia Smiley, for the Roman Catholic ceremony.

Brian’s award-winning films top $l.5 billion in grosses, and include masterworks such as A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code.  Let’s not forget television’s Friday Night Lights, Arrested Development, etc.

More than 300 guests raised their champagne flutes in jubilant celebration at Brian’s hacienda in Santa Monica.  Brian’s producing partner Ron Howard in Imagine Entertainment (founded in 1986) delivered a toast.   As did Eddie Murphy and Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter, who’s hosting his annual Oscar dinner-cum-fannybumper this weekend in Beverly Hills.

Don Rickles played it cool.  No slapdowns.  Advising the newlyweds “to hug and kiss every morning” and all will be well year in and year out.

Tinsel Town titans joined the newlyweds’ family, friends, the famous and not-so-famous.  David Geffen, Fox’s Ann and Jim Gianopulos, CBS’ Les Moonves with Julie Chen, Disney’s Willow Bay and Bob Iger, George Lucas, Viacom’s Philippe Dauman, Imagine’s Monica and Michael Rosenberg, Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King,  Paramount’s Cassandra and Brad Grey, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos with Nicole Avant,  Quincy Jones, Fox’s Dana Walden, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, music mogul Jimmy Iovine with bride Liberty Ross, who wed the weekend prior in Beverly Hills at the Jack Warner estate that was bought by David Geffen for $47.5 million.

Paul Anka, escorting Lisa Pemberton,  serenaded Veronica and Brian with his classic My Way, and Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga dueted on that jazz standard, It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.

Amid the glamourati:  Lionel Richie with Lisa Parigi, Susan and Robert Downey Jr., Chris Rock, Michael Keaton,  Terrence Howard with Mira Park, Tobey Maguire and Jennifer Meyer.

For those who live in our Los Angeles area, columnist Steve Lopez is our must-read.   Appearing in the Los Angeles Times’ California section (and online, of course), his columns are gems.  This past Sunday, Steve took off on The Great Show in Politics about “the parade of presidential wannabes in the most entertaining primary season ever.”  Wishing he had “a front row seat.”

Steve considers:  “A Jewish socialist candidate who is roughly the same age as Moses has locked up the youth vote … An African-American candidate’s most lasting impression was a defense of his belief that the pyramids were actually grain elevators … The Donald seems to be one or two debates short of threatening to deny visas to anyone who’s eaten a falafel. He’s said he isn’t interested in publicity – that’s like Bill Clinton saying he isn’t interested in interns …

“Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has been working on her campaign since the sixth grade, only to have Madeleine Albright and iconic feminist Gloria Steinem set the women’s movement back half a century … Just when you thought Clinton’s luck couldn’t get any worse, CBS anchor Scott Pelley asked her if she always tells the truth.  Clinton said she ‘always tried’ to tell the truth, as if it’s like trying to bake a soufflé.  Pressed by Pelley on whether she’s every lied, Clinton said, ‘I don’t believe I ever have, I don’t believe I ever will.’”

Girl, you have lied.  Many times.  Shamelessly.  It’s documented.   As we reported in our BHC column last week.   Have you forgotten saying you were under sniper fire when you landed in Bosnia?   No sniper fire.  Girl, you were met by a young child with flowers and a poem.

Please read Steve Lopez.   A Los Angeles treasure.  Not to be missed.

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Sunday’s 88th annual Oscarcast rates as the lowest in eight seasons, an 8% drop from last year.   One producer complained facetiously about it being ”six hours long.” Plus, he added, that what with the plethora of award shows preceding the “sacred night,” we tire of seeing the same faces of actors and creatives.  In other words, we in the audience suffer from déjà vu fatigue.

New York Times’ film critic A.O. Scott (Tony) found “a profound dullness … a tedium that rubbed off, often unfairly, on a lot of the winners.  His colleague, Manohla Dargis, has often complained the Oscarcast is “grindingly dull.”

The actresses looked beautiful, but glamour somehow appeared low-key, and insiders wonder if perhaps the films didn’t grab “those folks out there.” 

Oscar host Chris Rock poured his hot lava energy tackling Jada Pinkett Smith’s  Big Stink about diversity.  He scored touchdown after touchdown, shouting that, yes, Hollywood is racist.  Shrugs surfaced later through the night’s longeurs that it was  “enough already, Chris, enough.”

Hey, Chris, who designed your spiffy white dinner jacket?  We’d like to order one.

Once Patricia Arquette announced Mark Rylance as the Best Supporting Actor for his brilliant performance as the Soviet spy in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar nominee,  Bridge Of Spies, the evening picked up.   A relief, after the exhausting run-through of the technical and writing awards, which, yes, deserve their recognition, but not one after the other.   Reactions the next day were not favorable.  Best to shuffle them around.

Music mogul and poker maestro Norby Walters hosted his 26th annual “Night of 100 Stars” at The Beverly Hilton, where BHC Publisher/President Marcia Hobbs and we sat with Variety’s managing editor Peter Caranicas and wife Manny.  Lovely folks we should all know. 

Norby’s is a fun, relaxed night, with outsiders shelling forth $1,000 for  dinner, an open bar, and mingling with the celebrated.

The New York Times’ Paul Brownfield devoted two pages in a Styles Section describing this event.  The good time is overseen by PR whiz Edward Lozzi, who paid attention to detail, detail, detail.  Edward represents numerous stars including the fabled Zsa Zsa Gabor.   

Canadian billionaire dress designer Peter Nygard underwrote the evening, with monies assisting varied charities as well as his foundation for aging research.

Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter corralled the usual suspects for his annual Oscar night dinner-cum-fannybumper.  Fox News’ best-dressed superstar anchor Megyn Kelly (we miss her former softer hairstyle) and  author husband Douglas Brunt were a big “get” that Vanity Fair’s jaded partygoers hungered to meet.   Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall were front and center, as was Monica Lewinsky. 

Monica Lewinsky is no “loony tune,” as Hillary Clinton branded her.   We met and spent time with Monica and Hamilton South at the 1999 VF Oscar party at Morton’s … pretty, charming, smart, a total delight, and thanks to Howard Bragman we met her dad Bernie Lewinsky, a born prince).

Not long agao, Monica graduated with an MFA from the London School of Economics.

During Sunday’s VF after-party, John Mirisch was congratulated as our next mayor of Beverly Hills, who’ll be installed on March 16 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.  He escorted President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Rosie Rios, who the crowd ached to greet.   A Hayward, California native from a family that includes eight siblings, Rosie signs all of our paper currency, and she gifted select admirers that night with personally autographed two dollar bills.

Any truth to the talk that Oscar winners may accompany a dozen friends to the Vanity Fair party, which this year was underwritten by Apple? 

Bouchon chef Thomas Keller served  his chicken pot pie with attractive and courteous servers.   Later, the fannybumper crowd pigged out on In-N-Out burgers. 

VF’s resident genius Sara Marks, the director of special projects, designed a humungous marquee near the Wallis in Beverly Hills.  She organizes the entire yin and yang.  Being acquainted with her impressive efforts when we attended the VF parties in the long ago, Sara merits a fat yearly bonus.