Last night was very busy in social New York. The ne plus ultra affair was the Carnegie Hall gala benefit dinner at the Waldorf honoring New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham with the Carnegie Hall Medal of Excellence. The award recognizes Mr. Cunningham’s “extraordinary devotion to chronicling fashion for nearly fifty years here in New York, as well as his role in inspiring philanthropy, recognizing the important place that arts, culture and non-profit causes hold in the life of New York City.”
Mr. Cunningham – known simply as Bill to the hundreds (or thousands) who know him or are familiar with him in decades of providing photographic coverage – is also a familiar figure during daytime around mid-town, with his camera, taking in the fashion scene. I often see him at work on the corners of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, and in front of Barney’s. You can imagine that the merchants adore this man. They couldn’t pay a posse of press agents to deliver what he delivers weekly in the New York Times with his pictures taken outside their walls.
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| From Bill Cunningham New York. |
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This kind of activity is part of what makes people feel like they live in a small town while dwelling in this enormous metropolis. It’s self-assuring, and oddly comforting.
Cunningham’s photos of the ladies of the town at their events looking chic and self-assured, bright and top of the morning, lend glamour to the atmosphere that the world identifies as New York. In turn it also delights his subjects, and has been known to give them a social heft that would otherwise not not be theirs. He surely knows that and keeps his own counsel about it. All choices are his, influenced only by his eye and his wit well-equipped with irony as well as decorum. He’s from New England remember.
He started out in New York in the garment business and had a stint as a milliner back when ladies still wore hats daily, and to work. His eye has a photographic memory. I heard him give a brief talk in behalf of Arnold Scaasi at the National Arts Club a few years ago. Arnold was receiving some sort of award for fashion excellence. Cunningham recalled seeing the first collection Arnold ever showed in New York. This was in the late 1950s. He recalled the Scaasi designs in detail, describing the garments precisely so you could see them.
I don’t know Bill Cunningham except to say hello to. We both come from Massachusetts – he from Marblehead, I from out west near the Berkshires. His New England is as familiar to me as mine. He still retains that Boston/North Shore accent that is not far from the Kennedy accent. There is still the air of the New England boy in his carriage and approach. But New York is his home and he is an example of why New York is what it is to millions of us around the world.
The guest list last night at the Waldorf was another example of what I mentioned yesterday in the Diary – the Society that is New York today. Some of the names on the List: Joan and Sandy Weill, Annette and Oscar de la Renta (Honorary Gala Chairs), Sarah Jessica Parker (Gala Chair), Barry Diller (Gala Co-chair), Mercedes Bass (Gala Co-chair), Mr. and Mrs. Terry Lundgren (Gala Co-chair), Elizabeth and Henry Segerstrom, in from Southern California; Frank Richardson and Judge Kimba Wood, Muffie Potter Aston, Chloe Malle, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Tisch, John Rosselli and Bunny Williams, Linda Fargo, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Rose, Mr. and Mrs. Andres Santo Domingo, Christine and Steve Schwarzman, Gayle King, Brendan Hoffman, Catie and Donald Marron, Bonnie and Tom Strauss, Jordan Roth, Mrs. Billie Tisch, Ann Ziff, Hamilton South, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Kay Unger, Anna Wintour, Lara Meiland –Shaw, Shirley Lord Rosenthal, Judy Zankel, Alexandra Lebenthal, David and Julia Koch, and on and on into the night.
The evening began with a private cocktail reception in the Waldorf’s Rotunda at the Park Avenue entrance, followed by dinner in the Empire Ballroom and a brief program and award ceremony. World-renowned tenor, Vittorio Grigolo performed. Proceeds from the tribute support the music education and community programs of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.
After all, that, I wasn’t there. Last night was the 60th birthday celebration of my friend Beth Rudin DeWoody. It was held at Colicchio & Sons on 85 Tenth Avenue at 15th Street.
On my way downtown to her party, I stopped off at the Pershing Square Signature Center on 480 West 42nd Street where Isabella Rossellini and Venetian Heritage were hosting a benefit performance of “Caro Luchino” created by Guido Torlonia and performed by Richard Gere and Tilda Swinton about the life and work of opera and film director Luchino Visconti.
I arrived as the performance was underway. The piece included many clips, including interviews with Visconti who first became famous to American filmgoers with “Rocco and His Brothers.” The production was darkly lit, as if in a movie theater watching a film, except for the spots switching on the two stars on stage who took turns between the clips shown on a large screen behind them that referred to their script – Visconti’s life and work.
Swinton -- in a grey silk blouse and trousers -- was tall, slender, blonde and soignée with a voice that deep and soft and very British. Richard Gere in a charcoal grey linen suit, white shirt, white hair, was likeably expressive and honest in reading Visconti’s words. The result combined with clips of Visconti’s work and the man himself, was quietly riveting. All black and white. Film Noir at its Italian best, raw and earthy, elegant and emotional.
Venetian Heritage is a non-for-profit based here in the US with offices here in New York and in Venice. The organization is part of the UNESCO Private Committees Program for the Safeguarding of Venice. JH and I were guests on one of their summer excursions a few years ago. It was an amazing trip. Among the great films of Luchino Visconti is Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice” which was one of a trilogy including “The Damned” and “Ludwig.”
Among the guests at last night’s were Toto Bergamo–Rossi, in from Venice, Robert Couturier, Cecile David-Weill, her sister Beatrice Stern, Tom Quick, Gil Shiva, Marina Galesi, Vanessa Friedman, Mr. and Mrs. Alberto Mariaca, Princess Firyal, Alex Hitz, Lynn Nesbit, Carl Adams, Liliana Cavendish, Judy and Archibald Cox Jr., Gaetana enders, Graziano Boni, Susan and Andre Aciman, Olivier Berggruen, Gianluigi and Adrienne Vittadini, Alexander and Lisa Vreeland, Dimitri of Yugoslavia, Todd Sowers, Mr. and Mrs. Philip Warner, Saundra Whitney, Richard Turley, Alba Clemente, Alejandra Cicognani, Peter McCann, Jane and Peter Marino, Peggy Siegal, Daisy Soros, Bill Haseltine, Lisa Fine, Veronica Bulgari, Kim Cattrall, Carlo Ponti, Margaret Russell, Robert de Rothschild, Muffy Miller, Sandra Nunnerly, Josabeth Fribourg, and many many more.
After the performance there was a dinner.
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