Voices around the rialto

Manhattan from a distance. 4:45 PM. Photo: JH.

11/18. Colder in New York yesterday. Went out without my overcoat. Not a good idea. Down at Michael’s movie publicist/ fashion plate/world traveler/party girl Peggy Siegal had taken over most of the front of the restaurant for a party for one of the films she’s screening these days. I’m not certain what the film was but there were lots of famous faces and names in the room including Dustin Hoffman, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Tina Brown, Harry Evans, Phil Donahue.

Meanwhile, from voices around the rialto: I was surprised when I heard the reports that Hillary Clinton was being considered for Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, because a good source close to the Senator had told me a few weeks ago that she wasn’t interested in any job, that she had returned to the Senate.

Then a source from the Obama camp told me that Mr. Obama has long had Mrs. Clinton in mind for the job. He had told someone before he even decided to run, that Hillary Clinton was a good choice for Secretary of State. Now I hear from another source close to the Senator that unless there are problems in the vetting (like some kind of questionable character who’s donated to Bill’s foundation), she’ll be the one. All hearsay, of course.

More Clinton: last night at the dinner at the Waldorf given by the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary, JH, who was a Junior Co-chair, had a brief chat with Chelsea Clinton who was there. When he told her that he was a fan of her mother’s, she told him that her mother was her hero.

Meanwhile, back at Michael’s I was lunching with Michael Gross who posted a piece yesterday on Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast, about Brooke Astor. Meryl Gordon has a new book out on the lady called “Mrs. Astor Regrets; The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach” (Houghton Mifflin).


Click to order

Evidently the book really goes into the case of Mrs. Astor’s son Tony Marshall and his business -- monkey or not -- with his mother’s Will.

I have not yet read Ms. Gordon’s book so I don’t know anything about it other than what Michael Gross wrote, and what Christopher Mason also wrote about the subject. Also on The Daily Beast. A pro and con.

The business about “A Family Beyond Reproach” in the book’s title struck me as a marketing director’s dream spin. Neither the Astors, as a family, nor the late Mrs. Astor, were beyond reproach, except in people’s fantasies or myths. They were human, after all.

There is great irony in this story. Greed is the accusation being hurled at Mrs. Astor’s son and heir. Greed over a fortune that she acquired by marrying a man for his money. That was her motivation. Yes he wrote her some sweet love letters but Vincent Astor was monumentally unattractive to women in a number of ways – temperamentally, emotionally and socially. He was a big baby, self-indulged and sulky. He was also an alcoholic. And she was a middle-aged widow without much of a nest egg.

This was well known at the time of their marriage because it was obvious. The only thing Vincent Astor had to offer any woman was money and, furthermore, he knew it and used it. When Brooke Russell at age fifty-one, married him, he was already a crotchety old man in his early sixties, left by his second wife because she couldn’t take another minute of him. By the time he died six years later, Brooke was just about ready to split for the same reason. Fortunately for her, and probably for him, he died, leaving her the very rich Mrs. Astor.

The same people who knew exactly why the Brooke married Astor forgot about it when judging her daughter-in-law’s matrimonial motivations. She is believed to have married Mr. Marshall for his money. Or his mother’s. Or his stepfather’s.

However, whatever Charlene Marshall’s motivations, her husband adores her, would like to give her the moon, and she treats him with respect and affection.

Another irony is that both Vincent Astor and Tony Marshall (Brooke’s son), had mothers who were distant and absorbed in their social lives. Ava Willing Astor Ribblesdale was vain and self-centered. Her daughter-in-law who knew her only briefly at the end of her life, knew this but was fascinated by her. She also knew why her daughter-in-law married her son. It was the same reason she married his father, and her reaction to his father was not dissimilar to Brooke's reaction to Vincent.

Brooke Astor’s charm was in making the most of her life at all times. For herself. She had a flair and she was intelligent. It might have been the writer in her, but she created a big life for herself with the Astor fortune. She was generous with her son, and supportive when need be. But emotionally inaccessible. She knew about her maternal shortcomings; she was not one who lived in denial. However, by her late great age, the image she created and enjoyed, moved into myth, even for her. She lived too long.
This whole family brouhaha started when one of Brooke Astor’s grandsons didn’t end up with a piece of property in Northeast Harbor, Maine that his grandmother had told him one day was to be his. Instead it ended up belonging to ... of all people ... his father’s wife, the stepmother.

The main lesson is for all you women out there married to rich men with children by previous marriages: take good care of them. Life will be so much easier for everybody. Except the lawyers. They love this sort of thing; it’s like striking gold or hitting a gusher. Or both.


	Lily Safra

Last night at Carnegie Hall, the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra held their Annual New York Gala with the Orchestra conducted by Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and with performances by Pinchas Zukerman and Nitzan Bartana.

Mr. Dudamel, who will be 28 next January, is Venezuelan and a wunderkind, considered to be one of the hottest conductors around. I’m not sure what that means except watching him conduct is not dissimilar to a great performance in the theatre. And the results he gets from his musicians are equally exciting.

The evening consisted of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor, and Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in E minor. This was followed by two encores.

From 16th row Center, the young conductor who will be joining the Los Angeles Philharmonic as their Principal Conductor in the 2009/10 season, reminds one physically of Fran Lebowitz, the New York wit. It’s the coiffure – dark very full and curly and shoulder length. His physicality as a conductor however reminds of Leonard Bernstein – passionate, frenetic, theatrical. He holds the baton extremely high, almost above his head and at his finger tips. When the music speeds up and sweeps and heaves, the conductor fairly lifts himself off the podium with his rhythmic jumps. The audience loved him and loved his orchestra. There were standing ovations and cheering almost as exuberant as the conductor’s style.

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel taking bows

The table centerpiece

Afterwards there was a dinner in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf. The dinner was underwritten by Lily Safra who also was Chairman of the evening along with Co-chairmen Patricia and Gustavo Cisneros and Elaine and James Wolfensohn. Junior co-chairs were Jason Hirsch, Jeffrey Hirsch (JH), Jared Kushner and Jillian Merns.