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We mourn the passing of First Lady Nancy Reagan.

In the long ago when Ronald Reagan served our country as governor of California, we flew to Sacramento to meet with Nancy Reagan for a luncheon interview assigned by West Magazine in the  Los Angeles Times.  By the way, a  favorite dish of Nancy’s was a grits souffle.

We initially met Nancy and Ronald Reagan during dinner parties at the Lorna Lane residence in Brentwood of the international interior designer Billy Haines.  Billy told us he bought the house for $13,000.   Times certainly were different then, weren’t they?

Billy Haines went on to decorate the White House during the Reagans’ tenure. 

We also dined with the Reagans at Alfred and Betsy Bloomingdale’s Holmby Hills mansionette, and, truth to tell, Nancy and Ronnie, as we knew him, were a lot of fun.   We loved them.   A handsome couple, they dressed any room they were in with their style.   Very friendly.  In no way imposing.  Ronnie cracking a joke or two, best-dressed Nancy looking gorgeous.  Both of them unquestionably charismatic, smart, and easy for us and others to appreciate their adoration of each other.

They married in 1952 at the Little Brown Church in the Valley.  This week, People Magazine coverlined their relationship as “The Great American Love Story.”

It didn’t take long for us, as the roving editor, to inform our Town & Country editor-in-chief Tony Mazzola that the Reagans were an ideal couple who belonged on the cover of the magazine.  With great enthusiasm, Tony replied, “Go for it.” 

We did, and their cooperation was magical.  Would that such assignments were as comfortable to pursue today, what with all the publicists,  managers, accountants, stylists, and who knows who else we must deal with.  Ours was a simple phone call to Nancy, a date set, and, voila, the terrific cover photo became a reality.  Ours was the first magazine cover with the Reagans.  We received three “Nancy” rosebushes as a thank you.    

After inhabiting the White House, they appeared on four Vanity Fair covers, as well as dozens of national and global periodicals.  Nancy loved American fashion, and preferred the color red (a “picker uppper”), and only wore American designers – James Galanos, Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass during their 56 State dinners. 

Nancy championed stem cell research for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, mammograms for breast cancer, etc.

At the time when the Reagans were on the presidential campaign trail during the eighties, our birthday fell in the midst of it,  and our philanthropist best friend, Louise Danelian, insisted on hosting a black-tie party.   We held back.   Louise would not accept no as an answer.

Louise booked the ideal party room upstairs at the fabled Bistro with its separate bar, and we invited 120 guests.  Nancy and Ronnie were campaigning in California.  Ronnie was busy with strategic meetings, but Nancy was available. She accepted the invitation, dined with the Who and the Who.   

San Francisco friends joined us.  Ravishing redhead Ann Getty … Bay Area’s glamorous hostess Lita Vietor of the rub-a-dub voice, who raised millions for the arts in her city … Dodie Rosekrans, whose jewelry wardrobe was priceless (any wonder why we anointed her the Baroness of Baubles) and who underwrote couturier John Galliano’s Paris collections …  Lynn and Oscar Wyatt of the billionaire oil fortune from Houston.

So, who fell in love with Nancy?  Truman Capote, and, yes, they twirled on the dance floor with Clark Keen’s band playing Barry Manilow’s Copacabana.  If only we’d had a photographer!   Those were the days before Smartphones, that may even be baking chili soon.

Several years later, Alfred Bloomingdale phoned, suggesting we host a birthday dinner for his iconic wife Betsy.   “At a small spot, that would be best, somewhere private.”   The kind of place we often discovered for our Great Life column in the Hollywood Reporter. “Maybe eight people,” he mused.  We invited Betsy’s list, which included the Reagans.

We chose Le Saint Michel with its storefront lace curtains on a quiet street in Santa Monica.  Ronnie impressed us hugely with his recitative of global statistics, noting that they were rarely mentioned in the media.   Astounding statistics that mattered for the future of our country and the world.   We were wowed.

Le Saint Michael owner Paul Guillermin remarked that Ronnie had a healthy appetite.  The guests praised our menu choices.   To start, those tiny Long Island Bay scallops sautéed with Chablis wine and herbs by chef Frederic (who agreed with our mom to never cook with cheap wine since good wine made quite a difference in taste).  A main course of roast saddle of veal with pommes soufflé was  followed by the watercress salad with a selection of California and French cheeses.   Topping off the dinner, a lemon soufflé with fresh raspberry sauce.   Far Niente Chardonnay from the Napa Valley, a vintage Chateau Lynch Bages from Bordeaux, and Louis Roederer Cristal for that birthday toast to Betsy.

On nights like these, God’s in His Heaven, and all‘s well with the world.

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How lucky can you get?   When David Hyde Pierce emcees your event, as he did for the 24th and final night of A Night at Sardi’s, you can’t ask for anything more.  Suave and funny and with a galloping pace, David assures one of a success.  As he did for Laurie Burrows Grad, who launched this annual fundraiser to benefit Alzheimer’s research with her late producer husband Peter Grad, who we lost last year.

Always an event of joyous song and dance with casts from popular television shows recreating a favorite musical, this year revived the music from the ever-popular Grease.  With the cast from The Big Bang Theory and other loyal supporters carrying on with such memorable tunes from Grease as, You’re The One I Want and We Go Together.

More than $30 million has been tallied from these Sardi’s benefits to enhance Alzheimer’s research, with last week’s sold-out Night at Sardi’s event at The Beverly Hilton ballroom adding more than $1.5 million.    

Laurie and director brother Jim Burrows (Cheers and Mary Tyler Moore) are the “issues,” as they say in the U.K., of Abe Burrows, who suffered from Alzheimer’s.  Their dad is the late great Broadway playwright and show doctor, who won the Pulitzer and Tony Awards, and created those classic musicals that are performed time upon time – How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Guys And Dolls, etc.   

Laurie and son Nicholas Grad and Jim Burrows co-chaired this Night at Sardi’s that honored Keith Carradine, whose family faced the tragedy of Alzheimer’s.   Peter Grad’s memory was acknowledged with the Philanthropy Award.

Sardi’s is that longtime showbiz hangout on West 44th Street in Manhattan’s Theater District.  Hundreds of pen-and-ink celebrity caricatures cover the walls, with theatergoers jamming the dining rooms after opening nights when the stars stop by for a libation and supper to read the early reviews.

Laurie may well be the most beautiful cooker on the planet, having tossed omelets at age five, and ordering frogs legs and snails by age nine at the French restaurants she visited with her parents.   She’s authored bestselling cookbooks and remains a welcome presence on cooking shows.

The Beverly Hilton ballroom rocked when Kaley Cuoco stripped down to basics as she sang and shimmied to Dance 10: Looks 3 from A Chorus Line, and Big Bang Theory cast members performed.  Johnny Galecki, Simon  Helberg, Kunar Nayyar and Melissa Rauch.   As did Peter Gallagher (among those who have performed regularly and whose family experienced Alzheimer’s).

Other performers were Jason Alexander, Seth Rogen, Eric McCormack, Joey McIntyre, Steven Weber, Dove Cameron.

Nick Grad, who presides over the FX Network, remembers his parents “looking at each other with stars in their eyes …

“My dad frequently chided mom with naughty sexy innuendoes that embarrassed me.  Well, I’d give anything now to hear those randy remarks.” 

Specialists can accurately diagnose the Alzheimer’s disease 90% of the time. 

Warning signs include memory loss of events and names … confusion about time and place … struggling to complete familiar actions such as gettinig dressed or brushing teeth … difficulty finding appropriate words … completing sentences … following directions … poor judgments … mood swings.

No cure, but hope lies with stem cell research.

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You’ll want to take her home to Mother.  And sip a glass of Chianti with  the family.   Elisa Scarlati is the beautiful maitresse d’hotel at e.baldi, where the dining room in Beverly Hills sings day and night with the Who and the Who.   We’re charmed with her smiling greetings, and long ago fell in love with young Edoardo Baldi’s cooking at his cozy ristorante.   More and more, the L A. dining scene favors cozy – a warm intimacy, rather than those wide open spaces.

We met Edoardo at his father Giorgio Baldi’s ristorante in Santa Monica, where Edoardo was cooking in the open kitchen, and then wrote about him 10 years ago after he launched his eponymous restaurant.  He likes to say we “godfathered” his new endeavor.

Elisa Scarlati is an enchantment.  A friendly beauty of sweet sophistication with manor-born manners, and a lovely voice that’s endearingly musical.   

She comes from the school of laissez-faire in the dining room.   She welcomes with her usual flair, but appreciates the sacred pleasure of your privacy.   Never interrupting.  Unlike those busybody servers at other dining rooms who keep fussing, over and again,  if everything is alright.   Hey, if things aren’t up to par, you’d know soon enough.

A suggestion.  Try shuttering your eyes for a brief moment and imagine being in Milano or Firenze or Venezia.   Elisa, by the way, hails from Mantova near Verona in Northern Italy.

Local and international tastemakers come and go.   Schmoozing over lunch or dinner.   Lilly Tartikoff, who’s tracked millions to support cancer researching genius Dr. Dennis Slamon, dining often with investor husband Bruce  Karatz.  UTA, WME, CAA, APA power player agents are regulars.   Al Pacino wines and dines on his spaghetti with olive oil and garlic, seated with hosts Susie and Harold Becker.  Invariably, a plenitude of paisanos joking in their natïve language, as if performing in a commedia d’ella arte skit. 

The world comes and, as with any exciting discovery, the world returns.   Once is never enough at e. baldi.  Please know Edoardo ranks as a chef.

Italian-speaking servers take orders for the favored dishes, among them the Dover sole, which regulars, including estate attorney Reeve Chudd, whose law offices are around the corner, cannot live without.   Others groove to the grilled langoustines flown in every day from the  Mediterranean.   As does our wine maestro of the western world, Steve Wallace, former owner of the world-renowned Wally’s Wines and Spirits now managed by Christian Navarro and owned by the Marciano Brothers.

Dining at e. baldi, assesses Steve, is “as good as it gets” for those who crave Italian food.   No “creative” foo-foo, thank you Lord.

Cynthia Sikes Yorkin enjoys the specialties of the day, and whatever is available from Edoardo’s cucina alla Toscana menu.   Veal, steak, ravioli (favored by Dr. Ed Feldman and wife Jane, who prefer sitting on the mini terrace).  Quality, quality, quality is the refrain for whatever arrives from the kitchen.   

Author Burt Boyar brings Betsy Bloomindale, and only last week, the amazing broadcaster, Larry Elder, a.k.a the Sage from South Central, supped with Reeve Chudd.  Adding their voices to the lion’s roar of the presidential campaign “circus” enveloping us from now until Election Day on Nov. 8. 

On Monday April 4, Larry begins his weekday broadcasts at 6 p.m. through 9 p.m. on Salem/KRLA 870, moving from his The Answer slot at 9 p.m.  He replaces the terrific Hugh Hewitt, who moves to the morning schedule.    

Larry, we should add, finds FX’s O. J. Simpson trial series starring Cuba Gooding Jr. “excellent.”  He praises Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark and John Travolta’s performance as defense attorney Bob Shapiro.

During Larry’s 20 years of his afternoon drive radio program on KABC, millions – we included — were bowled over by his keen intelligence and original analyses of the political madness that surrounds us by the hour.  We fell in love with his mom Viola and her astute Friday  conversations.   Another original mind like no other – no wonder that Larry tagged her the Chief Justice.  We mourn her passing of several years ago. 

A New York Times best-selling author, Larry says. “We have a country to save … by returning to bedrock Constitutional principles of limited government and maximum personal responsibility.”

Hollywood finds itself taking a back seat to this year’s greatest show on earth.  The politically savvy therapist, Erin O’Connor, thrills to daily broadcasts by radio ringmasters Larry and Hugh and the indomitable Sean Hannity.  Thanks to TV, everyone’s reserved a Big Top front-row seat, witnessing live debates and the news of will Hillary Clinton be indicted, etc.?   Unlikely.  Since Uncle Barack Obama stands tall for her.   

When Univision interviewer Jorge Ramos queried if she would step down were she indicted, she retorted,”That’s not going to happen!”  Does she have a pipeline to the FBI?   Earlier this week, Big Boy Bill Clinton back-stabbed the Obama administration as leaving an “awful legacy during the past eight years.”

Wha-a-a-t?

Above-the-title stars performing on the political Big Top’s hot side show:

Hillary the Tattooed Lady, tattooed front and back with her infinite number of documented lies (“I don’t believe I ever lied,“ she’s claimed,  yet lied unabashedly that she landed in a sniper attack in Bosnia, where, in truth,  a young girl welcomed her on the tarmac with flowers and a poem!  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera … ).

The Fire Eater.  Bernie “Feel the Bern” Sanders. 

The Iron Man, lifting his bar bells and showing off muscles in his leopard bikini.  The Donald.

The Dancing Bear.  Senator Ted Cruz.

The Stilt Walker.  Governor John Kasich.

Will there be additions to the cast?

Possibly.   Possibly.

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He flew in from Tokyo to meet with the industry insiders and for advice from CAA’s Rhys Broussard, the former assistant to the agency’s top banana Bryan Lourd.  Tall, trim and handsome, he might be a youngish Toshiro Mifune or a Ken Watanabe.

Pursuing a career in acting, Yukiyoshi Ozawa, a matinee idol in his native Japan, is the son of the internationally revered conductor Seiji Ozawa.  Yukiyoshi was welcomed to Beverly Hills by our celebrity hairstylist Yuki Takei, who knows the Who and the Who of his native Japan. They dined at La Dolce Vita on Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills, a 50-year-old institution  celebrating its anniversary this spring.

Yukiyoshi didn’t miss out on the luxury shopping, finding a smartly tailored navy blue suit at Dunhill’s that he wore to Yuki’s evening.   Wining and dining with him were Michelle Phillips, a glamour girl who  was profiled not long ago with a nine-page article in Vanity Fair.   Hers is an extraordinary life that goes beyond the Mamas and the Papas, and her smarts are forever.

Joining Yuki was producer Jay Kantor, who discovered Marlon Brando.   After picking up Marlon at LAX as a newcomer to Hollywood, Jay enlisted him immediately with an agency.   In quick time, Marlon’s extraordinary acting career took over both screen and stage.  Namely such unforgettable roles in tailor-made dramas as Tennessee Williams’ powerful A Streetcar Named Desire.  The play, critics claim, established a new theatrical era for contemporary theater.

Yukiyoshi arrived with Hayato Mitsuishi, the bright and charming president and director of our local Japanese Film Festival.    Hayato informs  that the festival is growing  with support from the city and the Japanese community that is proud of its historic filmmakers, the likes of Akira Kurosawa. 

The guests loved the civilized quiet ambiance of La Dolce Vita, which Joan and John Hotchkis favor.   The reason being, as Joan tells us, “When we ask friends for dinner, we want to able to hear everyone talk, and more restaurants now have ear-splitting noises.”   Right on, dear Joan.  We recall award-winning ear specialist Dr. Howard House informing us during a luncheon interview that loud noises day in and out do lead to hearing damage.   Dr. House added there’s no doubt that youngsters playing music at the highest decibels will lose their hearing, and, sadly, it is irreversible.

Named for Federico Fellini’s great film starring Marcello Mastroianni as the world-weary Roman journalist, our La Dolce Vita Ristorante was launched by Frank Sinatra as a West Coast counterpart to the infamous Jilly’s in the theater district of Manhattan run by Jilly Rizzo, a former bouncer and pal of Sinatra’s.

It became the hangout for Sinatra’s Rat Pack that included Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop, who joined him for boozy brawls at midnight and Frank’s favorite spaghetti pomodoro.  Rat Pack “mascots” included Angie Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley MacLaine, Juliet Prowse.

Owned by Alessandro Uzielli since 2003, La Dolce Vita continues serving its historic Italian menu (clams oreganata, scampi fra diavolo, steak Sinatra with peppers).  Occasional new additions such as sand daba are added.  Alessandro’s the handsome son of New York’s late restaurateur Gianni Uzielli and Anne McDonnell Ford, the Ford Motor Co. heiress.  Auto czar Henry Ford being Alessandro’s grandfather.

Real estate news of the moment.  The same property: 1982.  $4,999,999.  Sold.  Now selling for $33,000,000. 

This is the Pacific Palisades ranch house of Nancy and Ronald Reagan at 1669 San Onofre Dr. with the President’s beloved panoramic views from Griffith Park to Catalina.  The Reagan’s lived there from 1951 to 1981, and the residence has been “spectacularized,” if there is such a word, by Jaman Properties  (filmmakers Janus Cerrone and Michael Manheim),  famous for its hugely successful redesigns of major properties in the area.  They are calling this the Riviera White House.

Very much worth a look-see, if you please, by our high and mighty mega-millionaires.  From here.  Or wherever.

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“Her life has been more interesting than mine,” insisted CNN anchor Anderson Cooper to USA Today’s Elysa Gardner about his mother Gloria Laura Morgan Vanderbilt.   Elysa came by Gloria’s art studio in her Manhattan apartment to interview Gloria and Anderson about the togetherness they describe in their  richly rewarding read of a memoir.   The Rainbow Comes And Goes, Mother And Son On Life, Love And Loss published this week by HarperCollins.  The Rainbow title’s ascribed to British poet William Wordsworth.  Also it’s the elegant title of the late Brit royal, Lady Diana Cooper’s 1985 autobiography.

Alluring at every age, fair of face with soft brown eyes and that devastating smile, Gloria, 92,  is an extraordinary woman.  More than “interesting,” dear Anderson.   For those of us who have known her, she remains a valiant living legend in our time with a keen intellect and a heart devoted to the arts.

Growing up. Gloria’s life has bordered on the tumultuous.  Living through a fierce custody battle as a child, removed from her mother’s care, her mother accused of being a lesbian.

Living in Hollywood with an aunt during her youth, gorgeously sexy and rich from her family’s railroad empire, Gloria was pursued by the male tribe of matinee idols and horny hotshots.  Errol Flynn, Marlon Brando, Howard Hughes, Frank Sinatra – and through the years Gloria’s shamelessly divulged other affairs in other books.

Four marriages.  Hollywood agent Pat DeCicco, conductor Leopold Stokowski, director Sidney Lumet, actor-author Wyatt Cooper.  Four children.  Two with Stokowski, two with Cooper.  Heartbreaking tragedies.   Indomitable Gloria survives.  With gusto.

In the long ago, we met for luncheon at the Isle of Capri in midtown Manhattan, when we invited Gloria to contribute a short story while we were editing Show magazine before we joined Town & Country.  A pro all the way, delivering a charming fable that we coverlined.

A black-tie dinner at Gloria’s townhouse on East 67th Street honored author Fannie Hurst, famous for her women’s sob stories, which were filmed (Imitation of Life, Back Street).  The menu, if we remember rightly, included a chicken pot pie with toasted corn flakes as a crust.  Crunchy and delicious. 

Usually, an artist’s group of guests at dinner – designers, writers, composers.  A tablescape with finest china, crystal and heirloom silver, and at the head of the table sat the devilishly charming Wyatt Cooper, father of Anderson.   A Southerner with a sly look and witty recollections about his “early life among the Mississippi magnolias.”   Wyatt lost his life, at 50, during open-heart surgery.

Gloria’s designer blue jeans took the country by storm,  with reports later publicized that the fortune was mismanaged and fell into hell. 

Her art gallery exhibitions of primroses and primulas and portraits found a loyal following, and sold out at a vernissage we attended in San Francisco.  At the time when Gloria and Wyatt served as best man and woman for the wedding of Denise Minnelli to department store tycoon, Prentis Cobb Hale.

Gloria recalled that when Denise and Prentis weekended in New York, “They delivered a gargantuan floral arrangement, inviting us to dinner at La Grenouille.”

”We got sloshed, and after they begged us to head the wedding ceremony, we figured why the hell not in our silly drunkenness.”   And so it became a wedding circus, a social-climbing scene like no other in the Bay Area.  After the Coopers returned home, Gloria called, regaling us with the details amid the giddy Toonerville madness of it all.

This weekend, HBO airs a documentary about Anderson and Gloria: Nothing Left Unsaid.

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The Super Bowl of Fashion, also known as the annual Met Gala, comes ‘round on the first Monday in May.  Not unlike such set dates as the Supreme Court convening on the First Monday in October.

This May, as with other recent years, New York’s highly social event crackles with celebrity invitations, and the 600 well-coiffed and well-shod guests arriving in designer couture.  Fueled with the power and passion of Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, the evening scoops up big bucks from corporate sponsors, such as Apple, to benefit the Met’s Costume Institute. 

Anna took over the reins of the Gala from fashion empress Diana Vreeland, the former Vogue editor.  Leave it to visionary Diana, creator of fashion trends, to lift the event out of its musty history into a grand slam that had the “in” crowd stepping over their Manolo Blahniks and Christian Louboutins to claim social relevance.  Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Alber Elbaz, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs are among designers who’ve attended.

Single tickets are priced at $30,000.  The debut Gala in 1946 charged $50 to raise $25,000 for the Costume Institute, which, sadly, was on the verge of collapsing.

Themed as “China: Through the Looking Glass,” last year’s Gala broke the budget with Rihanna charging twice the expense of any previous performer.   Her Chinese couturier’s Guo Pei’s golden gown weighed 55-pounds, with its humungus, fur-trimmed cape trailing behind Rihanna for 24 feet on the Museum’s red-carpeted stairs.   Word spread that a big bucks donor pitched in with a check, acknowledging the nonstop massive press garnered around the world for the Met.

Who performs this year remains top secret.

Anna’s veteran commander-in-chief, Sylvana Durrett, oversees an “army” of assistants and Voguettes.   Toiling tirelessly these weeks for the May 2nd date, Sylvana informs the evening premieres the Museum’s spring exhibition, “Manus x Machina, Fashion in the Age of Technology.”   Co-chairs are Jonathan Ive, Idris Elba and Taylor Swift.  To date, the Gala’s raised more than $150 million.

Cell phones are banned, anyone sneaking a call will be escorted to No Man’s Land.

Detail, detail, detail is the intense obsession.   “There’s such a pressure,” Raul Avila, creator of the décor for these past ten years, tells the New York Post’s Dana Schuster.  “We’re only allowed to work within the Museum’s hours.  From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.     Working last year only four days beforehand, we built a 30-foot-tall porcelain vase composed of 250,000 white and blue roses.”

Anna forbids parsley on the dishes – “it sticks to your teeth … no garlic or onions.  No bruschetta – the toppings may fall on your lap,   For the Alexander McQueen “Savage Beauty” Gala, lamb pot pie was served and bombed, with  Glorious Food owner Sean Driscoll  admitting “nobody wanted to eat that.”

Seating is the tough ticket.  Anna aims for a celebrity or two at every table.  They’ve all been here.   Beyonce and Jay Z, the Jennifers (Lopez and Lawrence), Lady Gaga, Sarah Jessica Parker who begged designer Oscar de la Renta to embroider his signature across the back of his designer dress.   “Big, so that the cameras would spotlight it.”  He did.

About the seating, our blessed mother, Kaliope, a fabled cook who knew her way around hostessing a party, often reminded that no matter how wonderful the food is, or the music, if guests are assigned a boring table, you’ve flopped.

Adds Anna’s former commander-in-chief, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff,  “A pretty face isn’t enough … it truly is about what you have to talk about and how you can hold a conversation and hold a table.”

The documentary, The First Monday in May, from producer Andrew Rossi opened the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan this week.

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La Femme Suzanne.   

Madame Suzanne Belperron. 

Paris couturier Karl Lagerfeld, Carolina Herrera, Sofia Coppola, Catherine Deneuve are among her loyalists, as were previous collectors, namely the Duchess of Windsor, Mrs. Gary (Veronica) Cooper, Doris Duke, Ganna Walska, Jean Cocteau, Clark Gable (shopping for his adored Carole Lombard?), Elsa Schiaparelli, Diana Vreeland.  Even Fred Astaire joined her admirers, often visiting her Paris atelier.

“It was love at first sight,” confesses Karl Lagerfeld.  “Her name is magic … I can easily identify jewelry designed by Madame Belperron from 100 great pieces from other famous houses of her time.  She never signed any of her work, but you feel it’s hers and only hers.

“What I love is the play of sun and shade.  The stones are the shine, and the sepia-dim smoky quartz or pale chalcedony are the shade,  Nobody before her did it the way she did.”

Leafing through pages replete with alluring photographs in Jewelry by Suzanne Belperron,  published by UK’s Thames and Hudson, we’re astonished at Madame Belperron’s contemporariness, considering that her versatile designs date to the thirties, forties, fifties from 2015. 

We bow to Ward Landrigan and son Nico Landrigan for launching this exciting revival of the Belperron archive.   Renowned for their eye on artistic perfection, the Landrigans bought the estate with its jewelry and hundreds of sketches.  Just as they did when they bought and brought us the collection of Fulco di Verdura.  As with Fulco, a Sicilian duke, the Landrigans now are gradually executing the Belperron sketches with their master craftsmen here and abroad.  Yes, original designs are available, the peripatic Landrigans scouting the global markets for items offered at auctions.

Dear ladies with means, do yourselves a favor and consider a Suzanne Belperron for your collection.   Destined to be grand conversation pieces and investments.   And well-heeled gentlemen looking for a precious birthday or anniversary or holiday gift for a spouse, look no further than the Landrigans’ 745 Fifth Avenue salon overlooking Central Park in Manhattan.   A shoutout, please, to Princess Lilly Fallah Lawrence, who inherited mom Mahine’s magnificent estate (word is/was that the jewelry is second to the collection of the Queen of England).  Additionally, a shoutout to Jane (Mrs. Michael) Eisner, whose suite of rare amber treasures is a knockout, to check out the Belperron creations.

We’ve enjoyed a happy history with Ward Landrigan during our 11-year tenure with Town & Country as a roving editor.   At that time in the long ago we were in touch for research about the designs of Duke Fulco di Verdura, which Ward represents and which will be of interest in another BHCourier column.   

Doris Stein, the wife of MCA founder Jules Stein, wore Verdura’s jewelry to lunches and black-tie soirees.  As did Jean Howard, the former Ziegfeld girl from Texas who M-G-M’s L. B. Mayer swooned over and later fumed at when his adored Jean eloped with Charles Feldman, who agented Greta Garbo, Bogey and Bacall, Sammy Davis Jr.   Depriving him of his mistress,  L.B. banned Feldman from the M-G-M lot, only to come crawling when L. B. needed Garbo for his exotic Ninotchka comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch in 1939.   

Ah, yes, where are our Garbo goddesses today?

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Showtime, everybody.

Quiet, please …   

There’s a lady on stage …

Miss Paula Abdul is standing tall in The Beverly Hilton’s International Ball- room.    Celebrated for dancing and singing and her years of American Idol fame, Paula enjoys a a fabled musical career, and do remember, if you will, that  the showbusiness bug bit in her late teens when this San Fernando sweetheart joined the hot-to-trot cheerleaders for the L.A. Lakers.

On Sunday, Paula was presented with the Gypsy Award by American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe during the 29th annual Professional Dancers Society luncheon.   This philanthropic society has been presided over for many a moon by the indefatigable Mitzi Gaynor, who serves as mistress of ceremonies.  And if you know Mitzi, as the PDS audiences know Mitzi, the laughs and howls  are nonstop.  As are the ovations.  We should add that her spectacular TV  specials that aired on NBC and CBS are available on Get TV.  Not to be missed. 

In its decades-long history, the Professional Dancers Society luncheons have honored Sammy Davis Jr., Julie Andrews, Leslie Caron, Ben Vereen, Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Lawrence, Dick Van Dyke, who was cheered for reaching a 90th birthday (still singing, still hoofing!).

Saluted were choreographers Carl Jablonski and Kevin Carlisle, along with Mitzi’s longtime dancers Alton Ruff and Randy Doney.  Mickey Rooney Jr. choreographed a exciting number especially for Paula Abdul, and Lee Hale’s video montage of Paula’s phenomenal career was sheer genius.

Each luncheon raises upwards of $100,000 to support the needs for dancers who’ve given heart, soul and body to their joyride of a profession, which, as time goes by, becomes torturous.  And after the body quits from the rigorous demands of their careers, dancers are without work and means of support.

The luncheon is underwritten by Joni Berry, heiress to her Chicago family’s foundation. The Professional Dancers Society now owns an assisted living residence, also provides separate funds for living expenses.  PDS is affiliated with the Actors Fund of America.

These luncheons are the best buy of the year, tax-deductible tickets priced at $175, which includes a menu of hot soup, a main course and Baked Alaska.  Along with a lively entertainment program in the ballroom filled with friendly faces and stars.  Be there next year!

Not long ago, we invited a principessa from Rome to join us at Nancy Davis’s Race to Erase MS Gala, and our Roman royal was floored.   Wishing that her Italian compatriots abroad would create such an entertainment that would be as much fun and successful in financing medical research.

“Bella Signora,” our principessa beamed after greeting Nancy during the event, now in its 23rd year,  having fetched $46 million  over time.  This year’s evening at The Beverly Hilton garnered $1.6 million for continuing research that’s astounding skeptics with breakthroughs in “the race to erase” with its Center Without Walls programs.   

When diagnosed with this terrifying illness, Nancy singlehandedly launched this now globally renowned fundraiser.  A major program the day after the Friday gala brings together specialists and medical scholars to participate in all day seminars, reviewing new advancements in treating this crushing infirmity.

Those high jinks KISS performers entertained the celebrity crowd this time around, as did singer Jordan Smith.  The gala honored Carolyn Rafaelian, founder and CEO of the Alex and Ani jewelry collection.  Carolyn was acknowledged for her “championship” efforts to battle multiple sclerosis, a disease of the central nervous system.

“We’re making great strides toward the cure,” enthuses Nancy, whose medical knowledge is formidable.  “We are going to win.”

“Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary two days ago,” announced the Very Reverend John Bakas, dean of the Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Central Los Angeles.  (Rita’s of Greek descent.) 

They were picnicking at the annual Greek Easter garden party hosted by Ann and Jim Gianopulos in their West Los Angeles villa.  Jim heads the successful Fox Filmed Entertainment as chairman and CEO, and is as kind and friendly a gent you will ever know.

Now, if you haven’t seen this ecclesiastical treasure of Saint Sophia Cathedral at South Normandie Avenue and Pico Boulevard in central Los Angeles,  please take a moment from your life to visit and be awed and proud of the surrounding Greek-American community in California.

Americans traveling to Europe walk their shoes off scouting the great cathedrals in England, France, Italy, etc., but miss some of the beautiful architecture on our home turf. 

Built in 1952,  our Saint Sophia Cathedral replaced a small repository of faith on San Julian Street for the pioneering Greek Orthodox settlers during the turn of the century. 

Decades later, a massive fundraising effort was launched by the Skouras brothers, who owned 20th Century Fox, the entertainment giant.

Charlie and Spyros were contributing major offerings to their fellow studio titans.   Adolph Zukor, the Warner Brothers, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s L. B. Mayer and Sam Goldwyn. Columbia’s Harry Cohen.  Whenever the moguls asked for funds to build their synagogues and Jewish hospitals, the Skourases gave happily and generously.   

Ultimately, the Skourases concluded to canvas support from their fellow titans, who contributed with pleasure, to build their Cathedral.  As did the international Greek dioceses for the Cathedral property, which was soon consecrated as a sacred terrain.

This spring holiday is designated on the Julian calendar for the first Sunday after the first full moon after Passover.  The annual Gianopulos Greek Easter party is blessed by Father John and  attended by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson and her schoolteacher sister Lilly Reeves, who leads the Greek folk dancing.  As does the lovelier than ever Melina Kanakaredes (Providence, NYPD Blue),  whose family were the famous chocolatiers of Ohio.

“This is the event I most look forward to every spring,” remarked Michael Chiklis (The Commish, The Shield).  He sat with wife Michelle, daughters Autumn and Odessa.  “How did I come to name my daughter Autumn?  Michelle and I agreed to christen her Isabella, but the morning she was born turned out to be the most beautiful autumn day in Boston,  and we both agreed she would be Autumn Isabella.”

Handsome youngsters romp hither and yon, and a Greek party is enlivened with the joyous peals of laughter from the children that included Ann and Jim’s gorgeous daughters, Nicoletta and Alexa. 

Peter and Christina Gianopulos, with thier son Nicholas, flew in from East, George Kulukundis of the shipping dynasty arrived from Athens.  Bebe McRae, Ann Gianopulos’ best-dressed mother, the hotshot realtor in the Bay Area, and her photographer spouse Colin McRae came the night before, as did Gail and Dr. Harvey Glazer arriving from San Francisco. Avoiding the jammed SFO and LAX airports and wisely choosing the Oakland/Burbank route as less frantic and more comfortable. 

Jim’s daughter Despina Landers with husband Jay Landers and sister Mimi Gianopulos greeted their compatriots of all ages.  Greek-centered parties are mostly family affairs, with Jim noting to Shera Danese (Mrs. Peter) Falk that non-Greeks are invited only if asked by a Greek.  This way, the good time event keeps the enthnicity alive and kicking.

Maria Shriver met Shera, Steve Stabler and Avi Korein who were feasting from the luscious Greek buffet prepared by the indomitable Inna Poncher.   

Nearby were Dawn  Knepley, Jim’s  long-time loyal assistant, John Stamos, Corinna Fields, Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame with 6-year-old daughter Ilaria.   Nia was informed by Tom Hanks that his sons Chester and Marlon are in their mid-teens! 

Tom stars as the crash-landing pilot hero, Captain  Chesley “Shelly” Sullenberger, in the film Shelly, directed by Clint Eastwood and scheduled for release in September.

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Springtime.  The jacarandas are in bloom, purpling the landscape, and Hollywood’s talking about the Cannes Film Festival opening this weekend with Woody Allen’s romantic caper Café Society …  and discussing the excerpt in The Hollywood Reporter from Moguls, Monsters and Madmen: An Uncensored Life In Show Business, the stay-up-at-night-read from memoirist Barry Avrich.

Traversing the world, wheeling, dealing and creating magic, Barry Avrich is People You Should Know.  A Montrealer by birth, who relocated to Toronto, married Melissa Manly and raising a daughter Sloan, now 12. Barry is a 24/7 life force.  Like her dad, Sloan’s a filmmaker, produced a documentary about red hair vanishing at the end of the century. “I found this shocker in a science digest, and right away researched it,” says Sloan, herself a redhead, and proud that her film, Red Alert, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).   Talent obviously is a family tradition.

An incurable workaholic, Barry runs at full gallop.  Thinks nothing of flying overnight for a day or two in Los Angeles, New York, Dubai, Cannes, where ideas spark fire, and where he’s now being interviewed about his memoir.

The excerpt profiles Barry’s gloves-on battle (at times, borderline farcical?) with movie magnate nemesis, Harvey Weinstein, avidly determined to kill Barry’s documentary, Uncensored, based on Harvey’s stunning career (203 Oscar nominations, 75 awards). 

A reminder, indeed, of Barry’s successful documentaries that he vividly recounts in Moguls, Monsters and Madmen, and how Harvey slyly managed to take over and control Uncensored – “In no way, the movie I made, “ shrugs Barry sadly.

Tales of Barry’s extraordinary career leap through the pages of his life story.  A Mother lode of anecdote upon anecdote, thanks to the author’s unfailing recall, crowds the 366 pages, which took three years to complete.

And, oh, the documentaries he’s helmed and produced, the plays he’s produced, and the major charities he’s organized and hosted with superstars he invited to his beloved Canada.  From Diana Ross to Betty Bacall (insiders call her Betty; she was born Betty Persky), Shirley MacLaine and Peter Fonda, etc. to his charity galas.

The Last Mogul’s about MCA giant Lew Wasserman, who swore that Barry would make the “documentary over my dead body,” and, yes it received raves.  Filthy Gorgeous features Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione.  Guilty Pleasure is the Dominick Dunne documentary.  As anticipated, in Show Stopper Barry documents the far-reaching world of Canada’s producer/showman Garth Drabinsky, who brought the best of Broadway and London to our northern neighbor.   Other documentaries range from  Toronto’s larger-than-life barrister Eddie Greenspan to Michael Cohl, concert producer for the Rolling Stones, etc.

We met Barry through Dusty Cohl, the Grand Seigneur founder of TIFF during a dinner at the now-gone Morton’s in  West Hollywood, and invited him to attend our annual opening weekend TIFF luncheon.  An event we hosted for 30 years at the posh Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto for 120 guests for drinks, and 90 for our infamous chicken pot pie menu.

Attending were the Who and the Who of Canada from ambassadors (Ken Taylor) to prime ministers (Brian and Mila Mulroney and family), and the TIFF movers and shakers: Ivan Fecan and Sandra Faire, Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel, Hilary and Galen Weston, Myrna and Jack Daniels,  Lynda and Jonas Prince, Roots Stores’ Michael Budman and Don Green.  Plus visiting supernovas previewing and drumrolling their new releases, in what is now the best film festival anywhere, masterminded by directors Piers Handling and Michele Maheux.   

Next for Barry is a documentary with major collector Jonas Prince about the contemporary art scene.  Followed by a “hot doc” on Quincy Jones, who taught Barry “one of life’s great life lessons …  listen, laugh, love and give back.”

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Is it any surprise that Hillary Clinton’s State Department e-mails were lost this week?

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They came from hither and yon.  Here and abroad.   Shuttling up the hillside to where the mountain meets the silvery moon in Encinoland.   One hundred guests in black-tie arrived in the vast countryside we christened Ruritania.  Named after the exotic locale in the 1937 film, The Prisoner Of Zenda, that classic adventure tale co-starring Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, David Niven and their colorful cast.

This huge Ruritania-esque estate is the residence of Princess Lilly Fallah Lawrence, whose invitees were introduced to the guest of honor Ghobad Fakhimi, a leading petroleum engineer and author of Thirty Years Of Iran Oil, From Nationalization to Islamic Revolution.

“This is also a story of the Great Games in the 19th century, whereby the British Empire took control of the Middle East,” informs Mr. Fakhimi.  “My objective is to familiarize younger generations with what happened that caused us to be scattered around the world.”

He was hosted by Lilly with a lavish dinner in memory of her father, Dr. Reza Fallah,  who taught Mr. Fakhimi.  Let us remember Dr. Fallah served as Iran’s ambassador for oil under the Shah, Reza Pahlavi, who begged for Lilly’s teenage hand in marriage.   She declined. 

The distinguished Dr. Fallah mentored the youthful Mr. Fakhimi, whose Thirty Years Of Iran Oil encapsulates his immense knowledge about the oil industry that empowered Mr. Fakhimi during his years-long tutelage with Dr. Fallah, Dean of the Iran  Abadan Technical Institute.

Not many may know that Lilly was born in that oil-rich southern city of Abadan, and a photo from her early years appears on the inner book jacket.   

To launch Mr. Fakhimi’s historic chronicle of Iran’s oil industry, Lilly received friends, along with academicians, techies, educators and the now successful students of her father.  Welcoming all to wine and dine luxuriously at her towering Palais du Fenix that she renovated in the grand style that she’s accustomed to.

Lilly’s family jewels, Persian turquoises and diamonds, accessorized her trend-setting, peacock-blue gown created exclusively for her by the Otis School of Design.  In weeks past, the couture creation was prominently displayed in the Wilshire Boulevard windows of Neiman-Marcus in Beverly Hills.

Co-hosting the moonlit night was the young and tiger-strong United States Marine Corporal Douglas Banker, whose financier brother George Banker Jr. flew here from Miami.

A formal evening with Lilly invariably translates into six or more dinner courses, followed by the dessert buffet.     Lilly entrusted Karl Schuster, maestro of the Spago catering team, to prepare and serve the dinner.

Would that we were there, but acute bronchitis kept us at bay.  All the same, we were pleased the following day with the enthusiastic  response from guests Howard and Romina Celnik, accompanied by their teenage youngsters Andrea and A. J. (both named for Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli).  They are visiting from the Philippines.

SRO on Saturday night at the Grill in the Alley.  Happy folks waiting for tables or booths, where estate attorney Reeve Chubb celebrated a friend’s birthday, along with the one and only Sage from South Central, the indomitable broadcaster Larry Elder.

Those of us who listened to Larry on KABC are delighted to hear his sagacious commentary now on 870 AM from 6 PM to 9 PM on weekdays.  Additionally, he’s sought after daily by other major venues (Fox, etc.) for his astute opinions and analyses.

“Tuning in to 870, I’m impressed with the geographical range of his phone-ins, from Maine to Honolulu,” says Reeve, born to the wizardry of mathematics (wish that we were) and a longtime admirer of Larry’s.   

Election talk during dinner included casino magnate’s Sheldon Adelson’s $100 milliion contribution for Donald Trump’s political campaign, with Larry assessing a likely win “for all the reasons the fiscal conservatives don’t like Trump, the independents and the fiscal conservative Democrats will.”

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A First!

Auctioning a weathered $1 bill for $3,000 launched the auction …

Then ending the show by auctioning off a small bottle of Evian water for $2,000.   

Who is this auctioneer and where did he come from to knock the socks off the crowd during the 53rd annual Boomtown SHARE show at The Beverly Hilton’s International Ballroom.  His name Jim Nye,  with a rich baritone voice that takes over the town.  To date, SHARE has given more than $63 milllion to improve the lives of children.  This never-ending support from these dedicated ladies began with seven wives of Hollywood stars, with a goal of giving back to the children.

Disco memories prevailed, the theme bringing back the years of Gloria Gaynor (I Will Survive), Donna Summer (Last Dance), with Hazel Payne performing Boogie Oogie Oogie, and The Trammps (cq), featuring Earl Young, harmonizing and hotfooting to their Philadelphia rock classics.

The famous Anita Mann choreographed the SHARE hooferettes, and what a pleasure it always is to applaud the stylish grace of SHARE member Dolores Nemiro.   Even when dancing disco, she floats with the ease of a ballerina.  A treat, indeed, to enjoy Neile Adams polishing the parquet.  Neile performs her cabaret act at the Catalina Bar and Grill in mid June.

Joanna Carson, the inveterate trouper, is there day in and day out for SHARE.  To join her table she invited philanthropists realtor Elgart  Aster, designer Paul Swerdlove, trumpet player Malcolm McNab with spouse Ildiko, celebrity hairstylist Yuki Takei, Albert Fiero, Cathy and Jeffrey Weiner, Courtney Genovese from Manhattan, where Joanna catches up with the culturati several months of the year at her posh digs overlooking Central Park.

Rick Dees of Disco Duck fame emceed, and Yacov Smirnoff claimed that when an immigrant like himself arrives to the U.S., he can quickly “be a proud American, not like other countries.”

Among the SHARE members and regulars were  Chairman September Sarno, President Ellen Feder, Vice-Presidents Dana Grilikhes Nassi and G. Beverly Bergman, Corinna Fields, Ginny Mancini, Sandra Moss, Gloria and Mike Franks (Gloria celebrated her 90th this month and looks fabulous), Ruta Lee, Julie and Roger Corman, Joan Kardashian with husband Tom, Annabel Weston-Shulman, Jay Weston, Mark Richman,  Joan and Herman Rush, daughter Mandie Rush (voted SHARE Member of the Year), Joni Berry with prolific author spouse Stephen Maitland-Lewis, Joan Benny, bicoastal daughter of revered  comic Jack Benny.

Also: Bernadette and Sugar Ray Robinson, Dyan Cannon,  George Chakiris, Catherine Bach, founding member Miriam Nelson Meyers, Cynthia Yorkin, Shirley and Saul Turteltaub, Jan and Tom Sarnoff, Joyce Rey, Linda Schwartz, Edye Rugolo, Gina Rugolo-Alexander, Len Ross, Lynn and Robert Beyer.  All there for the love of children.

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“Mandatory financial disclosures released this month show that in just the two years from April 2013 to March 2015, the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State collected $21.667 million in ‘speaking fees,’ not to mention the cool $5 million she corralled as an advance for her 2015 flop book, Hard Choices,” reports Michael Walsh in the New York Post.

“Throw in the additional $26.630 million her ex-President husband hoovered up in personal appearances, ‘honoraria,’ and the nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief that the former first couple – who, according to Hillary, were ‘dead broke’ when they left the White House in 2001 wtih some of the furniture in tow – can finally make end’s meet.

“No wonder Donald Trump calls her ‘crooked Hillary.’”  She has yet to reveal the contents of her three Wall Street speeches for which she was paid a fortune.

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In the midst of the din and fray of the shopaholic fun and traffic whirligigs in Beverly Hills awaits an oasis in the heart of the city.

A haven of sophisticated serenity offering luxury unlimited, where we unwind, and where we may sip, dine or swim to relieve the aches of the day and find ourselves refreshed.

The Peninsula Hotel Beverly Hills.

Eight years ago, Offer Nissenbaum arrived from the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan as the benevolent Resident Manager of The Peninsula Hotel Beverly Hills.   Somehow, it doesn’t seem that long ago, when we were introduced by Steve Wallace, the mastermind behind Wally’s Wines and Spirits over a luncheon thereabouts

Today, with Offer’s credo of “hospitality to the max,” The Peninsula Beverly Hills is the hotel of choice for world-travelers such as Carol and Bill Haber, the big-time Broadway producer and co-founder with Ron Meyer and Michael Ovitz of the powerful Creative Artists Agency.

The Habers, indeed, travel at full gallop, own a landmark chateau in the Loire Valley of France that Bill calls “the farm” (some farm!), a townhouse in Paris, an apartment in New York and a residence in Westport, CT. 

Dining hither and yon, as they do, they entertain at the The Belvedere Dining Room in the  Peninsula, which Offer Nissenbaum has transformed into a European-style pleasure scene for local diners and visitors.

“Our inspiration was Milos, the Mediterranean restaurant that opened as an overnight success in Montreal, then New York, Athens, London, etc. and became a signature for its fresh fish menus.   We believed this would enrich our city, and from the compliments we’re receiving since launching the new Belvedere this spring, we’re quite excited.  Loyals Marci and Tom Holliday come by often, not only for lunch or dinner, but for an after dinner delight and a glass or two of our exclusive Keller Estates Pinot Noir.  Or one of our unique libations.”

Lunchtime guests love the sunny terrace – “Californians and visitors alike are all for dining al fresco,” adds Offer, also extolling the warmth of the dining room with its blue-and-white plaid  chairs, the contemporary art of Robert Indiana and Sean Scully, with more art anticipated.  

“Our Alaskan halibut and Italian branzino are wise choices, and for carnivores I’ll match our Marcho Farms 14-ounce veal chop against any anywhere.”

The Belvedere’s flatbreads are exceptional – specialties include the smoked salmon, the Dungeness crab with garlic aioli, or the oven-roasted cauliflower with seasonings.     Tantalizing side dishes are the stewed tomatoes and the organic quinoa tabouleh.  Hankering for a taste a la Grecque,  order the taramosalata (caviar whip) served with house-baked pita bread.

Scan the evening menu and be intrigued with innovative items the likes of green apple, celery an almond soup or the considerable selections of compelling flavors.  Among them: the grass-fed lamb tagine a la Morocaine.

Offer makes no bones that he lives to eat.  Palmeri in Brentwood is his hot ticket for chef Otto’s lasagna, and dining privately with friends in the kitchen of Cannes’s Villa Anchange is his hot ticket in France. 

His All-American best remains Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami Beach, which was founded by Hungarian-born Joe Weiss in 1913, and is now owned by Chicago’s Lettuce Entertain You.

Nods to executive chef David Codney and sous chef Sean Runyon.   And to pastry chef Stephanie Boswell, whose almond cookies during the Chinese New Year will never be forgotten.

Service is impeccable from restaurant managers Ramon Ayon and swimming champ  Diego Ruiz de Porras.  Add a hail fellow well met for Steve O’Mahoney of the valet parking team.

As regrettably occurs, red wine spilled on our polo shirt (our fault), with Ramon Ayon to the rescue.   He quickly peroxided the stain.  We soon removed our shirt in the loo, and he returned it perfectly clean and pressed within minutes.   Speaking of service! 

Little wonder why The Peninsula Beverly Hills is the only AAA Five Diamond and Forbes Five Star hotel in Southern California for 24 consecutive years.

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Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders enthuses that he has more money to continue his presidential campaign to the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia … the e-mail technician Brian Pagliano, who created Hillary Clinton’s controversial e-mail server has been asked to take the Fifth Amendment during his Inspector General investigation … Hillary has refused to participate in a press conference for many months, possibly concerned that she will be asked again the quesion from a journalist who wondered what she would do if she were indicted?  Her retort then was, “It’s not going to happen!”  Will this Big Stench e-mail ever go away?

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The mallard duck she named Ramon would not go away.  He could not fly, he couldn’t quack.  How he landed in her garden remained a mystery.   Did someone possibly place him there? 

A colorful dude – a Beau Brummel, if you will – with a yellow bill, emerald green and cocoa-brown feathers, Senor Ramon lay there helplessly crippled on the lawn.  Compassion took over.  She bought a bird house and placed its roof over him for protection, and folded a  beach towel underneath as a bed where he slept, feeding him vitamin-rich bread from Whole Foods.  Senor Ramon lay there for three days, with Shera Danese Falk assuming he would feel better and fly away soon. 

No way.

Grandpa Vicenzo Danese claimed when they were discussing college education for Shera that she would “major in dogs and animals,” and, indeed, Vicenzo proved prophetic.  She has mistressed as many as sixteen canines at a time chez Falk, one dog more beloved than the other, catering to each of their personalities (dog lovers know how different they can be!).  Sher and Peter Falk’s Christmas card on this page tells all.

Dogs and animals are her life.   When Senor Ramon slept in her garden without attempting to fly, she worried, phoned PETA, ultimately connected with Maritime Activists.  They suggested Shera touch base with the Pelican Rescue Team in Orange County.

Done.

Hungarian-born Zoltan Teglas, an ornithologist, arrives in his Pelican Rescue van, cradles Senor Ramon, and they are off to visit the vet.   Septic poisoning is the diagnosis, and Senor Ramon now is being babysat until he recuperates fully by Zoltan at his Teglas menagerie. 

All the while, Shera loses one of her longtime loves, James Amadeo, a Pekingese from Moscow that’s been with her for fourteen years.  Crying and grieving, she drives with him to the fabled pet cemetery in Calabasas, where she’s among the major funders.   (We hear, by the way, that the cemetery will bury elephants!)

The 30-page portfolio of the British royal family marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday with her nearest and dearest is an exclusive Vanity Fair treasure trove, and library-worthy.  Other than several magnificent past portraits of Her Majesty the Queen, plus delightful family candids, the portfolio belongs to the magazine’s illustrious photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Annie’s double-page of the Queen, hale and hearty at 90,  with her seven great grandchildren,  ages 1 to 12, everyone beautiful and handsome, is a classic to be cherished.  (Don’t overlook 2-year-old Mia Tyndall clutching the Queen’s handbag.)

The newborn Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, sits smiling in the Queen’s lap.  More photographs of Princess Charlottte and her 2-year-old brother Prince George are killers.

“Following his daughter’s birth, Prince William moved his family far from the spotlight to Amer Hall in remote Norfolk, where he and Kate have worked hard to create a cocoon of normalcy for George and the baby princess,” informs Kate Nicholl In VF’s accompanying article.   Built in 1802, the ten-bedroom Amer Hall’s a Georgian manor where William and brother Harry often lived during their youth.  Kate tells friends that she’s “delighted to have left London … and that they love the countryside.”    

Prince George rides a neighbor’s ponies, races his toy tractors in the walled garden, and likes to paint like grandfather Prince Charles.  In keeping with his parents’ “normalcy” desires, he attends a local nursery school, and like most young boys prefers French fries to vegetables.  The Duke and Duchess plan on three children, preferably close in age.

When his dad, an ambulance pilot, was away, George, who Prince William calls “a little monkey … lively and noisy,” asked where his father was.   He was told China, and then went searching for his father among the kitchen crockery, “exclaiming, ‘Daddy’s not here.’”

A page titled All the Queen’s Corgis, written by Michael Joseph Gross, reveals that the Queen       has lept corgis even longer than she has known Prince Philip, her husband of 69 years (which she describes elsewhere as “my strength and my stay”).

Her mother, the Queen Mum, gifted Princess Elizabeth when she was eighteen with her first corgi which joined her on the royal couple’s honeymoon.  Years later, the Queen mated her sister Princesss Margaret’s dachshund with a corgi, creating a dorgi.  The Queen has programmed 14 generations of corgis.                      

Friends of the royal family reminisce with personal anecdotes that are heartwarming. VF’s Reinaldo Herrera recalls he and his designer wife Carolina Herrera attending parties hosted by the Queen, and what “a very good host she is.”

“She throws fun and beautiful parties.  She loves receiving guests, and knows how to put people at ease.  At Buckingham Palace, she stands at the top of the stairs welcoming everyone.  She is wonderful at mixing old and new friends.  The Queen loves dancing to her favorite tunes by Lester Lanin, whose orchestra played at some of her parties …

“Once you’ve had the luck of looking into those smiling blue eyes of the Queen, you never forget her.”

Agreed.  Luck came our way when we were introduced to the Queen during a Polo Match (she in a stunning bright orange coat), and, yes, she was so easy to talk with, and, yes, those sparkle-plenty blue eyes are unforgettable.

In its April 24th issue, The New York Times reported that the Queen’s party planner is Lady Elizabeth Anson, whose code name for the Queen is Shirley Temple.

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In a New York Times editorial about Hillary Clinton, the editorial  board asks  “for more openness and directness from a candidate who has had a tendency to dodge uncomfortable questions.  Releasing transcrpts of her paid speeches to Wall Street would signal a commitment to reverse these perceptions.

“Donald Trump is correctly pointing out that Mrs. Clinton has gone many months without answering questions at a press conference.  It is time for her to hold a forthrightly session with reporters.”

Oddly,  not a word about the top secret documents in the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal that requires greater probity.  Tech installer Brian Paglilano now declares he will take the  Fifth Amendment during the Inspector General’s investigation.

The tumbledown winds on Capitol Hill remind that the Constitution allows an indicted candidate to run for political office, and that a President may pardon themselves.

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Her sexuality screams from the silver screen in Gilda, a film noir from the forties starring Rita Hayworth, who Life Magazine crowned The Love Goddess during World War II.  Kneeling on a boudoir bed in a saucy black lace and ivory satin negligee with her wavy tousled tresses, she became the poster sex symbol for millions of American and European soldiers (they say that the Asian military foes were equally over-heated).

Directed by Charles Vidor with high style, Gilda is among author Mark A. Viera’s 82 choices that he includes in his rewarding Into The Dark, The Hidden World Of Film Noir, 1941-1950.  This is a best buy from Running Press at $40 for cineastes of all ages.

 A devout cinema historian, Mark has published the first book to tell the story of film noir in its own voice with its “cavalcade of compelling photographs,” fascinating insights and glimpses into the filmmaking, along with soupcons of gossip.

“You know film noir when you see it,” notes Mark.  “The shadowed setting; the cyiical detective; the femme fatale; and the twist of fate.”

In Gilda , the twists of fate gallop hippety-clip, and while here and there the plot swerves a tad askew, it doesn’t matter.  All that breathtaking  glamour, the love-hate dynamic between Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford, Rita’s alluring wardrobe by designing genius Jean Louis, take over, front and center.  Add to this mix: that the mysterious George Mcready, owner of the luxe Buenos Aires casino, weds Rita. while Glenn Ford and Rita deny their romantic past.

Singing and dancing to the sultry strip tease number, Put The Blame On Mame, and the exotic Amado Mio on the casino’s nightclub stage, Rita kills.   Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, apparently not easy to please, was quick to mention that Rita not only dances and sings beautifully (dubbed by Anita Ellis), but that her acting chops are tops as the devil-may-care heroine.  The smoldering  chemistry between her and Glenn Ford hits the roof.

That bare-midriff gown Rita shimmies in the Amado Mio sequence sold at auction for $161,000, estunated from $40,000 to $60,000.

An aside:  After Orson Welles, who Rita married and who cast her in The Lady From Shanghai, shearing her of her fabled red tresses and dying what remained blonde, Columbia Pictures mogul Harry Cohn, who kept Rita under contract, wanted to commit murder.  Orson had wrecked the glamour of his Number One boxoffice star.

Mark Viera assesses that Gilda is among the rare films noir that end happily.

Crime thriller novelists Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and pulp fiction storytellers very likely inspired these film noir favorites.

The titles beg to be remembered.  This Gun For Hire, Double Indemnity, In a Lonely Place, The Damned Don’t Cry, I Wake Up Screaming, Force Of Evil, Nightmare Alley, Kiss Of Death, The Set-Up Deadline At Dawn, They Live By Night, Scarlet Street, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Killers, Lady In The Lake are only some selections.   As are Citizen Kane, The Asphalt Jungle and Sunset Boulevard.

Page upon page of photogrphs of the film noir stars dazzle. Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Tierney, Loretta Young, Claire Trevor, Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, Betty Grable, Lizabeth Scott, Susan Hayward.   

Also:  Humphrey Bogart, Dana Andrews, Kirk Douglas, Orson Welles, Robert Mitchum, Robert Montgomery, Burt Lancaster, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, Clifton Webb, Raymond Burr.

“Fun to flip through and sense the thrill of this amazing array of film artists,” writes Eddie Muller, known as the Czar of Noir, in his Preface to Into The Dark, “as they experienced producing the sexy and sinister style that would become known as noir.” 

A French film critic, Nino Frank, is credited with coining the phrase in 1946 that became a cinema password throughout the world.

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Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is holding on with his presidential campaign until the Democratic Convention on July 25th in Philadelphia.  He aims to influence changes in the electoral college and with the super delegates, etc.

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The Songs of Solomon in the Bible describe, in poetry, those timeless emotions of love and desire.

And, now, in our modernity, the Songs Of Sondheim capture the yeas and nays of love and its madness in Stephen Sondheim’s melancholy music and lyrics.

Stephen Sondheim’s powerhouse Broadway career with its staggering boxoffice success was rewarded on his 80th birthday by his peers naming a Gotham theater at 124 W. 43rd St. for him in 2010.  Not many living legends arrive at this honor.  As Stephen has with the former Henry Miller Theater now  reincarnated, and, hey that’s pretty heavy furniture.

Over the weekend, songs from Stephen’s award-winning musicals were performed by a galaxy of artists at the Wallis.  Staged and directed by the indefatigable maestro David Galligan, whose S.T.A.G.E. productions these 32 years continue to acknowledge the rich legacy of American songsters. 

The performances have developed a large and loyal following and bigtime bucks benefiting AIDS Project Los Angeles.  Superstar Patricia Morrison (apparently 101) never misses an evening, and longtime friend Lisa Glucksman’s a regular.

Two of the always-there sponsors are Elgart Aster and Paul Swerdlow (an Italophile who knows his Amarone vintages and is often called Paolo).  Both flourishing in commercial real estate, and taking time off from their success for two weeks every September at the posh Villa d’Este alongside the shores of Lake Como.

“A true-blue holiday of feasting on the Italian cusine and wines, reading, and simply laying low to prepare for the fall season in Beverly Hills,” says Elgart.

Named after his mom Betty’s maiden name, Elgart’s a native Philadelphian, and Paolo hails from Canada’s sophisticated, French-speaking metropolis of Montreal.  They returned from the yearly Rittenhouse Square frolic in Philadelphia the day before the Sondheim musicale.   Through the decade, they’ve assembled pals at their estate for a buffet soiree, prior to David Galligan’s coveted entertainment.  No greater compliment, as the Europeans say, than being invited for a meal at home.

Since Elgart and Paolo arrived from Pennsylvania the day before, they feted their 32 guests al fresco at Il Pastaio, where sips of Amarone or Pinot Grigio accompanied the chicken piccata or grilled whitefish.  Joanna Carson was anticipated, but summoned for business meetings at her “oasis” in Manhattan’s Pierre Hotel.

We dined with Shari Belafonte, a Carnegie-Mellon “dramat” classmate of Elgart’s, and a chum we’ve known since the reign of James the Second. 

Joining us were her TV star husband Sam Behrens, celebrity hairstylist Yuki Takei, Ron Kline and designer Ron Collier, a favorite subject of Architectural Digest.  Many recalled it was Ron who created the popular Jimmy’s Restaurant in Beverly Hills.

At the Wallis, the crowd cheered.  What better than listening to Carole Cook delight with her signature I’m Still Here from Follies … Rita Moreno mesmerizinig with Somewhere from West Side Story … Andrea Marcovocci rhapsodizing over With So Little To Be Sure Of from Anyone Can Whistle … Mary Jo Catlett boasting about being a Broadway Baby from Follies …  Alexandra Billing raising the roof with Losing My Mind from Follies …  Loretta Devine flying skyward with Send In the Clowns from A Little Night Music.  High-spirited talents energized the Wallis stage over two acts that danced the night away.   Just like a fox-trot.

Words to ponder from Stephen Sondheim:

The dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway.  The shows get dumber, and the public gets used to them.

Art in itself is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

Everyone tells tiny lies.   What’s important is the size.

Everything depends upon execution.  Having just a vision is no solution.

The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write.

I was raised to be charming, not sincere.

Nice is different than good.

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According to Secret Service agent Gary Bryne, whose White House memoir Crisis of Character will be published June 28th, Hillary Clinton tried to ban the Secret Service from the White House, and to ditch her security detail. Gary is a 29-year veteran of military and federal law enforcement.

Thus reports the Emily Smith in the New York Post, which managed an advanced look.

“Hillary Clinton is now poised to be the nominee for president of the United States, but she lacks the integrity and the temperament to serve in the office,” Gary writes.

“From the bottom of my soul, I know this to be true.  And with Hillary’s latest rise, I realize that her own leadership style — volcanic, impulsive, enabled by sycophants and disdainful of the rules set for everyone else  – hasn’t changed a bit.”

His observations of her behavior behind the White House walls are hair-raising.  A terrorized staff … Bibles thrown … vases smashed to bits … President Clinton sporting a put-a-steak-on-it black eye … his sexual dalliances on the Map Room table that infuriated a jealous Monica Lewinsky,  the President’s then-lover.

More, much more.  Will voters care? 

Pre-orders have sent Crisis of Character to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list.

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Megan (Mojgan)  slipped effortlessly into her designer gown from more than a decade ago.   A glamorous creation she wore to son Sina Simon’s Bar Mitzvah.  You may gauge the years from knowing that handsome Sina Simon’s a graduate of the UCLA Law School who’ll be taking the California Bar exam later this year.    

Beautiful Megan Safvati wore the gown to daughter Niloufar’s Bat Mitzvah, with Niloufar, gorgeous and svelte as a model, now studying medicine in Miami.

To maintain this tradition, Megan donned the gown this week to her youngest, equally beautiful daughter Nora Leah’s Bat Mitzvah at the Four Seasons on Doheny Drive Quelle figure, dear Megan, as our French friends like to say, and what a lovely family you and your good doctor husband Shahriar Safvati have given us to embrace.

Megan and Shahriar hosted a grand, everybody-please-dance fete celebrating Nora’s life in the hotel’s ballroom with friends and family that included Nora’s grandfolks Molo and Saleh Safvati).  A sea of Nora’s classmates with rosepink cheeks and high-stepping legs crowded the dance floor, along with the ageless charmers, while the Band of 10 musicians and singers Sohrab and Cat Chang performed hot-to-trot Persian favorites.

Nina and Dr. Bob Ha’er didn’t miss a dance beat, a pleasure to see them floating gracefully to the music, as they also did two years ago when the Safvatis celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary with a sensational dinner-dance at the Four Seasons Hotel.   

We were privileged to be included through our years-long friendship with Princess Lilly Fallah Lawrence, who introduced us to the hosts that we added to our list of People You Should Know.  Regretfully, dear Lilly was called out of town to the Bay Area this week on the family’s petroleum business.  Her late iconic dad, Reza Fallah, served as Iran’s powerful ambassador for oil.  Lilly, being born at the White House of the Persian Gulf in Iran’s oil capital of Abadan. 

She was christened, early on the “oil baby” of her native land, and has commanded every room she’s in with her alluring beauty and international style.  At 16, she declined the Shah of Iran’s proposal for marriage, choosing instead at that tender age to wed American sportsman Francis “Bunty” Lawrence.  Bunty’s dad, Vincent, wrote 39 action/adventure films, including an uncredited Gunga Din helmed by the great George Stevens and starring Cary Grant, Victor Mature and Douglas Fairbanks.

After Lilly and companion Douglas Banker returned from Northern California in midweek, she informed they wined and dined at the popular Cockscomb, a gastropub discovery located South of Market in San Francisco.  Chef Chris Cosentino offers a roast pig on his menu, and both Douglas and she pigged out on the porky, devouring all, including the head. 

Additionally, they fell in love with Quince restaurant on Jackson Square that Lilly touts as somewhat akin to her American favorite of all time, chef Joel Robuchon’s eponymous, Michelin-starred dining room at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

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“Let’s say it straight out, that Hillary Clinton lied about the reason for the Benghazi attack.  She lied about it to the nation as a whole and she lied right to the faces of the grieving family members of those who died there – lied about her lying,” writes former Presidential Secret Service officer Gary J. Byrne in his memoir, Crises of Character which was published this week.

“And she keeps telling Americans one huge, disgusting lie after another.  As I wrap up writing this book, Hillary has claimed that ‘we didn’t lose a single person in Libya.’  Really?  Try telling that to the families of the four men we lost on September 11, 2012 …

“Two decades ago, the late New York Times columnist William Safire wrote: ‘Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady – a woman of undoubted talents, who is a role-model for many in her generation – is a congenital liar.

“The lies change.

“The liar doesn’t.”

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East Coast.  August 1977.  A Friday night rehearsal dinner at a country club when we relatives gathered for a family wedding the following afternoon and a welcomed weekend of togetherness.

In the midst of our meal, the maitre d’hotel whispered for a moment to the host, the bride’s father, who appeared shocked and placed his finger on his lips to indicate this should be kept quiet.  After a pause, the host walked over to us.   

Our being a journalist, he assumed we should know the horrible news.

That very night, Princess Diana and her beau Dodi Fayed were in a Paris car crash.  Most likely dead.  He indicated that so as not to rile the guests, mum was the word.

We rushed gracefully to our room to listen to the television details of this horrific tragedy.  Dodi and Diana had left the Ritz Hotel from the Place Vendome with their inebriated chauffeur, Henri Paul, who was speeding recklessly to avoid the paparazzi – the threesome mangled in the hotel’s limousine that was a scrap heap.  (Diana and Dodi were not wearing seat belts).  Only their bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived.

We were shaken.  Two days prior, Dodi phoned from his yacht en route to France.  He was bringing Diana to California for the month of September, having leased Oceans Eleven’s producer Jerry Weintraub’s Malibu estate, Blue Heaven.  Diana was ecstatic, he added, having always wanted to spend time and relax in Hollywood.  Would we help organize some good times? 

They planned arriving soon, with Dodi suggesting we immediately book party venues in anticipation. 

Dodi’s one of the most kind-hearted gentlemen we’ve been fortunate to know, thanks to public relations  maestro Warren Cowan.  A film producer, Dodi had major screenwriters under contract for numerous projects about to go into production.  His Chariots Of Fire remains a classic.

In Dodi’s memory, his tycoon owner father Mohammed Al-Fayed has renovated the Ritz, spending an epic $450 million over four years to create for his signature hotel a magnificience of style and comfort.  Designer Thierry Despont supervised a staff and crew of 800 to restore this palatial Paris habitat.

Opulence became the buzzword, and, in our book, nobody does opulence better than the French. 

Encomiums about the restoration arrived from our California cardiologiost Dr. Stephen Corday and best friend Mary Jo Deutschman (who oversees the acclaimed Little Dolphins pre-school in Santa Monica).  They are diehard,  biannual Paris vacationers.  And are  favored houseguests at the luxe apartment of actress Cora Sue Collins of Our Gang fame and the co-star of Shirley Temple’s films.  Cora Sue additionally maintains a residence in Beverly Hills.

“The Ritz history overwhelms,” says Stephen Corday, adding that the property was bought in 1898 by hotelier Cesar Ritz and chef Auguste Escoffier, a royal presence within France’s culinary kingdom.  “At the Ritz you are living with the shadows of many great spirits.”

Author Marcel Proust discovered its serene grandeur, hiding out to write his timeless Remembrance Of Things Past.  Cole Porter and Noel Coward became habitués, often creating their popular songs.   Ernest Hemingway loved the bar, now named Bar Hemingway.  Couturier Coco Chanel maintained a permanent suite.  And 1950s moviemakers included the Ritz in An American In Paris and Funny Face, both starring Fred Astaire, Love In The Afternoon with Audrey Hepburn.

Mohammed Al Fayed bought the Ritz for an estimated 30 million dollars.

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Bewildering – and frankly, scary – that not one major newspaper has reviewed Gary Byrne’s illuminating memoir, Crisis of Character, A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience With Hillary, Bill, And How They Operate. Neither the Los Angeles Times, nor The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, or The New York Times (we awaited the savvy Michiko Kakutani’s assessment; not a word).  However, the New York Post did headline several disturbing scoops (but no review).

A posting by Matt Drudge before the  June 28 publication date mentioned that Team Hillary had its defenses at the ready, but it now appears that Team Hillary controls the publishing and media industries. Clinton acolytes pooh-pooh the book as a “rehash.”  Not so, not so.   UK and European newspapers have not hestitated with their explosive commentaries.

“While serving as a Secret Service officer,  Gary Byrne protected President Bill Clinton in the White House and outside the Oval Office …

“Having witnessed the personal and political dysfunction of the Clinton White House – so consumed by scandal and destroying their enemies, real and imagined – Byrne came to understand that, to the Clintons governing was an afterthought.  Byrne now tells this story before the voters go to thr polls – in hopes that they will understand the real Hillary Cllinton.”  So informs the publisher.

“I have not written a word of this book with a political agenda,” informs Gary Byrne.  “Whether the Clintons were Democrats or Republicas, I saw what I saw.  I heard what I heard.

“Two decades ago, the late New York Times columnist William Safire wrote:  ‘Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady – a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model in her generation – is a congenital liar.’

“The lies change.

“The liar doesn’t.”

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A pistol she was.    As were her husband, Irving Mansfield, and their smarter-than-hell press agent Jay Allen.  Novelist Jacqueline (Jackie) Susann and her gents invented a new way to promote books.  Geniuses.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of her international newsmaker novel, Valley Of The Dolls.    

Nora Ephron couldn’t put it down — “like reading a very long, absolutely delicious gossip column.” 

“I couldn’t believe these weren’t real girls because I know them … maddeningly sexy … I wish I had written it,” admitted Helen Gurley Brown.    

From The New York Times Style Magazine:  “A gleefully salacious  story of friendship, sex, backstabbing and pills (dolls).”

Before the publication of Dolls in 1966, the stylish, Philadelphia-born Jackie, her wardrobe filled with Emilio Pucci designs, enjoyed bestseller status with her first book.   Considered an amusement, Every Night, Josephine was inspired by her poodle that she dressed in Pucci outfits to match her own.  Josephine’s sales encouraged her to write a second book, the Dolls novel, rewarding her with overwhelming bestsellerdom and stardom.

To date, Dolls has sold more than 31 million copies in 30 languages.   Grove Press publisher Morgan Entrekin reveals Jackie was “the first author to have three consecutive #1 bestsellers,” having followed Dolls with The Love Machine and Once Is Not Enough.

In celebration of Dolls’ 50th anniversary this month, Grove Press is publishing a handsome hardcover as well as a paperback edition destined to be the beach read of the summer, and a bedtime teaser all year long.   These anniversary editions include a brief essay, My Book Is Not Dirty, written by Jackie after a prudish Time magazine staffer shrugged it off.  Risque, yes.  Dirty, no.

Appraised as “scandalously fun” by Dolls early readers, the story of three ambitious young New Yorkers, Anne, Neely and Jennifer, seeking love and celebrity, begat Sex And The City and Lena Dunham’s Girls.  Jackie was the first to chronicle the dreams, sexual appetites, success, and the deadly seduction of money, power and prescription pills.  Jackie coined the word “dolls” for barbiturates to be washed down with vodka or swallowed straight – a dark and dangerous escape.

The ’60s film starred  Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins and Sharon Tate, with Jackie declaring in an interview that “the 1960s will be remembered for Andy Warhol, the Beatles and me,” before her loss to breast cancer from smoking.

After college and our three-year army service, we met  Jackie at the time of her success with Josephine, and occasionally shared a  laugh-a-lot luncheon at Sardi’s, the showbusiness hangout that she favored in midtown Manhattan during our New York life. 

She talked about how she and Irving Mansfield and Jay Allen launched the first author book tour.  She explained that they worked nonstop at building her bestsellers.   That it wasn’t enough to go on tour, that they would ask her publisher to host dinners for the booksellers that she would engage in personal conversations.  Bingo!  These became a huge hit in the big bookseller cities.  They were pioneers, she claimed, and that no other author had done this.   

Our Los Angeles ace publicist Judy Hilsinger remembers Jackie’s “kindness and generosity and working with her on her last book when I was a fledgling publicist in New York … I was shocked and stunned when my boss, Esther Margolis, called me into her office and told me we had to prepare obituary materials on Jackie for the Times since her death was imminent.  I quit smoking cold turkey the day she died, and never picked up a cigarette again.”

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Oh, the weariness of it all.  The baggage piles on.  Heavier and heavier,  every day.  The scathing report about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails from FBI Director James Comey is fading.  His investigation was not under oath.

Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit to depose her under oath.  JW is seeking answers to six unanswered questions about her controversial private e-mail.  Matt Drudge posts that her overworked legal team is scrambling “to block forcing her to testify in JW’s civil lawsuit.”

Fair and square. simply a matter of justice.   Or are we above the law?

Still, no major newspaper or print media review has appeared about Gary Byrne’s illuminating and unputdownable memoir, Crisis Of Character, A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Knowledge About Hillary and Bill Clinton And How They Operate.

Where is our “All the News That’s Fit to Print “ august New York Times? Suppressed by whom?   Just asking.

Agents during the FBI’s investigation were summoned to sign a special form to only talk about it if they were ordered to testify.  “Very, very unusual.  I’ve never signed one before,” claims one FBI agent.

“The FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting,” reports the New York Post.  “And managed to piss off both the right and left.”

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Old doors close, new doors open.

Occasionally repeated by our late sage Carl Francis Anthony Pacholski Hall, whose old-fashioned sayings and witticisms remain cherished, rolling like raindrops as they did off his quick mind.

Shutting its doors this past Saturday, the  notoriously popular Four Seasons restaurant with the priceless Picasso curtain on Manhattan’s 52nd Street that catered for 57 years to the High and Mighty.

Come September, Wolfgang Puck opens the doors of his Cut in the new downtown Four Seasons Hotel in New York.   Wolfgang launched Cut for the hungry carnivores in 2006 at The Beverly Wilshire, with Cut a runaway success, designed by the award-winning architect Richard Meier.   

Further good news for New Yorkers.  Wolfgang’s contemplating opening a Spago soon in Manhattan.   Any truth to Wolfgang owning nearly a hundred restaurants in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa since he launched the first Spago in 1982?   Which we are proud to have been the first to write about in our Hollywood Reporter column, sending our lovers of good food to Wolfgang.  He christened us as the Godfather of Spago, and, in truth,  Wolfgang is our reigning King Midas of restaurantdom.  Wherever he goes and whatever he creates becomes golden. 

In his early teens, Wolfgang, the son of an Austrian butcher, left for France where he apprenticed at top-rated dining rooms.  He arrived in California with his culinary savvy and business acumen, and, decades later, is now embraced by the world.

Dining at Spago this week, U.S. Marine Corporal Douglas Banker toasted his birthday with 12 friends, plus a table for five young ones that included sons Giovanni and Joseph.

Orchestrated and hosted by his mate, the everywhere-adored Princess Lilly Fallah Lawrence, an international hostess for the ages.   

Our dinner was flawless.  Mushroom and spinach risotto.  A roasted veal chop with Romano beans, young onions and creamy polenta.  Or the  poached Alaskan halibut with a confit of cherry tomatoes, zucchini puree in a light tomato broth. 

“Excellent…excellent,” murmured the diners, with gratitude for executive chef Lee Hefter and chef de cuisine Tetsu  Yahagi.

Our evening was graced with the presence of the Reverend Father John Bakas, the dean of our landmark Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 1324 South Normandie (near Pico).  He arrived with his much-loved wife Maria.  Yes, Greek Orthodox priests, unlike Catholics, are encouraged to marry before they are ordained, and the dioceses arrange outings for the seminarians to meet their brides. 

If you haven’t visited this architectural Byzantine-Renaissance wonder, you are missing one of the great ecclesiastical treasures in our City of the Angels.  It might be noted that Father John, beloved by all in the Greek-American parish, served as a police captain in  New Mexico when he received the “calling” to administer and lead the faithful.

The week before, Mitzi Gaynor, never one to forget a friend’s birthday, introduced us to the newly redesigned Trattoria Amici, now freshly remodeled into what we prefer to call a tavernetta.  All white, with a lovely fireplace, and a fully licensed “parenthesis of a bar” (to quote The New York Times’ critic Pete Wells).  Located on Doheny Drive in the Beverly Terrace Hotel, where it awaits on the ground floor with a welcoming patio walled by greenery as a private enclosure for al fresco parties or dining a deux.

Managing Trattoria Amici is the veteran Martin Lee, and let’s commend cook Victor Tovar, whose pasta for twelve was ideally al dente, and the grilled filet of sole was delicious.

Mitzi honored Days of Our Lives’ Richard Neely’s birthday, partnered for 35 years with acclaimed videograpaher Lee Hale.  The greatly gifted Lee creates those memorable videos of the celebrants during Mitzi’s Professional Dancers Society tributes every spring.  A hot ticket benefiting the hoofers and hooferettes whose bodies have given way to the cruel vicissitudes of aging.  Sadly, they can no longer  work, and may we recall Bette Davis’ outcry that “getting old is not  for sissies.” 

Room and board and medical expenses are among the benefits, thanks to the fundraising from PDS. 

The crowd filling The Beverly Hilton ballroom  during this year’s luncheon that honored Paula Abdul continues to sing the event’s praises.  The tariff is a steal ($180 for the three-course meal of soup, baked chicken and Baked Alaska), underwritten by Joni Berry, and plenty of joyous entertainment.  Previous honorees included Julie Andrews, Leslie Caron, Mary Tyler Moore, Ben Vereen, etc.

Exciting news was noted by Mitzi’s co-manager Rene Reyes that Leslie Caron, Kim Novak and Jerry Lewis will join Mitzi during the Turner Classics Movies All-Star Cruise in November, where they will thrill the folks with highlights from their  careers.   

Would that we could all be there!

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Finally, finally!  Without one iota of support in the print media, Gary Byrne’s Crisis of Character topped the New York Times bestseller list as #1 this week.  As a Secret Service Officer during the Clinton’s eight years in the White House,  his details are devastating and shocking.