Newport today

November 14, 2013, 7:36 am

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The Breakers. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Readers may remember that last year about this time, we published a photographic essay Sam Bolton, Nick Mele and Alex Kendall on old Newport, Rhode Island today (NYSD 10.26.12). They gave us a charmingly inside view of this great summertime mecca where American society of the Gilded Age played out its fate. The quintessential American summer resort or the Northeast is a contemporary year-round home to many including many descendents of the families of a century ago.

Although everything has changed in our American civilization, since the dawning of the industrial, communications and transportation revolutions — Newport, along with its more newly arrived denizens — remains a fascinating and steadfast architectural tribute.

Today we present Bolton and Mele’s ongoing private photographic tour of this historic community. The memories and their nostalgia are deep-rooted. The opening shot — of Richard Morris Hunt’s masterpiece The Breakers, created for Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1892 — is other worldly yet still unblemished, protecting its family history. It is now the city’s most visited historical stop, visited by three quarters of a million tourists a year.

Twins Alexander and Maxwell Arkin spend summers in Newport and winters in Chicago. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Margy Quinn (whose mother is the late Eileen Slocum) with her daughters Evelyn Holm and Sophie Girard, photographed in the living room of their family home. The interiors were designed by Ogden Codman.

Pictured (left to right) are Margy's grandchildren Caroline Girard, Sarah, Annie and Ben Holm, and on sofa, Sam Holm. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Regis and Tenley de Ramel at Newport State Airport. Regis was born in Ales, France and grew up in Newport. He operates Fly Advanced, a charter airline service out of Wilmington, Delaware. Tenley was born in Toronto and is an intellectual property attorney for the DuPont Company. They live between Wilmington and Newport with four children. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Hugh and Eileen Douglas photographed at home. Hugh founded the denim company, "Lock Sicker," (locksicker.com). Eileen works at the St. George's School. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Ann Boyd (Mrs. Hallam Boyd, Jr.) dressed for the Newport Preservation Society's annual shindig. This year's theme was a Venetian Ball. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Jeffrey Berman photographed at The Whim, the home of Oatsie Charles. Jeffrey is a real estate developer based in Palm Beach and New York. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Ronald and Lisa Oliver photographed at Pump House with their dog, Atticus. Ronald "Oli" is a true southerner, and recently, he and Lisa moved from Savannah to Newport. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Lawrence Cutler, photographed in his office at "Vernon Court", home of the National Museum of American Illustration, founded in 1998 by Larry and his wife, Judith Goffman Cutler. The museum is housed in Vernon Court, a turn-of-the-century Beaux Arts french chateau built in 1898 by Carrère and Hastings.

The museum has a beautiful collection of original American Illustration art, primarily by Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth. [Photo: Nick Mele]

For more information go to americanillustration.org.

Ronald Lee Fleming at Bellevue House. Mr. Fleming is an urban planner based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bellevue House was built by Ogden Codman in 1910 for his cousin Martha Codman. Ronald purchased the house in 1999 from the estate of the actress Jane Pickens Hoving, and has done extensive renovations to the gardens of the house. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Guillaume and Molly de Ramel at The Newport Colony House with children Charles and Elizabeth. Guillaume will be a Democratic candidate in the 2014 race for Rhode Island's next Secretary of State. Molly was a network anchor and business correspondent for Fox and headed media relations at Brown University. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Jenny Danielson and her daughter Taylor on the dock at Gooseberry Landing, the boathouse of Jenny's Aunt, Topsy Taylor.

Jenny lives in New York with husband Dryw, and runs Above Average Productions. Production credits include "SLN," "30 Rock," and "Mean Girls." [Photo: Nick Mele]

Lee and Lee DiPietro at their house in Newport. Lee is the daughter of Howard Cushing Jr. growing up between Newport and Long Island. The portrait above her is a painting by her great grandfather, Howard Gardiner Cushing. Lee works as Vice President of his firm, Maury Donnelly & Parr, Inc. in Baltimore. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Photographed on the terrace at Beaulieu are members of Ruth Buchanan Wheeler's extended family (pictured l. to r.):

Lilla Ohrstrom (in red), Helen Hilliard (black shirt), Chris Ohrstrom, David Hilliard (blue shirt), Elias Ohrstrom (pink shirt), Delilah Ohrstrom (sitting in the front Chris), Daisy Hilliard, Findley Ohrstrom, Susie Matheson, Charley Hilliard (standing in back), Bonnie Matheson (daughter of Ruth Buchanan), Murdoch "Bear" Matheson, and Murdoch Matheson. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Newport Casino Theatre executives Andrea van Beuren, Founder and Artistic Director; Terri Conners, Executive Director; Meredith Nordhem, Marketing and Public Relations; Chauncey Tanton, Development & Events.

NewportFilm continues to bring great documentaries and cultural films to Newport. For information go to newportFILM.com. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Nick Benson, a third generation stone carver and calligrapher since age 15, and a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2010, photographed at his studio, The John Stevens Shop. His inscriptions and decorative reliefs may be found throughout the United States and at the National Gallery of Art, Yale University, and the National World War II Memorial. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Pamela Davis Owens, photographed at Cannon Hill, her Newport home. Pamela lives between Newport and New York with her husband Brian. She works for Stribling & Associates in New York. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Louise Warren and her daughter Sabina. Louise was born in Stockholm, has lived in Cairo, and modeled in Europe. Sabina lives in New York and works in digital marketing for In Style magazine. Louise and her husband George Warren have a son, George, living in Boston. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Andrea Matheson, out for a day's sail. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Lilla Ohrstrom is a ceramics and metal sculptor , based is Plains , Virginia .She studied at RISD and Parsons and in Paris and owns the Youngblood Art Studio in Plains, Virginia. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Eve Matheson. Eve's mother is the photographer Mia McDonald. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Susie Matheson, co-founder of The Scout Guide, with Meredith Wood-Prince (Chicago editor). The Scout Guide is a city by city source for fabulous finds, incorporating art, fashion, decor, food, and the latest trends. 25 guides and counting. For more information, visit TheScoutGuide.com. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Irene Aitken (Mrs. Russell Barnett Aitken) at the Francis Malbone House. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Duncan and Barbara Chapman photographed at Cornwall Lodge with daughters Allegra and Antonia. [Photo: Nick Mele]

The Late Noreen Drexel pictured at Stoner Lodge, her Newport home. The contents of the house were divided for two sales; one was held at Christie's and the other was held at the house this past summer. [Photo: Nick Mele]

A view of The Waves, designed by John Russell Pope in 1927 as his personal residence. Later owned by A & P grocery store heiress Josephine Hartford Bryce. It has since been divided into condominiums. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

A topiary camel on the lawn of Doris Duke's Rough Point. Doris had several live camels in residence. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Fishing off the rocks on Ocean Drive. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Baseball at Land's End. The house (not pictured) was once owned by Edith Wharton [Photo: Nick Mele]

Ocean Drive views. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Grass courts at the International Tennis Hall of Fame (designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1880), the site of the first U.S National Championship in 1881. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Blue Dolphin, anchored off Green Bridge. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Green Bridge Pond. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Spouting Rock above Bailey's Beach. [Photo: Nick Mele]

A cove off Fort Adams State Park. The house above, known as Beacon Rock, was once the home of Felix de Weldon, the noted sculptor of the famous Marine Corps War Memorial based on the iconic photograph of the raising of the second flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Looking towards the end of Cliff Walk. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Surfer waiting for a wave on Cliff Walk. [Photo: Nick Mele]

An Egret on the Ocean Drive. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Cove on Ocean Drive. [Photo: Nick Mele]

The Newport Country Club, founded in 1893. The club hosted the first US Open. Whitney Warren designed the Beaux Arts-style clubhouse. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

The Newport Flower Show at Rosecliff. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Horses at play at Hammersmith Farm, where Jacqueline Bouvier married Senator John F. Kennedy sixty years ago this year. At the time the estate belonged to Jackie's stepfather Hugh D. Auchincloss. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Ida Lewis Yacht Club. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

The Elms, designed by Horace Trumbauer for Edward Berwind in 1901. The house was lived in by the Berwind family until 1961. At that time it was slated to be demolished for a shopping center. A preservation-minded group banded together with funds to save the house. Eventually their efforts would grow into what is now the Preservation Society of Newport County. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

The sunken garden at The Elms. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Spectator fleet following races on Narragansett Bay. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Horsehead on Conanicut Island, also known as Jamestown. The house sits on its own peninsula overlooking Mackerel Cove, across the channel from Hammersmith Farm and Castle Hill Inn. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Sachuest Beach, also known as Second Beach. [Photo: Nick Mele]

An old 12-meter boat cruising off of Jamestown. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Yacht races off Brenton Point. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

"Hanging Rock" in Middletown at the end of the Norman Bird Sanctuary; about a 12 minute-drive from downtown Newport. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

The chapel at St. George's School shot from Second Beach, Middletown. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Seafair, known to locals as "Hurricane Hut." Legend has it that the butler of the house was washed out to sea during the big storm of 1938. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

A view of Seafair from Green Bridge on Ocean Drive. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Another view of Ocean Drive, heading towards Gooseberry Beach. [Photo Nick Mele]

Newport Art Museum. [Photo: Nick Mele]

Entrance to Cliff Walk, the 3.5-mile trail bordering the shoreline. This is really one of the best walking spots in town [Photo: Nick Mele]

Aquidneck Lobster Company at the end of Bowen's Wharf was once just a place that sold live lobsters right off the fishing boats. Recently, it has been transformed into a new restaurant. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

The Black Pearl Restaurant on Bannister's Wharf, one of Newport's most iconic spots (renowned for its clam chowder). The Black Pearl was founded by Barclay "Buzzy" Warburton in 1967, who also founded the American Sail Training Association. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

Founded by David Ray, the Clark Cooke House, or simply The Candy Store, is another Newport legend. In the 18th century, the building was moved to its present location on Bannister's Wharf. In the early '70s it opened with multi-level dining topped off with the infamous Sky Bar. [Photo: Sam Bolton]

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LIZ SMITH: Happy Birthday, Whoopi Goldberg!!

November 15, 2013, 3:18 pm

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Happy Birthday, Whoopi Goldberg!!
Friday, November 15, 2013
by Liz Smith

“WHEN I first met Morgan Freeman, he was a hoofer and a singer. Then he became God, and the President!”

That was the great S. Epatha Merkerson, perhaps best known for her long tenure as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren on “Law & Order.” She told me this with a big laugh at Whoopi Goldberg’s birthday party in Sylvia’s the other night. (I don’t know what particular birthday it was, and why ask? Whoopi clearly just wanted to have a good time on her natal day.)


	S. Epatha Merkerson and Whoopi.

Ms. Merkerson is nothing like the screen character with whom she is most identified — serious, more than a little tough, not often breaking into a smile — well, what is there to smile about on those shows? But the real-life woman is a pistol, and not the dangerous kind. She is full of life and laughs and was a perfect tablemate.

We talked about her long stint on “L&O.” She recalled: “My agent said, ‘Oh, go ahead, take it. It’s money. It’ll be gone in a season!’ Who knew, 14 years! And they were always terrific to me, allowed me to do outside projects.”

I asked if she ever considered that her own character should have a spin-off show? “Well, now that you mention it ... why not?” Why not indeed? Are you listening Dick Wolf?

Next up for S. Epatha Merkerson is a documentary she directed, “The Contradictions of Fair Hope” (narrated by Whoopi Goldberg), about a benevolent organization, begun in 1888, that gradually lost its way and descended into something quite different and not at all benevolent. There are also two features in post-production, “Sexual Healing” and “The Challenger.”

S. Epatha Merkerson with women of the Fair Hope Benevolent Society (photo: Lisa Berg).


Whoopi takes the cake.

WHOOPI’S PARTY was surprisingly low-key. Well, maybe not so surprisingly. Whoopi doesn’t tend to make a spectacle of her life, except when she is performing. The crowd consisted mostly of close friends, not celebs. Although a few got in: Grace Hightower and Robert DeNiro (He looks younger in person and seemed quite happy to be at an event where nobody bothered him. Grace, actress/singer/philanthropist, is divine!) ... fashion’s Andre Leon Talley ... Julian Lennon ... HBO’s Sheila Nevins (she wore fabulous, dangling gold earrings — sexy and barbaric, like an Aztec queen) ... Stacey London, who recently finished up ten years on TV’s “What Not To Wear” ... the electrically-charged Jenny McCarthy, new to “The View,” with her main squeeze Donnie Wahlberg.

(They could not keep their hands off each other. But it wasn’t Too Much. When I mentioned to Donnie how handsome and in-shape he looked, the actor said, with a significant glance at Jenny, “She’s keeping me moving.” I bet! Donnie, who has really come into his own, can be seen on the TV series “Blue Bloods.”)

I also sat with one of Whoopi’s charming granddaughters, Amarah and her sizzling hot fiancé Chris. He wants to go into medicine, but with his looks I suggested a couple of years of modeling to pay those bills.

Whoopi with granddaughter Amarah.

SLYVIA’S LEGENDARY food was as lip-smacking as ever. Guests chowed down on everything from Whoopi’s Favorite Fried Pork Chops to Grilled Salmon with Mango Sauce. There were collard greens and Four Cheese Baked Macaroni and Lobster Mashed Potatoes. And then the desserts! I gave in to the red velvet cake. The place was filled with ravishing flower arrangements provided by NYC’s famous Marlo.
Whoopi’s speech was brief, she thanked her friends for joining her and didn’t go on much more. She wanted everybody to have fun.

Some of the lip-smacking goodies at Sylvia's.

A SPECIAL shout out to Whoopi’s longtime manager, advisor, assistant, and excellent friend, Tom Leonardis. He really knows his business and how to make everybody feel special and keep everything flowing. Tom was there with his attractive partner Keith Harris. (Although Keith actually prefers “boyfriend” even after 15 years.) Keith is just recovering from a freak accident---he slipped on a polished floor in his socks and ended up with a mess of problems, including some metal rods here and there. “It’ll be such fun at airports,” he said. But he’s in fine fettle now.

Tom Leonardis and Whoopi at the White House for a state dinner in 2010.

OH, one more thing. I got to talking with Ms. Merkerson — whom I finally just called “SE" to avoid mangling her name. She didn’t seem to mind — about the late Jerry Orbach. We laughed about his early career as a handsome leading man in the hit, “The Fantastics,” because people forgot it after “Law & Order.” But he was very good.


	“SE" on set with the all-knowing Jerry Orbach.

“Not only that” said SP, “but he knew everything, and every song. Once I was at my chiropractor’s office, and he was trying to recall a certain song. He was sorta humming. So, I called up Jerry Orbach on the set, and gave my doctor the phone. Not only did Jerry immediately know the song, he sang the entire thing! My chiropractor was in shock. I didn’t allow him to fuss with my back any more that day. He was too rattled.”

Finally, somebody did approach Robert DeNiro and complimented him on those funny new bank commercials he is in (DeNiro sits down next to a movie patron and totally spoils the films, and critiques it negatively.) The star was gracious. Then the fan said, “And I loved “Last Vegas” — I don’t care what anybody says.”

DeNiro did a mock growl, “Oh. No matter what anybody says?” The fan began to stammer and blush but DeNiro laughed and said, “I know what you mean, look, we all had a great time making it.”

A real star, and a real gent, Mr. DeNiro.

DeNiro spoiling the film in a commercial for Sovereign Bank.

Contact Liz Smith here.

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LIZ SMITH: Happy Birthday, Whoopi Goldberg!!

November 15, 2013, 3:19 pm

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	S. Epatha Merkerson and Whoopi.

S. Epatha Merkerson with women of the Fair Hope Benevolent Society (photo: Lisa Berg).


Whoopi takes the cake.

Whoopi with her granddaughter Amarah.

SLYVIA’S LEGENDARY food was as lip-smacking as ever. Guests chowed down on everything from Whoopi’s Favorite Fried Pork Chops to Grilled Salmon with Mango Sauce. There were collard greens and Four Cheese Baked Macaroni and Lobster Mashed Potatoes. And then the desserts! I gave in to the red velvet cake. The place was filled with ravishing flower arrangements provided by NYC’s famous Marlo.

Whoopi’s speech was brief, she thanked her friends for joining her and didn’t go on much more. She wanted everybody to have fun.

Some of the lip-smacking goodies at Sylvia's.

Tom Leonardis and Whoopi at the White House for a state dinner in 2010.

OH, one more thing. I got to talking with Ms. Merkerson — whom I finally just called “SE" to avoid mangling her name. She didn’t seem to mind — about the late Jerry Orbach. We laughed about his early career as a handsome leading man in the hit, “The Fantastiks,” because people forgot it after “Law & Order.” But he was very good.


	“SE" on set with the all-knowing Jerry Orbach.

“Not only that” said SE, “but he knew everything, and every song. Once I was at my chiropractor’s office, and he was trying to recall a certain song. He was sorta humming. So, I called up Jerry Orbach on the set, and gave my doctor the phone. Not only did Jerry immediately know the song, he sang the entire thing! My chiropractor was in shock. I didn’t allow him to fuss with my back any more that day. He was too rattled.”

Finally, somebody did approach Robert DeNiro and complimented him on those funny new bank commercials he is in (DeNiro sits down next to a movie patron and totally spoils the films, and critiques it negatively.) The star was gracious. Then the fan said, “And I loved “Last Vegas” — I don’t care what anybody says.”

DeNiro did a mock growl, “Oh. No matter what anybody says?” The fan began to stammer and blush but DeNiro laughed and said, “I know what you mean, look, we all had a great time making it.”

A real star, and a real gent, Mr. DeNiro.

DeNiro spoiling the film in a commercial for Sovereign Bank.

Contact Liz Smith here.

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LIZ SMITH: New York's "Living Landmarks"

November 18, 2013, 9:12 am

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Brooke Shields saluting Liz at Thursday night's Living Landmarks Gala.

New York's "Living Landmarks" — Alive and Thriving at the Plaza Hotel ... Alice Crimmins — A New York Scandal Revisited.
Monday, November 18, 2013
by Liz Smith

“BROOKE, you were great. So funny! And I love your dress. But when you get home, for God’s sake take those shoes off!”

That was the dynamo Chita Rivera, outside the Plaza Hotel one night last week, talking with the beautiful Brooke Shields after both had made wonderful impressions onstage in the Ballroom at the “Living Landmarks” gala.


	Brook and Chita at The New York Landmarks Conservancy's Living Landmarks Gala.

Brooke, given the new honor by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, was simply divine onstage and her white beaded dress was a stunner. But I wondered myself at the cruel high heels. She said of her honoring, “I thought they must have made a mistake!”

As emcee for this annual fundraiser, I noted that we had never had a spouse introduce a Landmark before, but the able Christopher Henchy did a great job of telling about his New York girl-actress-wife. (Mr. Henchy is a noted comic in private, a producer-writer of Will Ferrell’s hit movie last year, “The Campaign.”)

BUT every person made into a “Living Landmark” this year, and that person’s introducer — well, they were impressive and distinguished. And I want to note that people have become succinct in their brief and pointed acceptances. They were Dr. Bob Grossman, the hero of Hurricane Sandy who saved lives at the Langone medical center and school ... Mary Wells Lawrence, the advertising queen who broke the glass ceiling with her dashing ads in the '60s and '70s and the I Love New York campaign ... Wm. vanden Heuvel, friend of presidents and overseer of the completion of the FDR 4 Freedoms Park on the East River of Manhattan. (He led the audience in an offering of “Happy Days Are Here Again” ... the parks expert and historian Ann Buttenwieser who evoked the “Happy Hooker” in her own success, saying, “Your pleasure is my business!” ... the aforesaid Brooke ... and our divine honoree, Joel “Oscar and Tony” Grey who closed the show with his “welcome” song from “Cabaret,” sung acapella. (Joel was tellingly introduced by his Broadway admirer Miss Rivera!)

Living Landmark William vanden Heuvel, Lesley Stahl, and Living Landmark Dr. Robert I. Grossman.

iving Landmarks Ann L. Buttenwieser and Mary Wells Lawrence.

Living Landmark Joel Grey.

Chris Henchey and Living Landmark Brooke Shields.

THIS night brought out many Landmarks from the past and the Empire State Building glowed with Conservancy’s red and white lights. It was a 20th anniversary for this organization and under the firm hands of Peg Breen and Scott Leurquin, it has just grown better and is more fun. The night raised over $900,000 going to saving New York’s great monuments, parks, churches, buildings, etc.

The Empire State Building’s red and white lights.

I WANT TO publicly thank the philanthropists Pat and John Rosenwald for playing host for this gala. I was able to link with them with some fabled Landmarks of the past, as when we honored Laurence and David Rockefeller and I couldn’t think how to encompass all their virtues, so I introduced them as “Party Animals!” They loved it!

The big question now is who will be chosen for “Living Landmark” status in 2014. Maybe you yourself will do something wonderful to earn this.

"Party Animals" John and Pat Rosenwald.

THE OTHER night, The Discovery Channel (“A Crime to Remember”) ran an hour-long dramatization of the infamous Alice Crimmins case. This event rocked New York’s boroughs back in the mid-1960s. (Alice, a free-living, beautiful red-headed divorcee was accused of murdering her two young children, so as to better lead the swinging lifestyle she preferred. Although the kids had never cramped her style before.)


	Alice Crimmins was found guilty early the morning of May 28, 1968 of manslaughter in the first degree in the strangulation death of her four-year-old daughter Alice Marie. (AP Photo)

This particular episode was only an hour long. It was pretty good, and it certainly brought back memories of one of the most notorious crimes and trials in NYC history. One problem — the young woman who played Alice, bore a strong, remarkable resemblance to Lindsay Lohan. So much so, I kept thinking, “Did Lindsay sneak a movie in when we weren’t looking?” It was distracting!

This “take” on Alice made an excellent case for her innocence. Many people believe Alice was not convicted on the flimsy evidence — the notorious “woman in the window” who supposedly saw Alice and a male friend from afar, with a suspicious bundle, for instance — but rather spent ten years in prison because cops and much of the public were repulsed by her sexy ways. These were the '60s.

Watching this, I wondered why a good feature film was never made from the tale? It has everything — sex, mystery, murdered children, closeted homosexual, aggressive, sexist (and blackmailing) cops. And, in that backward era, a woman was not allowed freedom with her own body.

Even if Alice did do it, hers is a cautionary tale. No matter how far women think they’ve come, even in 2013, they are often negatively judged, because of what they wear, and how they behave.

Now, reality TV shows portray supposedly “strong” women. In fact, these creatures are presented in the most sordid light, encouraging bad behavior, coarse language, stupidity, cupidity and sluttish-ness without reason. And of course, they are produced by men.

Airen DeLaMater plays Alice Crimmins in "A Crime to Remember."

Contact Liz Smith here.

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LIZ SMITH: Conspiracy Theories ...

November 19, 2013, 5:44 am

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John F. Kennedy’s flag-draped casket lies in state in Washington, D.C., November 1963. Stan Wayman / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images.

Conspiracy Theories ... Lady Gaga ... Alec Baldwin ... and the INCREDIBLE Raquel Welch!
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
by Liz Smith

“THE moment that changed America” reads Time magazine’s November 25th edition — speaking of JFK’s assassination.

SO the conventional wisdom is that news magazines are finished and useless. I suggest you look at Time’s two stories by David Von Drehle (“Broken Trust”) and Jack Dickey’s (“The Debunker Among the Buffs”) on what the last 50 years means in terms of one of the most traumatic memories of recent times. It will perhaps occur to you to call it up on the Internet but this print edition is worth holding in your hands and keeping.

The reporters cited above did the most compelling wind-up of what JFK’s assassination caused and how it has produced spates of information for the conspiracy theories that are still being formulated.

“The suspects” are named — Lee Harvey Oswald, the “lone gunman” ... The Warren Commission ... Oil-rich Texans who despised Kennedy ... Lyndon Johnson ... the Mafia ... the CIA ... Castro. And on and on.

And we are told about a new book a minute. My own tendency is to use Lamar Waldron’s newest “The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination: The Definitive Account of the Most Controversial Crime of the 20th Century.” (Counterpoint books: www.counterpointpress.com, distributed by Publisher’s Group West.)

Waldron’s is a theory I believe in, how the New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello had the President killed, working with his mob ally, Tampa godfather Santo Trafficante ... all this from Marcello’s own words, uncensored FBI files and many FBI informants and agents. And it follows the connection of Lee Oswald, David Ferrie, Jack Ruby, as well as the attempts to kill Fidel Castro by the CIA. This is really riveting stuff and writer Waldron is authentic. Possibly a fanatic, but a considerable researcher.

This is the most trust-worthy — to my way of thinking — of the conspiracy theories. It includes info on the murders following JFK’s of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

Read the book, but be sure you see Time magazine. I also urge you to watch for “Parkland,” a feature movie I have mentioned before which deals only with what exactly seems to have happened that day in Dallas when JFK and Oswald both died in the same hospital within 48 hours of one another. (The material in this film of Oswald’s brother and mother is alone worth the price of admission.) This excellent film was released in October in a limited manner. It is now on DVD. Google “Parkland.” Fabulous actors abound in it.


	Lady Gaga as host of "Saturday Night Live."

STRIPPED of her bizarre outfits on “Saturday Night Live” (although some of her costumes were funny) — Lady Gaga revealed herself to be an adept comic performer in what was probably the most amusing “SNL” in quite some time. Her opening monologue alone was a scream.

She is truly talented and I respect her right to present herself however she wants. But just as I always pondered (and wrote) that Madonna didn’t need to be an aggressive sexual provocateur to impress, neither does Gaga have to get herself up in clothes that disguise her good looks and reduce her in the eyes of many to a somewhat freakish personality.

Of course, just as Madonna never listened to such well-intentioned criticism, neither will Gaga. And considering their success, I guess they’re correct to ignore me. (Madonna has just been cited as the Biggest Selling Singles Artist of All-Time. But, Rihanna is expected to overtake The Big M if the latter continues to sell as she does.)

THE still Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has announced that his Mayor’s Fund will accept donations and direct 100% of what you give to disaster relief in the Philippines.

They cite Operation Blessing International ... MAP International ... Team Rubicon and the Philippine Red Cross as the organizations most effective.

The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City can be reached at 212-788-7794. Call or send donations to 253 Broadway 8th floor zip 10007.

IRELAND BALDWIN, the daughter of Alec Baldwin, has come to his defense in Alec’s latest public dust-up with reporters and paparazzi. An event which included some extremely unfortunate inflammatory language from Alec.

Ireland — once the object of his temper, via that infamous phone message — says her dad has “grown a great deal” in his issues of anger management and “has a very kind heart.” She also insists he is no homophobe.

I adore Alec Baldwin. As an actor and as a person. That doesn’t mean I adore everything he says or does. I wish he could just walk away from situations, and zip his lip. And I wish he was not tormented by the press, who are blatantly hoping for, indeed encouraging, just such outbursts. I hope his MSNBC show is not cancelled, though it has been suspended for two weeks. (I think Alec is resigned to the show vaporizing.)

We now live in the culture of the forced apology and the call for everybody to be fired for what they say.

HAS HOLLYWOOD gone blind?! Okay, so it was Angelina Jolie’s big night at the Governors Awards the other night, justly honored for her humanitarian work. But hands down the most ravishing woman at the event was Raquel e Welch, who will not see 70 again. In blazing figure-revealing red, the star looked jaw-droopingly gorgeous, decades younger than her age and completely like herself — that is, if she’s undergone any “procedures” they have been masterfully done. What a woman! And such a woman should be working on TV, in feature films, on-stage.

Maybe the lovely Rocky needs more aggressive representation?

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LIZ SMITH: “SHE WAS a flashy babe!”

November 20, 2013, 8:45 am

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George Clooney's Stardom ... Carol Channing's Return ... Kim Kardashian's Face ... Barbra Streisand's, Uh — Gazongas? (And Her Voice Is Great, Too.)
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
by Liz Smith

“SHE WAS a flashy babe!”

That’s what actress Ellen Barkin, once a neighbor of Alice Crimmins, said of the flame-haired mother of two, convicted of murdering her children back in 1960s. (We wrote about the infamous case, which was revived in TV dramatization last week.)


	Tuesday Weld in "A Question of Guilt" (1978).

I received this interesting tidbit from reader Leo Marinello, who included an article in which Ms. Barkin expressed interest in portraying Mrs. Crimmins. Mr. Marinello reminds me that there was a TV movie about the case, starring the fabulous Tuesday Weld, but never a feature film.

Referring to Barkin’s remark about Alice, Mr. Marinello concluded: “While I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment that even in 2013 women are negatively judged because of what they wear and how they behave; it is not only men who are doing the judging. Maybe this will change someday but I have my doubts.”

Well, I have no doubt I have some really smart readers with long memories.

CAROL CHANNING’s people say that the announcement in the New York Times about Carol’s one-night-only stint in Manhattan was “premature and inaccurate.” The paperwork hasn’t been completed, though Miss Channing is expected to sign on the dotted line momentarily.

Also, although Carol’s January 20th appearance at Town Hall may coincide with the 50th anniversary of “Hello Dolly,” that is not the purpose of the event. But, if “Dolly” composer Jerry Herman is amenable, Carol would happily do something “Dolly-related.”

So there. My goodness. I actually wrote about a real live genuine living legend. I can’t promise there’ll be no more items about Justin Bieber or the Kardashians, but telling about the phenomenon Carol Channing was like taking a brisk, cleansing shower.

P.S. Speaking of Kim Kardashian (I told you I couldn’t promise!) I saw photos of her the other day and for the life of me, if I hadn’t known I was reading a story about Kim, I never would have known it was her. She’s blonde now, which does make an unflattering difference. (Not even Elizabeth Taylor looked good as a blonde.)

But Kim’s face seems strangely and drastically altered in some way. The whole “Kardashian thing” is not my cup of celebrity, but I did always think Kim was quite a beauty, and very polite, too. Odd — and this transformation seemed to have happened so swiftly, too.

I know — it's hard to notice, but look up. Kim has blonde hair now.

Liz in 1985 — back to brunette after a blonde phase.

THE MAJORITY of the attention Esquire magazine’s cover story on George Clooney has generated centers on few semi-caustic remarks the star made about Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio. But there is much more to Tom Junod’s profile of Clooney.

I was particularly taken with two sections of the piece. One was a physical description of Clooney that concluded: “Everything is to scale with him. Many people have long eyelashes; he has lashes as long on the bottom as on the top. His eyes look like they’ve been caught by Venus flytraps.”

And Junod sums up, more accurately than I have ever read before, the essence of Clooney the star: "... a famous person for whom fame functions as a kind of conscience. He knows what audiences want from him, in movie theaters; what gawkers want from him, on the red carpet; what reporters want from him, in interviews — and by and large he tries to give it to them. Even his lightheartedness derives from a sense of obligation; his casual approach to fame turns out to be one of the things he’s most serious about. Being famous is not just what he knows how to do better than anyone else; it’s arguably what he knows how to do better than anything else.”

Two more things. Clooney hates Twitter. If I didn’t love him already, I’d love him just for that. And, writer Junod sniffed out that Clooney smells of soap.

George Clooney might not be on Twitter, but there are Twitter fan club pages on his behalf for all those that wish he were.

WOW, TAKE a look at those gazongas!” That’s what somebody in my office exclaimed when Barbra Streisand’s new CD, “Barbra: “Back To Brooklyn” arrived. And indeed there is Miss Streisand on the cover, looking quite fresh, wearing a low-cut red gown, assets on display. And why not? (Film fans will recall her erupting sexily out of her costumes in such films as “On a Clear day You Can See Forever” and “The Owl and the Pussycat.”)

This CD is a live recording of Streisand’s triumphant concerts in Brooklyn last October. (Barbra was in magnificent form — and I mean her voice! — the night I saw her. And the audience was in a frenzy of adoration.) This recording includes nine songs that Barbra had never sung in concert before the Brooklyn stint. And, most touchingly, there is her duet on “How Deep is the Ocean” with son Jason Gould. Jason inherited more than a bit of his mom’s legendary pipes. I wonder that he hasn’t done more with this talent?

“Back to Brooklyn” is set for CD/DVD release next Monday. On November 29th PBS will show it at 9 p.m.

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LIZ SMITH: MORE Vampires?!

November 21, 2013, 6:37 am

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MORE Vampires?! ... Anna Gunn Moves On ... Elizabeth Berkley "Dances" On ... Bring Back The Automat ... A Sex Scandal Brews On Morning TV. (Or Does it?)

Thursday, November 21, 2013
by Liz Smith

“I NEVER drink ... wine.”

That of course is Bela Lugosi’s famous line from the original “Dracula.” The Count’s polite refusal of normal libation has been repeated down the ages by others who played the role, but Bela still stands alone in his delivery and menace.


	The Strain's Guillermo del Toro.

Speaking of vampires. Like zombies, they are undead, in myth and in movies and TV. This is the one genre that can’t suffer a stake through the heart. (Or shot in the head — that’s how you kill a zombie.)

Now we learn that acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro will present 13 episodes of a new vampire saga, based on “The Strain” a trilogy of books del Toro co-authored. Apparently the first season will tell how a “vampire virus” was conceived. The second — if there is one — will presumably show us how the vamps are being fought.

Hey, AMC’s “Walking Dead” continues to be a smash hit. So maybe FX will strike an artery with this one.

ARE YOU suffering from the end of the "Breaking Bad" fever. Well, in case you can't keep up with what goes down in TV and cable these days, let me pass on that the "BB" creator Vince Gilligan has signed on for an 8 figure deal with Sony which produced his "BB" drama on AMC.

As you probably know, creator Vince has a deal for a spinoff titled "Better Call Saul," in which his "BB" stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (now ready for sainthood) will play cameo roles. And Vince swears he will also direct the "Saul" follow-up himself and stick around for a year at least.

Meantime, actress Anna Gunn who played the betrayed or treacherous — depending on your point of view — wife Skyler, in "Breaking Bad" has her own fish to fry. She will play a detective as the lead character in a Fox series "Gracepoint." (This will be an American version of the BBC drama "Broadchurch.")

We will then see if all the crazy fans of "Breaking Bad" can stop attacking and wanting to kill her, so much so that she wrote a defense of herself as an actress in the New York Times op ed page. Now maybe they will worship her as a real life detective, one of the good guys!

ONE OF my favorite people is the actress Elizabeth Berkley. She survived being abandoned by everybody else connected with the (now) classic “Showgirls” and went out on her own to face the music. It was more of a dirge of bad reviews and lousy box-office. Of course, since then, the movie has made a fortune on video and DVD.


	Elizabeth Berkley and Val Chmerkovskiy in DWTS.

Elizabeth, who had come to fame on the teen-themed “Saved By The Bell,” held her head high. Honestly, I never thought she was bad in “Showgirls.” Everybody in the film was directed to project to the balcony — in China! Berkley did as her director asked. Too young to argue.

Elizabeth went on to some impressive stage, TV and screen work. She never appeared bitter. She just moved on, as they sing in “Chicago.”

Recently, she’s been seen on “Dancing With the Stars” looking like a million bucks. Now the mom of a one-year-old, Elizabeth says she’s in better shape, and feels far sexier than her old “Showgirls” days. She credits the endless training with her “DWTS” partner Val Chmerkovskiy.

She also tells In Touch magazine that despite her “Showgirls” role as an alluring dancer, she wasn’t that confident about herself. (Actually, to see the film now, she looks terrific but real, a body many women could identify with.)

I interviewed Elizabeth a number of times over the years and always came away with a little high. She’s very positive and forward thinking. And she’s mad for animals! I’m glad the “Stars” are dancing with her!

IT’S SUCH a fast moving, fast-food world. More than ever! And it caused me to ponder the good old days of the Automat. Some of you must remember? They were pretty big. Manhattan had quite a few Horn & Hardart automats, scattered all over town. They served simple but tasty little meals. You could see the food through windows. Put in some coins or a bill and out it popped. Quite inexpensive, and the many Automats were often hangouts for those who were in-between jobs, or actors (who are always in-between jobs.)

The old-fashioned automats were eventually killed off by faster fast food emporiums. I believe the last one in Manhattan closed in the early 1990s. It might have been the one just a couple of blocks from my apartment, on the corner of Third Ave and 42nd. There’s a Gap there now.

I say bring back the Automat. Make it faster, gussy it up, but keep the essentials.
And don’t say it can’t be done. Back in the mid 1960s, when skirts rose and heels fell, fashion experts predicted high heels would never return. Ha!

The 1970s wave of nostalgia for the '40s and '50s brought back the platform shoe. Within a couple of years, women were again sauntering on high, slender stilettos. If you can bring back crushed toes and backs thrown out of alignment, you can bring back a mac and cheese, pushed through a little glass window.

I AM usually loathe to print blind items. For one thing, Michael Musto does it so much better! But I can’t resist.

What early morning news show might be teetering on the edge of a tremendously entertaining scandal?

It does not involve anybody being fired, promoted, drugs drink or use of N, C or F word slurs.

However S-E-X is playing a big factor! Rumors are all over the Internet, naming names. I can’t go down that road. (Ah, to be young and have made your name in the reckless age of cybergossip!)

If it’s true and it breaks open, media rivals and columnists will be clutching their heads in glee. The participants will not be so joyful.

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LIZ SMITH: Can't Let Go ...

November 22, 2013, 8:01 am

≫ Next: Jill Krementz covers Isa Genzken at MoMA

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Lamar Waldron Won't Let Go Of The Kennedy Assassination ... Raquel Welch is "Able and Willing" ... Kim Kardashian and her "Contours" ... Marilyn and Chanel No. 5. (She Doesn't Want to Say "Nude.')
Friday, November 22, 2013
by Liz Smith

“TO THIS day I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,” the Secretary of State John Kerry said in a slightly un-noticed public speech to Tom Brokaw just the other day.

If you have “had it” with more word on this famous conspiracy, which is being enacted during the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, you can skip what follows. But, don’t.

My friend Lamar Waldron, whose book “The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination: The Definitive Account of the Most Controversial Crime of the 20th Century,” which I praised the other day, adds this to his historic charges.

And there are many news breaks that haven’t been written about before. Author Waldron wants to ask you, the reader, to act to help by petitioning the White House to release files and get pardons for ex-Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden. They only need 99,999 more signatures to go.

After you read this, here’s the link where you add your name.

LOST among all the coverage is that a Congressional Investigation, that had access to far more information; for instance that the 1964 Warren Commission concluded back in 1979 that JFK was most likely killed by a conspiracy involving godfather Carlos Marcello.

Waldron in 1985 warned that the FBI had convinced Marcello to confess. He provides even more background in his new book. A prison cellmate of Marcello, Jack Van Laningham, got the latter to talk. (Later Jack passed the FBI’s polygraph test so the FBI believed he wasn’t lying.)

Carlos Marcello before the Senate Rackets Committee in March 1959.

Marcello told Laningham that the shooters for JFK’s hit were imported from Europe. They practiced shooting on Marcello’s New Orleans estate. He already controlled Jack Ruby and his nightclub in Dallas. He also controlled godfather Santo Trafficante and Mafia don Johnny Rosselli, friend to Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. (Rosselli’s body was later found in a drum, his legs chopped off.)

Godfather Marcello attempted to have his gang kill JFK three weeks before Dallas when the President was in Chicago. The Kennedys kept this evidence out of the press for the sake of security.

The Cosa Nostra men (l. to r.) Attorney Jack Wasserman, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, Frank Ragano, Attorney Anthony Carollo, Frank Cagliano and John Marcello at La Stella Restaurant.


Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden with his wife Barbara, 1964.

THE FBI continues to withhold all the Marcello tapes, although they should have been released a decade ago. Experts say there are ten of thousands of pages that have not yet been released.

Waldron also wants the release of an agent named Abraham Bolden, the first black presidential Secret Service agent chosen by JFK. Bolden was framed by the Mafia says the author. And he fights to clear his name ever since.

The planned film on Marcello and the undercover operation “Legacy of Secrecy” is still in the works. Leonardo DiCaprio will produce and play FBI informant Laningham with Robert De Niro playing Marcello. Director David O. Russell will no longer direct because of conflicts with his movie “American Hustle.”

But DiCaprio still wants the movie made and you can help make the White House release all the FBI information on this.

FORMERParade editor Walter Anderson knows I’m fond of his daughter, Melinda, and writes to say that the other eve, on the U.S.S. Intrepid, during the Marine Corps Ball, famed international photographer John Moore, proposed and Melinda accepted.

They should make quite a couple — John has the Pulitzer Prize for his photos from Getty Images and Melinda is an Internet expert.

Engaged! Melinda Anderson and John Moore.


	MM and Chanel — a little dab'll do ya.

“PEOPLE ASK what I wear to be bed. Like, pajama bottoms or tops? So, I say ‘Chanel No. 5’ Because I don’t want to say ‘nude.’ But, that’s true!”

By now many of you have seen the brilliant Chanel No. 5 TV commercial with great clips of Marilyn Monroe— usually fighting her way through mobs of fans and press — and her own words used, talking about what she does (and doesn’t) wear to bed.

The Chanel people could have shown glamorous photos of MM — including the classic of her holding a Chanel bottle while dabbing the fragrance into her cleavage. But these candid moments, and her own words, in her real voice, is more visceral and exciting.

It is truly a phenomenon. No star has held onto the popular imagination as securely as Monroe. Others were as beautiful and talented, but very few had that essential quality of vulnerability that stood her apart from others during her lifetime and made her a historical figure in death.

RECEIVED A lovely e-mail from Raquel Welch, responding to our rave here about her appearance at the Governors Awards last week.

Miss Welch says that she hopes this new chapter of her life will bring her the kind of roles “I can really run with ... and believe me I am willing and able to work hard to make that happen!”

Hollywood, are you listening?

SEVERAL FANS of Kim Kardashian wrote in (very nicely) to say that Kim’s “new face” is really her old one, with a different kind of makeup. She’s wearing less, they insist, but there is “more contouring” involved.

I do not sit with Miss K. at her dressing table so maybe this is true.

OKAY, ALL you “It’s a Wonderful Life” fans, relax (for now.) Paramount Pictures, which bought the rights to the 1946 RKO classic some years ago, says that those who wish to now make a sequel — a grisly idea! — don’t have sequel rights and won’t get them, if Paramount has anything to say about it.

I hope Paramount sticks to its guns and tinsel.

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Jill Krementz covers Isa Genzken at MoMA

November 22, 2013, 9:59 am

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Genzken's work has been part of the artistic discourse since she began exhibiting in the mid-1970s, but over the last decade a new generation has been inspired by her radical inventiveness.

Isa Genzken Retrospective
November 23, 2013 to March 10, 2014
MoMA


	MoMA is the perfect setting for the Isa Genzken retrospective. Her installations and MoMA's environment are seamless.

Isa Genzken (German, b. 1948) is arguably one of the most important and influential female artists of the past 30 years. This exhibition, the first comprehensive retrospective of her diverse body of work in an American museum, and the largest to date, encompasses Genzken's work in all mediums over the past 40 years.

Although a New York art audience might be familiar with Genzken's more recent assemblage sculptures, the breadth of her achievement — which includes not only three-dimensional work but also paintings, photographs, collages, drawings, artist's books, films, and public sculptures — is still largely unknown in this country. Many of the nearly 150 objects in the exhibition are on view in the United States for the first time.

The exhibition is organized by Sabine Breitwieser, MoMA's former Chief Curator of the Department of Media and Performance Art; Laura Hoptman, Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture; Michael Darling, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Jeffrey Grove, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Dallas Museum of Art; with Stephanie Weber, MoMA's Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art.

The exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue and a full-scale film program, will travel to Chicago and Dallas following NYC.

The past 10 years have been particularly productive for Genzken, who, with a new language of found objects and collage, has created several bodies of work that have redefined assemblage for a new era. These groups of sculptures range from smaller, diorama-like works to room-filling installations.

The entrance to the sixth floor galleries. The wall is covered with photographs of Isa Gentzken and with posters from her various exhibitions.

Visitors are greeted by a dozen mannequins--Schauspieler (Actors), 2013-- many of which are gender neutral.

Sabine Breitwieser, Former Chief Curator of MoMA's Department of Media and Performance Art, was the "initiating Curator of the show." Ms. Breitwieser is now the Director of Museum der Moderne in Salzburg.

The large photograph is a blowup of the artist's 1980 "Ear Project."

MoMA curator Laura Hoptman is one of the four organizing curators of the exhibition.

Michael Darling and Jeffrey Grove with Isa Genzken.

Michael Darling is the Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Jeffrey Grove is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Dallas Museum of Art.

Some of the clothes are Isa's own while others were found or purchased.

This multipart installation, completed over the past year, is on view for the first time.

Paul Jackson, Senior Publicist, and Margaret Doyle, Director of Communications.

Visitors wandering among the ensemble are meant to feel like actors in a theater or on a film set, hence the title of the work: Schauspieler (Actors).

Whether or not this mannequin is making artist Walter Robinson feel like an actor or that he needs to spend more time at the gym — that is the question.

Many of the mannequins are accesorized with a wide range of hats and even a playful monkey.

Anna Belgiorno-Nettis, 23, and Janelle Grace, 27, Publicity Coordinator in Communications.

Ellipsoids and Hyperbolos, 1976–82

To create this series of large-scale wood sculptures, Genzken relied on two elementary geometric principles. The volumes called Ellipsoids represent two mirrored curvatures that converge at their outer poles and touch the floor at only one center point. The Hyperbolos, on the other hand, are volumes composed of two mirrored curvatures that radiate infinitely from a single central meeting point.

In an approach both rare and prescient for the time, Genzken designed these works with the help of a customized computer program that calculated their proportions. She then planed and lacquered them by hand.

The sculptures are so large the artist had to work on them in the hallway outside her studio at the Düsseldorf Academy where she was working and teaching.

Contemporary critics associated the sculptures with canoes, arrows, and even gigantic toothpicks— figurative readings that made them stand out in an artistic milieu dominated by the reductive formal language of minimalism.

In 1980, during one of her frequent trips to New York City, Genzken photographed, with permission, the ears of female passersby in the streets of Manhattan. "Not a single woman said no," she later recalled, "because I didn't ask for their face but for something largely anonymous."

The photograph on view, shown here, represents an exception to the project's rubric because it features Genzken's own ear, photographed by the artist Gerhard Richter.

Genzken met Richter in Düsseldorf as a student in 1972, and several years later they began a relationship that would culminate in marriage in 1982. During their almost fifteen years together, their interests converged at certain junctures.

Weltempfänger (World Receiver), 1988-89 Multiband radio receiver

This work, a stock multiband radio receiver unaltered by the artist, is Genzken's only true readymade— a term coined by the early twentieth-century artist Marcel Duchamp to describe prefabricated, often mass-produced objects elevated to the status of art by the mere act of an artist's selection and designation.

Genzken once declared, "A sculpture must be at least as modern as the most modern hi-fi systems." When first exhibited, the Weltempfänger was shown with a group of Ellipsoid and Hyperbolo sculptures as well as a series of Ear photographs—a contextualization that suggested the conceptual affinities between all these works, which describe the intersection of aural and visual perception.

Parrallelogramme, 1975

The works in the foreground are: New Buildings for Berlin, 2004
Glass and silicone on wood pedestal, four parts

In the background, on the walls: Two gelatin silver prints and thirteen chromogenic color prints, 1998/2000

In the early 1990s, Genzken began to experiment with epoxy resin as a sculptural material. Casting it around steel armatures, she was able to create large-scale architectural structures in the form of translucent windows and doors.

Capturing and reflecting the ambient light, they exemplify Genzken's continuing fascination with architectural forms and their interaction with space and the environment.

Fenster is the largest interior work from the series.

It incorporates concrete and resin, a combination that emphasizes the sculpture's play with the contrast between structural solidity and transparency.

MoMA Director Glenn Lowry with Michael Darling and Jeffrey Grove.

This magnificent 1992 sculpture, not surprisingly, is titled X.

Peter Reed, Senior Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at MoMA. The young woman with eye-glasses is Masha Chlenova, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture.

Ian Wallace worked on the catalogue. Stephanie Weber is Curatorial Assistant, Media and Performance Art.

Gallerist David Zwirner. By the mid 2000s, Genzen's work had attained large visibility not only in Europe, but also in the United States where, in 2005, she joined the David Zwirner Gallery.

Ann Temkin, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture.

Anne Umland, Leah Dickerman (Painting and Sculpture), and Cora Rosevear.

Ms. Rosevear is singled out in the catalogue's acknowledgments for being "the first curator in the United States to propose an American museum exhibition to Isa Gentzken, way back in 1976. She was a friend to Genzken during her formative years, and her counsel during this project was essential."

Anne Umland organized the spectacular Magritte exhibition, also on the 6th floor. Do not miss it.

The artist in front of X-Ray, 1991, a Gelatin silver print printed in 2013.

Between 1989 and 1991, with the help of a doctor who gave her access to professional equipment, Genzken produced thirty such x-ray prints in various sizes. They depict the artist drinking wine, smoking, and generally breaking the rules that usually govern hospital environments.

Considered to be self-portraits, they are made from x-ray scans rather than negatives.

Michael Darling plants an affectionate kiss on the artist.

Isa Genzken and Laura Hoptman.

Filmmaker and art historian Amei Wallach whose beautiful new documentary Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here, has been showing at Film Forum. Ilya Kabakov is a seminal Russian-born artist whose work is definitely crucial not only to Russian art, but also art history at large.

Paintings by the Russian artists are currently on view at Pace Gallery until December 21st.

As you approach the next gallery be sure to take a look at the three books in the partition.

I Love New York, Crazy City, 1995–96
Paper, gelatin silver prints, chromogenic color prints, and tape, in three books

In 1995 Genzken spent several months in New York with the idea of potentially settling there permanently. Moving constantly from hotel to hotel around Manhattan and without a studio space, Genzken had to work accordingly: she walked through the city with a camera, taking hundreds of photographs of its architecture and street life.

At one point, she started pasting the photographs into scrapbooks alongside the prosaic souvenirs of her stay—hotel bills, notes to friends, cocktail napkins, invitations to nightclubs, and the like—creating a record of her activities and, in her words, a "guidebook" to New York City " for people who wanted to experience New York differently: a lot crazier, more multifaceted and beautiful."

Fuck the Bauhaus, 2000
Plywood, cardboard, plastic, shells, and tape

With this installation, Genzken simultaneously pays tribute to, and rebukes the legacy of, the Bauhaus— a legendary, influential German prewar art and design school.

One of the core principles of what became known as the Bauhaus style in architecture was the subordination of form to function and, accordingly, the removal of unnecessary ornament.

Made from construction-site netting, stones, seashells, a cardboard pizza box, and a Slinky, among other materials, these lavishly decorated architectural maquettes are Genzken's wry response to the Bauhaus tenet of rational and austere functionality as well as an excellent example of her use of found and mass-produced objects to make a three-dimensional sculpture.

There is a small mechanical Hawaiian doll on the floor, so keep your eyes open.

Spielautomat (Slot Machine), 1999–2000

The Slot Machine is a three-dimensional collage that can be read as a compact self-portrait.

The sculpture is adorned with images of Berlin and New York as well as of her close friends (note the artist Kai Althoff applying eyeliner at lower right and the artist Lawrence Weiner toward the bottom of the sculpture).

Crowning the work is a portrait of Genzken made by her friend the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. Genzken first exhibited the work in 2000 as part of the exhibition Urlaub (Vacation) in Frankfurt, a context in which it made specific reference to the casinos common to beach resorts in northern Germany.

It is this work that is featured on the cover of the 335-page exhibition catalogue. The lavish publication contains comprehensive profiles of the artist by all four organizing curators, an essay by Lisa Lee, a detailed chronology of the artist, and 130 well reproduced plates.

Warning: Do not drop on your foot.

The Schwule Babies (Gay Babies) are made from a combination of household appliances that come from two highly gendered realms: the kitchen and the toolshed. Aluminum baking tins, sieves, and whisks mingle with chains, rakes, and wrenches.

The resulting sculptures, as their collective title suggests, are assemblages that playfully take on issues of gender and sexuality. Painted with a mix of spray paint and colored lacquer, they call to mind the flamboyant, fluorescent style of techno dance culture centered in Berlin.

Der Amerikanische Raum (The American Room)

2004 Desk, office chairs, filing cabinet, lamp, spray paint on ceramic and plastic figurines, plastic flowers, plastic and metal lockboxes, metal bowls, dried pine needles, painted glass ornaments, perforated metal sheets, colored cellophane, plastic security cards, and tape.

Simultaneously alluding to a commemorative hall of heroes and a corporate CEO's office,"The American Room" is one of the first examples of the room-size sculptural installations that characterize the artist's most recent practice.

It is also one of a series of installations on the theme of American power. Reflecting on the interrelation between nationalism, globalism, and consumerism. Eagles, the national bird of both the United States and Germany, are included in two of the sculptures.

Genzken included universally recognizable symbols of American culture such as the miserly Walt Disney character Scrooge McDuck.

Scrooge McDuck holding a fistful of dollars.

Empire/Vampire: Who Kills Death, 2003–04, displayed on multiple pedestals.

Following a 2003 trip to New York City, Genzken wrote a screenplay entitled Empire/Vampire, ostensibly about two New York architectural icons: the Empire State Building and the neo-Gothic Chrysler Building, which Genzken interpreted as a vampiric presence.

Shortly thereafter, she began a series of diorama-like assemblage sculptures on the subjects of war and urban mayhem that she christened Empire/Vampire: Who Kills Death.

At the time, the possibility of an American-led war in the Middle East—a controversial response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—loomed large in the public consciousness. The Empire/ Vampire project evolved into two series of sculptural assemblages and a single-channel video projection, also on view in this gallery.

Seen at roughly eye level, the sculptures allow viewers to immerse themselves in the miniature dramas taking place in each composition.

Genzken purposefully sought out cheap mass-produced materials like shoes to create scenes that evoke the chaos and violence of terrorist attacks and the American invasion of Iraq.

More destruction.

An up-close look at a snail and a Buddha resting on a bed of sunflower seeds.

The last gallery: Kinder Filmen; or Ground Zero, 2005

Church (Ground Zero), 2008

Da Vinci, 2003
Synthetic polymer paint on air plane window frames, four parts

This sculpture represents the airplane windows of the 9/11 aircraft.

Soon (inside) (Ground Zero); 2008
Synthetic polymer paint on mirror and plastic, eleven parts

As I've mentioned, keep your eyes peeled for installations at floor level. The title of this installation is Kinder Filmen III, VI, VII, XI, XII; 2005. You can spot ceramic figurines, utility carts with wheels, an electric fan, fabric hats, books, pens, and printed paper. I'm sure you'll find even more. That's why you should go for yourself. I'm just giving you a head start.

Spray paint on umbrellas and orange rubber gloves, and coils of lit-up beads are among the artifacts here and pictured below.

Utility cart with wheels.

Shotglasses on a tray at bottom.

David Zwirner strolling through the final gallery.

As you exit the exhibition, there is an installation on the floor so be sure to look down.

Sabine Breitwieser is with Stuart Comer, her successor at MoMA.

The artist as she was leaving the press preview on her way to a small luncheon in her honor.

As you leave the museum I suggest you take the escalator down rather than the elevator so you can see Gentzen's "Oil XI" first exhibited in the German pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale.

The sixteen-part installation, with its accumulation of roller-board suitcases, calls to mind a transit station that has suddenly been abandoned, perhaps due to an unseen threat.

The artist's intention is to evoke the Zeitgeist of a world in the grips of the War on Terror.

Closer looks at pieces of abandoned luggage.

Three astronauts, identified as NASA employees by the insignia on their uniforms, float overhead, as if exploring the ruins of a devastated culture.

As always with a major exhibition, there was a private evening reception for invited guests hosted by Glenn Lowry and the trustees.

The artist did not attend.

Arriving early for the evening reception I stayed warm by waiting next door in the museum's film lobby. I had the good fortune to hang out with one of my favorite curators, Christophe Cherix, MoMA's Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, who, like me, was waiting for the doors to open at 7 PM.

It is in this building that the first comprehensive U.S. retrospective of Genzken's films, including a recent feature-length venture, will be on view in the weeks ahead.

While we were waiting Glenn Lowry arrived with Anna Marie Shapiro, one of MoMA's Life Trustees and Monsieur Cherix good-naturedly assisted them with their coats; there's a discreet closet for "special guests" behind the counter.

Anna Devere Smith whose series "Nurse Jackie"
is in Season Six.

Chris Apgar, Managing Director at Wells Fargo and MoMA trustee, with MoMA's Cora Rosevear.

Susan and Glenn Lowry. Susan, a serious horticulturist, is completing work on a book about the gardens of New Jersey. Why New Jersey? "Because nobody's done New Jersey. All they think of when they consider the Garden State is the Turnpike. That's it. There's so much more."

New Yorker Art Critic Peter Schjeldahl.

Peter Schjeldahl and his colleague Andrea Scott in front of my favorite installation. Ms. Scott is the Art Editor of the magazine's "Goings on About Town." I love the magazine's recent up front redesign.

Jane Anderson (a lawyer) with her partner, artist Andrea Geyer and their 5-month-old twin boys: Moss and Neko.

Andrea joked: "She carried them and I got the baby fat."

Art critic Larry Qualls with MLR, 1992
Oil on canvas

Gallerist Jack Shainman and artist Carlos Vega. Shainman gave Genzken her first solo exhibition in New York in 1989. Carlos Vega is one of his current artists.

Artist Brad Kahlhamer with Alice Sparkly Kat. Kahlhamer's just-closed exhibition at Shainman received a rave review in the Times last Friday.

On the left is Eleanore Hugendubel, a director at Gavin Brown. Opposite, Andrea Scott and Peter Schjeldahl. They are all looking at Isa's New York scrapbooks.

Jeffrey Grove.

Gallerist Friedrich Petzel with Quintus and Cosima Von Bronin. Ms. Von Bronin is one of the top artists in Petzel's Chelsea stable. Quintus, an investment banker, is her brother.

Janine Latham and Friedrich Petzel. Janine is a teacher and described herself as "his girlfriend."

Designer Rachel Inman and graphic artist Tony Lee, both 24, are recent graduates of Carnegie Mellon. Mr. Lee designed the Wall text for the exhibition.

The wall text.

The floral arrangement could be confused with a Genzken sculpture but this photo was taken next door to the museum when I retrieved my coat stashed in the secret cubby.

Remember those large ears you saw displayed on the wall? Well mine can hear a dime dropping from a million miles away.

↧

LIZ SMITH: Do them with enthusiasm ...

November 25, 2013, 7:22 am

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Jennifer Lawrence on "Letterman" — Strictly from "Hunger" ... The Unmistakable Voice of Fred Astaire ... New and Unusual on Broadway — "The Commons of Pensacola" ... For an Intimate French Experience, Come to Veau d'Or ...
Monday, November 25, 2013
by Liz Smith

“YOU WILL do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm,” said Collette.

IT IS difficult to equate the brilliant actress Jennifer Lawrence and her big movie hit “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” with the silly promotion the Letterman show gave her the other night where she behaved as if she were nuts. Maybe winning the Oscar and extreme success is all nerve wracking. Letterman doesn’t help when celebs go astray — the sillier the better for him; he has nothing to lose.

A lot of TV these days looks like accidents about to happen. I guess that’s the point.

THE excellent Manhattan Theatre Club is offering another play with a meaningless title that you can’t remember when people ask what you’ve seen. “The Commons of Pensacola” is actress Amanda Peet’s debut as playwright and it is slight and mercifully short.

But it boasts two popular names, good actress Blythe Danner and the dedicated star Sarah Jessica Parker and a neat cast. (I especially liked Nilaja Sun as the sensible maid.)

If you want disheveled glamour masquerading, then the glorious Ms. Danner and the super famous Sarah Jessica Parker are here looking mostly terrible. Ms. Parker deserves an A+ for acting in unattractive attire showing she is a real drama queen. Even the most failed actress wouldn’t be seen in such drek.

The play about a Madoff type comedown is so slight it becomes almost invisible as the actors struggle with the same dialogue over and over.

This “try” directed by Lynne Meadow is more of a curiosity than realized. But when you can get Blythe Danner and Sarah Jessica Parker onstage, I it doesn’t matter. I love them both and they are real theatre pros.

The Times liked this play, even with its forgettable title. You always have to give the Manhattan Theatre Club a break for all the good it does in the theater.


He could sing and dance.

FRED ASTAIRE is best known for his magnificent, effortless dancing. But a lot of people don’t realize he had a charming, evocative (if light) singing voice. In fact, his contributions to the musical film as a singer are invaluable, his voice unmistakable.

Fred introduced and/popularized such classics as “Night and Day” ... ”Cheek to Cheek” ... ”Top Hat, White Tie and tails” ... "A Fine Romance” ... "A Foggy Day”…”They Can’t Take That Away from Me” and dozens of others.

Now Sony Mastersworks in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies will release a new 2-CD set; “Fred Astaire: The early Years at RKO.” This is available now (Fred in Turner Classic Movies “Star of the Month” in December.) Log in on www.SonyMasterworks.com.

"All my partners were wonderful, but I always had a soft spot for Rita Hayworth — she was divine," said Fred Astaire.


	Behave yourself and Cathy will feed you very well.

EVERYONE who knows me, knows that I am enamored by Veau d’Or, an old-fashioned French bistro between Lexington and Park on East 60th street. This café has been thriving in Manhattan since the 1930s and has been owned by only two families.

Now, it operates at the whim of the beautiful and charming last family’s daughter, Cathy Treboux. It’s almost like a private club, but if you behave yourself, Cathy will take you to her heart and feed you very well. And the Veau is a place where you can talk and hear yourself think.

This café had its heyday during the era of “the lates” — Vogue’s Diana Vreeland ... Jackie Onassis ... Truman Capote before he blew himself up socially and others of literary, food, and social fame. Not long ago, the Veau won the James Beard award as the best French bistro in the U.S. and the father of Cathy (now gone to his reward) exclaimed on winning: “It’s all bull-sheet!”

Robert Treboux greeting Jacqueline Kennedy and Orson Welles, while Bobby Short looks on from the bar.

I LOVE THAT such a big deal was made about Justin Bieber requiring guests at his recent raucous party in L.A. to sign $3 million “confidentially” agreements. Who doesn’t do that, these days?

Tom Cruises'wives allegedly are “asked” to sign up. It’s really not a bad idea. It protects the celebrity, and it even protects guests and wives and others who toil for the celeb. The tattle-tale never comes out of it looking good, always the victim those infamous two words “disgruntled ex-employee” or “scorned wife.”

Justin: Hmmmm ... I hope somebody talks. I'd sure like that extra three million!

YOUNG Robert Summerlin, M. Treboux grandchild, has lately been making waves in Paris.

If you happen to go to the Great Canadian Sports Pub on the Left Bank, you can ask for him. He is very attractive, speaks English and French and can discuss international sports until the cows come home. Customers love him and go there to keep up with soccshaker and everything else.

When Robert went traveling, his mother followed his adventures avidly via postcard. Suddenly, came a spate of them.

Robert had arrived in Paris virtually penniless and went to Shakespeare & Company’s bookstore, famous for having launched James ”Ulysses” Joyce, and others in the days when it was home to the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and other starving literary geniuses.

The world's most famous bookstore in Paris; owner George Whitman with daughter Sylvia, who now runs it, and had a baby only weeks ago.

ROBERT had heard that this literary shrine, founded by “the character” George Whitman, and run by his daughter, Sylvia (she welcomed a baby only days ago) sometimes lets traveling young people stay there on mats during the night, keeping things neat and safe.

This situation appealed to Robert Summerlin and he promptly joined the ranks of literary caretakers and nabbed a job tending bar nearby.

The room where Robert is allowed to sleep on a mat. All the cats of the Shakespeare are called "Kitty" like all the cats before her.

Incidentally, when New York’s restaurant critic, Steve Cuozzo recently wrote about the great and famous La Grenouille restaurant on 52nd Street, he defied convention. He said that while the rage is to go downtown to loud blasting new eateries that one can’t get into, some of the best eating places are still on Manhattan’s east side in midtown. He names La Grenouille as the best and sure enough, not too long ago USA Today named Veau d’Or. It came right after La Grenouille as tops in the French contests of the U.S.A.

So, when Robert Summerlin gets tired of Paris and sleeping on the floor of Shakespeare & Co., he will doubtless take his turn at Veau d’Or, letting his youthful mom go home and take a night off. Meanwhile, he is writing his travel memoirs and sending delightful postcards of Shakespeare & Co.

The motto of Shakespeare & Co. books "Live for Humanity."

George Whitman, the founder who died in 2011, was known as "eccentric."

If food and drink and reading about food and then going out to eat are the new “theater” of New York, you should give the Veau (or golden calf) a try. That is if Cathy is feeling happy and doesn’t lock the front door at 9:30 as she has been known to do — locking out celebrities whose names I promised her not to print as they are so famous or distinguished.

She prefers parties of four and people who act civilized and for customers not to question the wine list or try to bring their own. You can, however, when you are there, bid on the rare bottle of red, vintage 1923, given to me by the late Malcolm Forbes and his sons on one of my too many birthdays.

I hope to be there the night Cathy uncorks it to see if it is still “living” and drinkable.

The staff outside the Shakespeare, friendly and encouraging to rock stars and the creative.

Contact Liz Smith here.

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LIZ SMITH: "Hey Kitty, Kitty" ...

November 26, 2013, 5:51 am

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"Hey Kitty, Kitty" — Miley Cyrus Purrs through The American Music Awards ... Allison Janney's Brilliant "Masters of Sex" Performance ... The History of Debutantes ... How the Internet Has Changed Our Language.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
by Liz Smith

“MY DEAR, I want you to know that even though we are sitting down, we are giving you a standing ovation,” said Zero Mostel in “The Producers.

SPEAKING OF standing Os, every time I switched onto The American Music Awards Sunday night, somebody was being vertically ovated. I know the place was packed with talented people, but honestly, were the chairs that uncomfortable? A standing ovation used to be something really special. Now it is just an excuse for people to stretch their legs. Or to stand up and take cell-phone pictures.

Even Lady Gaga was in ovation mode (taken by another standing guest and his cell-phone).

JUST ABOUT the only thing about the awards show that stuck with me — and millions of others — was Miley Cyrus belting out her “Wrecking Ball” hit with an adorable sort of “space kitten” on the screen behind her. Hard to know what it meant or what to look at, despite the brevity of Miley’s outfit. But these days, young Miss Cyrus is more interested in having people talk about things like this, than really listen to her music. She has got quite a pair of pipes on her.

I mean her voice. She doesn’t need kitties or rump-grinding or that rolling tongue. But once you’ve been a Disney girl, you are apparently scarred for life. For the next ten years all you can seem to do is try to make everybody forget you were ever associated with mouse ears. Miley is doing it with a "wrecking ball."

I LOVE the (almost serious) speculation I heard over the weekend that the mammoth success of “Hunger Games: Catching Fire” was going to inspire hoards of young girls who identify with Jennifer Lawrence’s heroine Katniss, to go out with a bow a arrow and have at an unsuspecting real-life populace, willy-nilly.


	Beau Bridges (as Barton Scully) and his sexually starved wife, Allison Janney (as Margaret Scully). Photo: Stephanie Diani for wsj.com.

I HAVE been meaning to rave about the incredibly moving and real performance Allison Janney has been giving on “Showtime’s “Masters of Sex.” Ms. Janney plays the sexually starved wife of university head Beau Bridges.

By this point, her character may or may not know her hubby is a closet homosexual, but her agony at both his disinterest in her physically and his genuine deep love for her, has provided Janney — and the show — with some of its most masterful moments.

Her monologue last week (to of all people, one of her husband’s paid lovers) about the pain of no longer being wanted was itself Emmy-worthy.

Janney has a number of Emmys already for her acclaimed work on “The West Wing.” But too much is never enough as Mae West used to say.

P.S. Janney has a significantly less traumatic role in the CBS sitcom, “Mom” with Anna Farris. The usually seriously actress is very funny here!

I APPRECIATED the way the postman staggered to my building with Anna and Graydon Carter’s advance Christmas gift. It is the big Vanity Fair coffee table offering which would make a perfect gift for anyone who cares what the glitterati has been doing “from the Jazz Age to Our Age.”

The accompanying card read, “In anticipation of another government shutdown, we thought it wise to mail early this year.”

I found myself three times in this tome and appreciated being a small part of cultural history.

I suggest this as the gift for the person who has everything and you can buy it from Harry Abrams for $65.

YOUNG AUTHOR Diana Oswald is bringing out a coffee table book titled “Debutantes: When Glamour Was Born.”

A party celebrating the book happens December 12th, 5 to 7 p.m., at one of my favorite spots, Swifty’s on Lexington Avenue at 72-73rd Streets. Try to get yourself invited to this throwback to yesteryear.

From “Debutantes: When Glamour Was Born."

ENDFACTS: The Internet used to be the bane of my existence. I didn’t “get” it. I’m better now, but still prefer to read newspapers and magazines.

But one aspect of the now jammed cyberspace is all the news words and terms we use, commonly, everyday, that have sprung from this technology.

Researchers says that there are at least 50 new words the Internet has given us. (Or in some cases old words with new meanings.) Among them are “Social Media” ... "Website” ... "Troll" ... "Twitter" ... "Blog" ... "Hashtag” ... "Stream” ... "Facebook” ... "eBay” ... "Viral" ... "Online” ...

And of course, the infamous “Selfie” which can bring down careers, humiliate you and loved ones for life, or land you on a porn site, quite unbeknownst to you.

At the very least, over-use of the “selfie” brands you a narcissist par excellance.

Contact Liz Smith here.

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LIZ SMITH: Thanksgiving Doting ...

November 27, 2013, 3:24 pm

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Thanksgiving Doting.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
by Liz Smith

“THANKSGIVING IS indeed the nearest thing we have to a national liturgy. From sea to shining sea, it calls forth a grand harmony of groaning boards .... Yet, what must we think of a nation that, as the central motif of this gustatory concerto, insists upon a bird that has a name used chiefly as an insult!”

So pontificated Episcopal theologian Robert Farrar Capon way back in the 1980s when he was writing of Thanksgiving for the New York Times.


	Robert Farrar Capon extollied the benefits and wonders of old-fashioned home cooking.

The dear old turkey has suffered the slings and arrows of many attackers, yet if the big bird is simply roasted properly, according to excellent recipes (and there are millions of them) the dish can be quite tasty bearing no resemblance to the horrible processed “turkey” we get offered every day in delicatessen sandwiches.

AT any rate, people go on trying to let turkey-eating get out of control to make Thanksgiving “special” because they eat about 46,000,000 million turkeys each November. And approximately 80% or 31.2 million Americans travel by car, 4.7 million by plane, 33 million by train or bus for this holiday in order to get with family, hated in-laws, deserted cousins and dear friends. And along with turkeys, Americans also celebrate at this time the lowly cranberry, which is one of the rare fruits native to North America.

The above-mentioned Rev. Capon noted that Thanksgiving “is the only nationwide festival we have that still involves honest and considerable ‘sit-down eating.’ It is the perfect holiday, superior to all other federally finagled four-day weekends.” He noted that “other holidays are ... vacancies in time ... Thanksgiving, by contrast, has not only a common theme but a common ritual as well ... Thanksgiving is better even than Hanukkah, Christmas, Passover or Easter. Those festivities, while they involve unifying activities, are enjoyable chiefly in anticipation. The feasts themselves are letdowns. Advent, for instance, is fun: it has in Christmas, a future that brightens each dark December day. When Dec. 25 finally rolls around, it is simply a present with no future whatsoever to look forward to. Thanksgiving, however, has Advent, Hanukkah and Christmas waiting to burst upon us the minute the dishwasher is loaded.”

I RATHER admire writer Bryan Miller’s defense of the turkey. He says the bird “deserves respect for tradition’s sake,” noting that “more than any other food, it embodies the early American spirit; tireless effort against depressing odds, spiritual sustenance, season renewal.” And, he adds the reminder that turkeys are close to red meat in protein content but only about 11 % fat, even less if the skin is not included. A serving has about 9 grams of fat and that is unsaturated.

So, chow down, you food purists!

SETIMENTALISTS believe the first Thanksgiving occurred about 1621 when early settlers shared a feast with native Indians. (I rather imagine they were more worried about the natives eating them than in what they had to eat with the natives.)

It wasn’t until back in the 1820s that President Abraham Lincoln declared a Thursday in November “a national day of Thanksgiving.” But it was the poetic magazine writer Sarah Josepha Hale who badgered and prodded throughout the 19th century for there to be a real Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday. (This woman also wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”)

Congress didn’t really act on her suggestion until 1941, while it was busy with World War II.

"The First Thanksgiving," 1915, by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris.

I LOVE Thanksgiving because it’s the one holiday one doesn’t have to worry about proper gift-giving. You can offer to bring or make dessert, or grab a bottle of champagne, a bouquet of flowers, a box of candy and everybody thinks you’re a prince.

I see that the late and sainted Russell Baker didn’t think much of eating turkey on Thanksgiving. He said he rated turkey-eating “as just slightly better than the Miss America Pageant, but not quite as good as the Super Bowl and about on a par with the Academy Awards show.”

Thanksgiving according to Russell Baker.

I am happy that most of my friends have very good cooks, or they are very good cooks. They follow directions that make their turkeys come out perfectly. Add gravy, which I can make with one hand tied behind my back, and stuffing of almost any variety, plus cranberries — Viola! Perfection!

And what about the next day? Turkey with cranberry sauce, mayonnaise on white bread, whole wheat or rye. This is truly the reason to observe Thanksgiving. And I do mean — the day after!

We have much to be thankful for even in perilous times and so I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and all the best part of the turkey. (I love the Pope’s nose myself!) Thank heaven Ben Franklin didn’t get his wish of making the turkey the national bird.

We’d be eating eagle!

Truly the reason to observe Thanksgiving.

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LIZ SMITH: THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING ...

November 29, 2013, 7:21 am

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THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING.
Friday, November 29, 2013
by Liz Smith

Let’s take it easy today with this post-Thanksgiving poem:

T’was the night of Thanksgiving, but I just couldn’t sleep.

I tried counting backwards, I tried counting sheep.

The left-overs beckoned — the dark meat and white.

But I fought the temptation with all of my might.

Tossing and turning with anticipation, the thought of a snack became infatuation.

So I raced to the kitchen, flung open the door and gazed at the fridge, full of goodies galore.

I gobbled up turkey and cold buttered potatoes, pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes.

I felt myself swelling, so plump and so round, ‘til

All of a sudden, I rose off the ground.

I crashed through the ceiling floating into the sky with a mouthful of pudding and handful of pie.

But I managed to yell as I soared past the trees, “Happy eating to all; pass the cranberries, please!

May your stuffing be tasty, may your turkey be plump.

May your potatoes and gravy have nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious, may your pies take the prize.

May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs.

Oh, and enjoy the leftovers!

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LIZ SMITH: Manhattan Glamour — Where Has It Gone?

December 2, 2013, 5:29 am

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Hollywood Will Pay Anything To Be "Eaten Last" By Bette Midler ... Lindsay Lohan's Lovely Yams (No, I Really Mean Yams!) ... Britney Spears Can't Sing "Aida" But She Is Back in Her Own The Groove ... Manhattan Glamour — Where Has It Gone?
Monday, December 2 , 2013
by Liz Smith

"ANYONE WHO lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination,” said Oscar Wilde.


	Expensive, yes. But worth every cent!

BETTE MIDLER’S acclaimed stage portrait of agent Sue Mengers is titled “I’ll Eat You Last.” But some are saying it should be titled, “I’ll Eat You — Fast!”

The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles is a small theater but orchestra seats for Bette are $397 ... next to last row and mezzanine sides $275. I guess the producers know that (especially) in Hollywood, an audience interested in seeing this does not care about dropping $1,000 for a 90-minute show. (This includes travel, babysitters — yes, people in Hollywood do have children that must be watched. And then, dinner.)

I saw this show on Broadway and Miss Midler is worth every cent. What a performance!

WE ALL know the kind of “selfies” Lindsay Lohan has made a habit of sharing over the years. But now that she appears to be much more together, her pics are remarkably wholesome. At least they were just before Thanksgiving. There was Lindsay doing all sorts of domestic things, with captions such as “yummy!” next to a shot of the flame-haired actress and her homemade yams.

I’d like to see Hollywood take her seriously again, and give her another chance in movies. But for now, her luscious yams and a clean and sober lifestyle are just fine.

ANOTHER TROUBLED beauty, Britney Spears — although long gone are the days of head-shaving and midnight ambulance runs — is garnering nice reviews for her latest CD, “Britney Jean.” Although one review just had to remark: “There’s nothing Britney could have done to embarrass herself more at this point.” This critique referred to her pointedly as “modestly talented.” (Not exactly a new take on the singer.)

But now, despite her lack of genius, Britney is a “cool but accessible dance-pop diva — willing to dangle the occasional profanity to keep us alert, but ultimately more into the groove than anything else.”

I always felt for Britney and I am glad she appears to have people around to take care of her and keep this mother of two adorable children calm and productive.

YIKES! Bitchin’ in the Kitchen! Former employees of well-known chef Nigella Lawson insist the voluptuous brunette beauty was a stove-top drug abuser for over ten years. Of course, these employees are also being charged with defrauding Nigella and her ex-hubby out of almost half a million dollars. They say Ms. Lawson happily tossed the cash at her ex-workers so they wouldn’t blab about her drug use. For ten years?! Nigella has had a rough time of it recently. Her divorce was messy — remember those tabloid photos of her husband allegedly trying to strangle her in a public place? And now this.

Cooking is supposed to be soothing. Maybe it’s different in Britain?

Nigella in more soothing times.

NEW YORK and Palm Beach society, or what’s left of it, is interested to hear that the Texas oil legend named Oscar Wyatt, who went to jail for shenanigans in the Bush era, has hit paydirt, via a $500 million payday in a deal with a Malaysian investor.

Coastal Energy, in which Oscar, 89 and now out of prison in Houston, admits he owns a 25% stake that is paying him off with a big cut.

What a comeback as they say. Houston newspapers report that “his ageless wife Lynn Wyatt, the Socialite of the Century,” continues to preside over Houston society.

I remember when Oscar was away. I urged Lynn to move to New York and enjoy what’s left of her life. She refused. “Honey, I love all of you in New York but I’ve got to go to visit Oscar in prison every single weekend and that’s my priority.” Lynn was and is ever the loyal charmer.

TAKI Theodoracopulos has written a lovely tribute for Quest magazine’s November issue. In it, he argues that the old, more glamourous New York of the past is gone with the wind. No more El Morroco, no Stork Club, no Rainbow Room, No Elaine’s. Big Russian and Asian oligarchs have bought multi-millionaire property during the real estate boom because they must invest somewhere in something of value. The rest of us live in apartments we can’t afford and consider leaving Manhattan.

Taki laments that Sinatra’s ”city that doesn’t sleep” is asleep except after dinner, downtown and in the boroughs where new clubs and exotic restaurants and stay-up-lates abound for the young rich crowd.

I note that it gets sleepy early on the East Side. Recently, I came out of the Beekman Theater across from Bloomingdale’s after seeing a film; it was only 9:30 on a Friday. The Italian restaurant nearby, the old Isle of Capri, was locking its door and refusing late diners. But downtown I’m sure things were swinging. Hunted around, had some fast food and went home.

Taki deplores the loss of glamour from the past just as some of the French did after Marie Antoinette went to the guillotine. This is life. This is change. We have to go with the flow.

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LIZ SMITH: Thanksgiving Stuffin' ...

December 3, 2013, 7:32 am

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Tony winner Angela Lansbury in "Mame."

Thanksgiving Stuffin'— Kim, Kanye and MM ... Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt ... The Eternally Shirtless Justin Beiber ... Elizabeth Taylor, AIDS Activist ... Lady Gaga ... Justin Beiber ... Mark Wahlberg .... Sinead O' Connor ... Happy Holidays! (So Far)
Monday, December 3, 2013
by Liz Smith

“AT THAT time in my life I was into wash-and-wear men who required no effort to maintain with no harm done. I wanted men who were easy to clean up after, cheap men, simple men to have sex with, to be served and serviced by, so I could forget what I know for a while.”

So says forensic genius Kay Scarpetta, the heroine of Patricia Cornwell’s latest crime fiction, “Dust.” This is the 22nd in the Scarpetta series (not counting “Food to Die For: Secrets From Kay Scarpetta’s Kitchen.”) Cornwell’s grasp on her beloved character is as sure as ever. And one doesn’t need to be familiar with the rest of the series to get into “Dust.” (Although it helps.)

The autopsy stuff can be pretty grisly, but, well — it’s autopsies!

I read this over the long Thanksgiving/Hanukkah holiday. I also dove into an older novel I’d somehow missed, titled “Gideon,” by Russell Andrews. It is subtitled “A Thriller” and it lives up to that. Supremely creepy and exciting. I know, I know. I should have been reading something soothing and more appropriate. What can I can I say? — among my many blessings I’m thankful for thrillers. And biographies.

HOLIDAY MEANDERINGS: So, what else happened while we were digesting?

... Kanye West declares his fiancée, Kim Kardashian, to be the Marilyn Monroe of her time. Alas, this remark was followed by a grubby “selfie” that Kim took in a public bathroom, with Kayne in the background, for once looking like he’d rather not be part of the Kardashian circus.

... Lady Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were a surprisingly charming pair, crooning “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” on Gaga’s holiday TV special with The Muppets. The sweetly perverse aspect (remember, this is Gaga!) was the role reversal; Gaga taking the man’s lyrics and JGL, as he is known by fans, the reluctant woman’s role. He can carry a tune fairly well, and was adorable. The Lady was dressed glamorously in red and looked, well, like a Lady. Okay, this will never compare to Mae West and Rock Hudson performing it at the 1959 Oscars, but what could ever top that!

... Reading several issues of the Hollywood Reporter, I laughed out loud when Emma Thompson said her “scariest moment” on a movie set was when director Ang Lee said, during the filming of “Sense and Sensibility” — “Don’t look so old!” Miss Thompson is the proverbial pistol. Oprah, who took part in this interview — along with Julia Roberts, Octavia Spencer, Amy Adams and Lupita Nyong’o— exclaimed to Emma: “You are the woman to have at a dinner party!”

... In another issue of The Hollywood Reporter, there was Justin Bieber on the cover with his manager, Scooter Braun. “Justin Bieber Is Not Sorry” was the title of the piece. All I got from it was that Bieber just doesn’t like to wear a shirt — ever — and he’s still growing up and why doesn’t everybody get off his back? I was also interested to learn that despite his popularity and infamy he has yet to score a significant single. Bieber brought up Mark Wahlberg as an example of somebody who didn’t like to wear a shirt and also had a bad boy rep when he was Marky Mark. Perhaps. But Whalberg grew up fast, and today at age 42, stands as one of Hollywood’s most influential actor/producers, a very smart man. We shall see we how Beiber marks time until he’s 42.

... From the fascinating Sinead O’Connor came this in Time magazine: “There’s a dreadful practice in this country ... which is a complete breach of human and civil rights, of paparazzi lynching — that’s what I call it — young female celebrities perceived to have a mental illness, trying to get photos of them looking like they’re having a breakdown. The girls are not offered a hug or a percentage.” You’ll recall Sinead recently composed an “open letter” to Miley Cyrus, warning the 20-year-old that she was traveling a dangerous path. Miley paid this no mind. In fact, she issued some sort of video Christmas greeting that was so outré, part of had to be blacked out in photos.

... Again from The Hollywood Reporter (the best mag for show biz info, hands down!) Angela Lansbury, talking about her film career: “It was a short, sweet career. You know, I’d been trained to be a stage actress, and theater was the thing I loved.” Miss Lansbury is a class act. If Hollywood had had more imagination, she might have been one of the greatest movie stars. But she was difficult to fit into any particular slot, and ended up playing character roles decades before she should. Brilliantly, of course. And then came “Mame” and Angela rocketed to the top of the Broadway heap, where she remains today.

DO NOT miss HBOs “The Battle of AmFAR.” This documentary traces the formation of AmFAR in the earliest, deadliest days of the AIDS epidemic. It focuses on the co-founders, Dr. Mathilde Krim and Elizabeth Taylor. (I am so proud to still be on the board of this great organization.)

One of most fascinating parts of the film is how Elizabeth got her old friend Ronald Reagan to finally utter the word AIDS and address the issue. I won’t tell. Just watch it.

And how glad I am that Elizabeth’s strenuous efforts in this area have not been forgotten. Up to the very end — and I mean the very end — when she was in constant, agonizing, pain, she put herself out there for the cause, and was planning to attend an AIDS fundraiser in New York, when she was hospitalized for the final time.

Taylor auctions off a diamond mask at a 1992 AmFar event.

La Liz would continue to fight for the cause, even years later, when wheelchair-bound.

ONE LAST note, an unhappy one. I didn’t know Paul Walker. I had seen a few of his films. Including several “Fast and Furious” entries. And there was one real heart-tugger, “Eight Below,” about rescuing a beloved sled dog. But I met him once, and he was completely natural and down to earth. I’d heard he really didn’t care for acting, but since he couldn’t fulfill his dream to be a marine biologist, it would have to do. It was a brief conversation. He didn’t seem like an actor at all. Except, with his looks, it was inevitable. (Those incredible blue eyes!)

What a horror his death was. And even worse that it came while he was doing charity work for the typhoon-ravaged Philippines. Many people commented, after reading his obits, that they weren’t even aware he was involved in various charity works, and had been for years.

Contact Liz Smith here.

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LIZ SMITH: On The Block ...

December 4, 2013, 6:23 am

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Lot 54: MICHAEL JACKSON WORN CRYSTAL GLOVE. Estimate: $40,000 – $50,000.

Michael Jackson Memorabilia Goes On The Block ... Rockettes Still Wow In Christmas Show ... The BBC's "Top Gear" — Next Guest, The Pope? ... NYC's Barbetta Restaurant Out For Repairs.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
by Liz Smith

“IT IS strange to be so known so universally and yet to be so lonely,” said Albert Einstein.

ON DECEMBER 7th, the London-based auction house, Knaisz, will offer up fifty pieces of memorabilia that once belonged to Michael Jackson.

Among the items are the famous white cotton glove, covered in Swarovski crystals, which Michael wore when performing “Billie Jean” ... a fedora he also wore in concert and Jackson’s famous “moonwalking” shoes. The glove alone is expected to pull in at least $50,000.

Lot 32: MICHAEL JACKSON WORN BLACK FEDORA HAT. Estimate: $2,000 – $2,500.

Lot 46: MICHAEL JACKSON WORN AND SIGNED LOAFERS. Estimate: $8,000 – $10,000.

What might go even higher are several drawings made by Michael himself. This is Knaisz's very first auction, and they sure are beginning with a bang. The president and CEO of the auction house says, “We feel great respect for Michael Jackson because he is the most important figure in the history of pop music ... we would like to allow fans to take home a piece of their idol.” If you want to know more about this event log on knaiszauctions.com.

My only question is — what is the Jackson family getting out of this? I can’t believe these items slipped through their hands.

Lot 25: MICHAEL JACKSON OLD MAN DRAWING. Estimate: $1,500 – $2,000.

THANKSGIVING week I was chided for writing about this all-American holiday and leaving Christianity out of it. I suppose now, if I congratulate Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas show this year, with its ending of the Baby Jesus, etc. I’ll get some hell about that!

Well, I bow to no one in my veneration for Christmas and as much as I love the Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall and love Santa gliding down from the North Pole, acrobatic ice skaters and all the rest of the glamour, fun and fantasy at Radio City this time of year, I defend the right for the show to end with the manger, the camels, lambs and donkeys, the three wise men bearing gifts and all the rest.

"The Living Nativity" at the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

I am not a fanatic like Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly who are defending Christianity in their books. And I think nowadays we have a Pope in the Vatican who is perfectly capable of defending Christianity in a human way.

But I don’t like saying “Happy Holidays” when I actually mean “Merry Christmas” ... though, to each his own. And a decent balance for those who believe and think otherwise, wanting others to say “Allah is great” or “Happy Hanukah.”

Snowflakes flying overhead.

I just adored the Radio City show this year and especially the “snow” they poured down on the audience at the end. It is still falling out of my shoes. I have loved and defended this annual event, once upon a time even hopping up when I had the power to help keep the Rockettes in place. I have never missed the Radio City show since I first came to New York after World War II.

One of my favorite things in life is/are the singularly amazing Rockettes and their parade of the wooden soldiers. What would Christmas be if we had never had that experience? Boom! Goes the cannon as they fall linking arms, in a sight only they can offer up.

"The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers."

I’d say if you have money for only one spectacular annually, be sure to take your children and loved ones to 50th and Avenue of the Americas. It’s worth giving up something else to go and see this show.

A bright and delightful and over-powering spectacle of glamour and old-fashioned sheer show biz that will cheer you up with its latter day modernizing which can’t break the thing we dream of as children. Linda Haberman is the genius who reminds us every year of what Christmas is all about. It runs through December 30th and you should call 866 858-0007 or visit radiocitychristmas.com and see what you can afford to pay for this incomparable experience.

ONE OF my favorite treats on television is the “Top Gear” shows done on the BBC and when all else fails, I go back and watch their racing, their silliness, their comparisons, their successes and failures. (For instance, can one drive through the Swiss alps faster than one can fly!) As an example, this popular British series is mindless and competitive and pointless!

They often have huge name guests who come on after the competitions and talk to the “big three” stars who good-naturedly compete on this outing. I haven’t the foggiest what their names are, but they know everything about machines, engines, internal combustion and how to fix things that go wrong with machines. My favorite was the night they invited the great Dame Helen Mirren to come on at the end of the show and discuss her concepts of the invention of the combustion engine.

I saw a “Top Gear” episode recently in which the protagonists compared Renault and Lamborghini and some others and I had an idea. Why doesn’t “Top Gear” invite the Pope to be on their show? He drives an antique Renault and he’d be a great guest.

The Pope's 1984 Renault.

ONE of Manhattan’s most loved and the oldest continuous family-owned restaurant in the city — Barbetta — suffered a kitchen fire over the last few days and is out of commission. This beautiful, rare, theater-district eatery on West 46th street (“Restaurant Row”) has always been a favorite of the gods. It has the most beautiful garden attached in all of New York.

Owner Laura Maioglio, as reported this week by Cindy Adams, is at sixes and sevens about what exactly happened and how she can fix it? This disaster has happened to the restaurant at the very time of year that business is at its peak. We’ll keep you posted.

And we wish the mighty Laura all the best.

Dining in Barbetta's garden.

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Sarah Flint: Designer of shoes that are “comme il faut”

December 4, 2013, 6:26 am

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Sarah Flint in her SoHo showroom. The designer’s shoes, ranging in price from $545 - $1,200, are all hand-made in Italy.

Sarah Flint: Designer of shoes that are “comme il faut”
by Delia von Neuschatz

“Taste over trend” is shoe designer Sarah Flint’s credo and as such, her eponymous collection is a beautiful breath of fresh air. If you’re looking for blinged-out sky-high stilettos, read no further. But if you’re in the market for carefully crafted shoes with style and quality written all over them, then you have just found yourself a favorite new designer.

It is a pre-occupation with the past, particularly the styles of the 1940s, which inspires this 25-year old’s ladylike designs ... up to a point. The slim sexy heels brings them squarely into the present. Heidi Klum is a fan and this Project Runaway judge should know a thing or two about spotting young talent.

Heidi Klum wearing the Crawford, a style she has ordered in several colors.

Made out of textured calf suede, the Crawford – priced at $845 - is nice to look at and feels good to the touch.

Spying a gap in the marketplace, she “wanted to create a product where the design is dictated by structure and fit and the integrity of the material rather than by what you put on top of the shoe,” says Flint. In this, she found a kindred spirit in Richard Siccardi, a pattern-maker and much sought-after instructor at the prestigious Ars Sutoria footwear school in Milan, Flint’s alma mater.

Richard Siccardi at work on one of Sarah Flint’s styles. Siccardi is integral to the operation for not only is he a business partner and production manager, but the detailed designs are born of his and Flint’s close collaboration.

She approached him about starting a label, but not before doing her homework. As Siccardi is routinely tapped by students eager to partner with him in launching their own footwear lines, Flint knew she had to come up with a solid course of action. It helped that she grew up listening to her venture capitalist father talking about start ups — what made them successful and the challenges they face. So, she put together a business plan, secured some funding and recruited several industry veterans. Not bad for someone who’s just barely out of design school.

With styles that borrow from the meticulous details of Japanese origami, there are no shortcuts taken with this footwear. The tabs, for example ...

... are constructed with a folding wire. They are not merely stitched into place.

And speaking of school, Flint’s fashion chops are assured. Not only did she receive intense training at Ars Sutoria, the premier footwear school in the world, but stateside, she is an alumnus of both Parsons and FIT and has internships at Diane von Furstenberg and Proenza Schouler under her belt to boot.

The Hayworth in peacock calf suede from the A/W 2013 collection.

Most (if not all) designers recall an early love of fashion and Flint is no exception. At the age of 15, she applied for a job at the luxury retailer in her town, a suburb of Boston, only to be turned down on account of her age. Undeterred, she returned to the store week after week until the manager relented and hired her as a sales assistant. It wasn’t long before the high school student became the store’s top seller. “As a designer, the experience of working in retail is invaluable,” says Flint.

Boots from A/W 2013.

A detail from the Winchester boot.

So, where does this Massachusetts native get her love of fashion? Flint is quick to credit her grandmother with whom she admits to sharing clothes. Now, it’s safe to say that most young women don’t share clothes with their mothers, much less their grandmothers, but then, there aren’t too many grandmothers like Joan Flint around. Sharp, artistic, a long-time denizen of Paris and eternally chic, it is easy to see why her granddaughter considers her a style icon.

Sarah with her grandmother. Joan Flint is a painter and sculptor who lived in Paris on the picturesque Ile Saint-Louis for many years. Sarah fondly recalls going with her to museums and galleries during her visits to the City of Light.

The Maggie in coral nappa and stingray from S/S 2014. The stingray heel is difficult to construct due to the skin’s rigid cartiliginous nature.

With her second collection (S/S 2014) completed, Flint is now hard at work on A/W 2014 and on expanding the number of stores that carry her brand. New Yorkers can currently find her footwear at Tribeca’s beautifully-curated Edon Manor boutique and through her website. With designs that are sure to look as good a decade from now as they do today and quality that will guarantee longevity, Sarah Flint is certainly “One to Watch” as proclaimed by Women’s Wear Daily. Shoe mavens, stay tuned.

More styles from S/S 2014.

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LIZ SMITH: Garbo Talks! ...

December 5, 2013, 5:35 am

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"Gimme a viskey. And don't be stingy, baybee." Greta Garbo's first words, in her first talkie, "Anna Christie."

Ann Richards Awash in Gifts ... New Yorkers = Good Sports? ... Garbo Talks! ...Thanksgiving Corrections ... Vidal On “Inventing a Nation" ... Show Business ... The Fabulous Baranski Girls ... Miley Cyrus As Role Model.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
by Liz Smith

“LORD, how did we get ourselves into this kind of rat race celebration. What would Jesus do? Certainly, not own a charge card. It has dawned on me that Christmas is coming and I cannot ignore it!”

This was the late governor of Texas, Ann Richards, awash in the need to have gifts for two sons, two daughters, numbers of grandchildren, employees, friends and enemies.

I JUST had an e-mail from a reader who said what good sports New Yorkers are, how friendly and in great spirits. I don’t exactly know where this person has been visiting but I sure do want to go there!

MAYBE YOU won’t consider this news the disaster I do. The Library of Congress just revealed that 70% of silent films, made between 1912-29, have been lost forever. And of the 30% that remain, many are incomplete or of lower quality formats.

The silent film era offered remarkable artworks; sensual, terrifying, funny. They swept audiences into a land devoid of sound, but rich with imagery.

When sound debuted in 1929, it had a shaky start, but soon took over. Stars such as Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin resisted as long as they could, but eventually sound was in, and as MGM trumpeted for “Anna Christie” — “Garbo Talks!”

More than ever we owe a debt to Turner Classic Movies and the people at Criterion DVD, who devote such care to restoring, preserving and offering older movies, including silent movies, in all their mystery and beauty.

I RECEIVED so many “corrections” as to when Thanksgiving was conceived and made into a national holiday that I am thinking I won’t write about that particular holiday from now on. The certainty of suggestions “who” and “when” ran from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt.

I did dip into Gore Vidal’s book titled “Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson” and his jaundiced look at how these United States almost came not to be and not to last and, at first (and nowadays) was almost ungovernable.

He notes: “Washington’s steady presence and regal confidence more than compensate for his poor performance in the field against British generals, themselves every bit as striking in their mediocrity as he.” (The Father of our country, vain and a mediocre soldier?! What will biographer David McCullough have to say about that when his book is published?)

Vidal writes: “Adams alone saw virtues in monarchy — not England’s, but one of our own, with titles for the men of power .... If Adams was the loftiest of the scholars at the Continental Congress of 1775, Thomas Jefferson was the most intricate character, gifted as writer, architect, farmer ... and, in a corrupt moment, he allowed his cook to give birth to that unique dessert later known as Baked Alaska.”

And then there was that dark presence, Alexander Hamilton. A “soon-to-be financial genius, ever eager for profits and commerce for the new nation ... also sternly pro-aristocratical” ... While these four favored the creation of a Republic, if not an American monarchy, each saw the original blueprint from a different angle.”

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence in the United States Capitol Rotunda.

And so Gore Vidal concludes that when we see Nancy Pelosi striding through the Capitol building speaking of how we are a great democracy, the founders actually thought, and Vidal died thinking, that we are actually a Republic.

Whatever we are, we are still fighting about voting, how to, when to, how to control voting and we are still a nation of “haves” and “have nots” (inevitably the founders thought) And we are still, in effect, fighting about slavery. And the “haves” are afraid of the “have nots” just as they have been since the beginning of human races.

Read this not new Vidal book; it’s slender and tells history in a hurry. It was published by the Yale University Press.


	The Good mother: Christine Baranski (with daughter Isabel).

AND ON to show business, our real business here. I am in receipt of a lovely note from my friend Christine Baranski. This award-winning actress, while off from her hit series “The Good Wife,” has been in London filming “Into the Woods.” She thinks/hopes this Stephen Sondheim musical will be “pretty fabulous.”

Christine is enjoying the wild success of a fifth season on “The Good Wife” where she is allowed to play a mid-life human female who is not only an excellent, combative lawyer, but is also allowed to have an interesting sex life.

Her real-life daughter Isabel will make Christine a glamourous grandmother any moment now.

ENDQUOTE:“I’ve always had a lot of anxiety, and I’ve dropped that completely and really started living in the moment and not thinking anything too much — really practicing what I preach when I say not to worry what other people think and be who you are to the fullest. I’m proud of knowing that’s what I encourage other girls to do.”

That’s Miley Cyrus in Entertainment Weekly’s “Entertainers of the Year” issue. Now, Miley might be the nicest 21-year-old in the world — she is certainly savvy when it comes to her career. But, what exactly does she think she is encouraging “other girls” to do?

Being “yourself” is one thing. Being an entertainer and making a spectacle of yourself is something else entirely. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with making yourself a spectacle, but “other girls” can’t do that in real life. Particularly not in this cyber-age of instant everything and relentless bullying and the expectations of real-life young men who see a spectacle and want to take advantage of it.

Declaring yourself a role model — especially to vulnerable teen-age girls — is one of those things that can bite-you-in-the-ass, bigtime.

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LIZ SMITH: One should use much, much more! ....

December 6, 2013, 7:02 am

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Marilyn with March of Dimes poster children at the MOD gala at the Waldorf Astoria, 1958.

How Hollywood Helped Defeat Polio ... Diane Keaton Steps In For the Eternally Modest (Or Something) Woody Allen ... What Would Jesus Think About Obamacare — Honest, this Question Has Been Asked!
Friday, December 6, 2013
by Liz Smith

“WHEN ONE is young, one should use a lot of mascara, and when one is old, one should use much, much more!”

That was Dame Sybil Thorndike’s advice to Marilyn Monroe in the delicious 1957 movie, “The Prince and the Showgirl.” (Laurence Olivier was MM’s co-star but the less said about that, the better. They did not see eye to bodice.)

Marilyn Monroe with co-star Dame Sybil Thorndike in "The Prince and the Showgirl." Photographed by Milton Greene, 1956.

IN THE summer of 1957, leading up to the gala premiere of “The Prince and the Showgirl” at Radio City Music Hall, Marilyn involved herself in a number of charity appearances. The premiere itself was a benefit.


	A glowing MM attends the premiere of "The Prince and the Showgirl." Despite appearances, she was not about to be rocketed into space.

One such was the big March of Dimes gala at the Waldorf Astoria. I know this because on the last page of the latest Hollywood Reporter there is a rare photo of MM, beautifully dressed in sedate white satin, with two little girls, stricken with polio. Grace Kelly, who was by then Princess Grace, also attended.

MGM had joined in, making fundraising possible in movie theaters; empty cans were actually passed around and donations taken. “This is the only non-profit in U.S. history that cured the disease they were set up to fight,” says Universal Studios president Jimmy Horowitz who also now chairs the March of Dimes annual Celebration of Babies luncheon. They are now focusing of premature births. Bill Higgins and Meena Jang wrote this piece and it was fascinating to me — the real beginning of the show biz glamour charity circuit.

I MYSELF will add a bittersweet postscript. Marilyn, then married to Arthur Miller was actually pregnant at this time. She would attend the massive premiere of “The Prince and the Showgirl” wedged into a flamboyant gown with the fishtail bottom so popular in that era. She was glowing. (The mob around Radio City Music Hall was so tumultuous and unruly in anticipation of Marilyn, that Ava Gardner, scheduled to attend, had her driver turn back.) Monroe would miscarry less than a month later. It was her second miscarriage with Miller, and another was to follow two years later.

The mob scene at the premiere.

DIANE KEATON will accept the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille award at the Golden Globes on behalf of her shy good friend, Woody Allen. This should be most amusing. Of course Woody won’t accept in person. He might faint.

“WHAT WOULD Jesus think about Obamacare?”

That was the question asked by Fox News emperor and bestselling super-author Bill O’Reilly last week. It led to what I thought was a simply hilarious segment, with film clips and paintings of Jesus looking like the typical “Aryan from Darien,” as Auntie Mame declared.

The “debate” really seemed to boil down to Jesus not supporting people on food stamps, many of whom Mr. Reilly thinks are coke heads, meth addicts or just plain “lazy.” (A “significant minority” he says.) Well, now that the House has cut food stamp benefits down to $1.40 per person per meal, those drug addicts and lazy folks — mostly white, by the by — will just have to buck up.

What would Jesus really think about Obamacare? I think he’d be pleased somebody was trying to piece together a health care plan that took care of this country’s neediest. Whether the current plan over-reached or was under-researched, helping the needy is surely right up there on the Jesus bucket list. No matter President Obama’s naiveté or hubris — depending on your point of view — I am astonished when people act like he is trying to introduce the U.S. to smallpox or Ebola. Jesus said, on the other hand, “When you do it for the least of those, you do it for me,” or words to that effect.

I don’t think the President has been able to make his case clear on this and many other issues since his first term. Partly he and his staff are to blame, partly, there is the baldly stated intransigence of the Republicans. But Obama is not a bad man who wants to destroy the country. Or drag it further into pointless war. (The Syria thing — “We’re gonna bomb, BUT let’s go to Congress first” looked ramshackle. However, things seem to be progressing on the matter of chemical weapons, and we are not yet at war with Syria.)

Here’s what the Bible says of the poor, in Proverbs: “Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunates. Judge righteously and defend the afflicted and needy.” Translation: Let’s see House Republicans live on $1.40 a meal.

BUT MANY Republicans still have fun and are good guys! There were the ghosts of the Kennedy clan playing touch football on the very lawn of the former Joseph Kennedy mansion which was often called “the winter White House in Palm Beach.”

The property now belongs to Marianne and John K. Castle and recently they gave a huge glorious brunch right on the lawn and raised over $100,000 for the re-election of U.S. Rep Eric Cantor, the GOP House Majority Leader.

The lawn of the former Joseph Kennedy mansion, which now belongs to Marianne and John K. Castle. Photos: Lucien Capehart Photography.

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LIZ SMITH: Texas women and guns ...

December 9, 2013, 3:37 pm

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New York mag goes bi-weekly! ... Texas women and guns ... Nora Ephron's last — a Great Christmas gift ... Bring back the Automat!
Monday, December 9, 2013
by Liz Smith

“DON’T KILL the messenger,” wrote Sophocles in “Antigone.”

Antigone in front of the dead Polynices, 1865, by Nikiphoros Lytras, National Gallery, Athens, Greece.

HOLDING the actual New York Times these mornings and reading it in bed, I finally decided I know now why newspapers and printed hand-held material are being banished.

There is so much disastrous around-the-world bad news to consider, that people have come to appreciate reading on the web because they don’t have to pay so much attention and they can quickly bypass the bad. (And get to the bizarre stuff which one can hardly imagine.)

But I was sad to hear that the important and lively New York magazine is set to now print only every other week.

I was thinking of the thrill in the year 2000 of finding myself on the cover of New York magazine when my memoir “Natural Blonde” was published. Thirteen years ago, things were very different. And I didn’t exactly “pull the trigger” in the photo by Nigel Parry and the article by Lisa DePaulo. ( I wonder if they remember me as I remember them? )

THE GUN I’m holding in this photo makes me think of the late Ann Richards and her classic comment when asked if Texans should be allowed to carry concealed weapons to be used when in danger? Ann conceded it was a great idea because what Texas woman, indeed what woman in all the world, could ever find a gun down in the bottom of her purse?

ASIDE FROM that, there’s a big book out and it’s a giant gem, suitable for anyone who admired, worshipped or was even jealous of the writer Nora Ephron.

Her friend, the unique Bob Gottlieb, has worked on Nora’s output and has put together for Knopf publishing “The Most of Nora Ephron” and this collection is just a wow.

Mr. Gottlieb, almost the last of the giant distinguished workers in the literary vineyard, has finished a project he was doing in concert with Nora when she left us suddenly last year. He says Nora saw this big book containing the bulk of her work as a memorial of sorts, realizing while gathering it that she might not be able to finish it.

Her capriciousness, her honesty, her humor, her prescience is almost too sensitive now to believe we didn’t catch on. I guess it doesn’t include absolutely all of Nora’s work but it does offer a good measure: “Heartburn” is here and “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and many of her creations.

She comes across as the journalist, advocate, novelist, playwright, director, screenwriter, foodie, blogger that she was and there is a lot of personal stuff too. Her hits, her errors, her changing ideas are all here, as well as one of my favorites of her rare non-hits, the movie “Michael.” (It is about a dirty minded angel played by John Travolta.) And better still and funnier and more flattering is an essay on me and our experiences long ago in the dim past when I wrote a column for a little paper called The Palm Beach Pictorial. Nora and our “crowd” — when we were young — liked to live vicariously and viciously above the lives of the Palm Beachers whose social lives were depicted therein.


Mother and son.

I had forgotten completely my pre-New York newspaper column days and Nora nailed it in spades — the pretentiousness, posing, preening and silliness of that particular social scene. (I might repeat it here one of these days if I think all the protagonists have gone to their rewards.) Anyway, this new Nora collection is full of Nora-isms and would make a nifty Christmas gift for anyone who cares about the life and times of a contemporary writer who is sometimes compared to Mark Twain. (Her memorial was so star-studded, with Meryl Streep, Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, and others of that ilk speaking that I just assume a lot of people care about Nora’s legacy.)

Incidentally, there is a Vanity Fair documentary being put together by Nora’s son, Jacob Bernstein, but my pick for the one person to write the real story of Nora’s life is the astute columnist Richard Cohen of The Washington Post and New York Daily News.

He loved Nora as a friend and she loved him and he would be a wonder at dissecting what she meant to the world.

Mr. Cohen is the man it was revealed recently who has been escorting the good-looking Patricia Duff (once Mrs. Ronald Perlman) around town with romantic intent. But I wrote that last summer, so it wasn’t exactly a scoop in these turbulent days. But you are all welcome to claim the item as yours.

Patricia Duff and Richard Cohen.

SO MANY people chimed in about the wonders of the Automat and how they wish it would come back that I offer this as a solution to anyone wanting to please old-fashioned New Yorkers.

I can remember the good old days when my brother Bobby and I counted out how many pennies it would take to get us home and then to work the next day as we made a meal on free crackers and ketchup in the Automat.

Robyn Roth-Moise writes that she also misses Chock full o'Nuts and Rumplemeyer's. I miss Stouffers myself and the Woman’s Exchange.

But life changes and many people are downtown paying thousands of dollars for bottles of champagne and tequila. We were only wishing then that we could afford the macaroni and cheese.

Stouffers Restaurant, 540 Fifth Avenue, 1938 (Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc.)

Contact Liz Smith here.

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