Wednesday in New York was chilly, overcoat-time. Down at Michael’s, JH and I met with former investment banker turned internet entrepreneur Warner Johnson who has just launched his new travel web site (where they carry the NYSD travel and dining coverage) called: www.fabsearch.com [1]. This is where you will find the last year’s articles from high-end magazines (and NYSD) about where to stay when you go. They’re even carrying our recent hotel stay in Abu Dhabi. Check it out.
As usual, Michael’s was bustling. Andrew Stein was there without his latest squeeze, the well-known prevaricator Ann Coulter. Parker Ladd and Arnold Scaasi were entertaining Joan Linclau and Gillian Fuller. The beautiful and mysterious journalist of the rich, the chic and the shameless, Phoebe Eaton was having a tell-all with Freud Communications executive Matthew Hitzik. Michael Gross doing the same with Bob Friedman. Hoda Kotb from the Today Show with producer Amy Rosenblum and Jonathan Tisch and Today contributor Jill Martin. Right across the way, Joe Armstrong with Cindi Lieve. And around the room: Kathie Lee Gifford, Lea Carpenter Brokaw, Harry Benson, Ed Victor and Susan Mercandetti, Elliot Kastner.
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Warner Johson |
And in the bay, at the big round table where Mel Brooks had held forth just the day before, were just two: Kitty Kelley and her agent Wayne Kaybak. You can be sure when Kitty sits down with agent, the subject is millions, because that’s what they pay her and that’s what she sells.
Kitty may or may not have begun working on her next sensational biography (as all her biographical subjects are sensational people) on Oprah.
I don’t know how Oprah feels about Kitty Kelley becoming her unauthorized biographer. Although I’d bet she won’t be cooperating. Although that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. In fact, it could be a brilliant idea. I remember when Kitty’s biography of Frank Sinatra came out, the subject was not pleased with at least some of the details and characterizations in the book. Although the late Armand (Ardie) Deutsch, a longtime close friend of Sinatra conceded that Kitty “pretty much got it right.”
Biography is always difficult in lifting the subject out of their own fiction and into the light. Even our truths have different shades to them, depending on how it’s laid out. Most of us – not just famous people – would not be pleased with someone else’s “story” about us. A biographer might look closely at a time or an incident, in one’s life that the individual would like to forget, or has forgotten. Furthermore at the end of the day, like a society portrait, the subject would prefer to look august and distinguished. And that’s just for starters.
However, people in high places, or celebrated places are often interesting because they live bigger lives – have more opportunities, more access, more excess and more sycophants – than most of us. All that makes for munchy reading that may shed light.
Which brings me back to Jessica Seinfeld who graced these pages the other day when I was commenting on the Sunday New York Times article about her, and how at the end of the day, people still seem to hold it against her for leaving her first husband for Jerry Seinfeld whom she met in the gym. People believe she went to the gym to meet Jerry Seinfeld. And how could she, etc.? I say: Maybe she did and maybe a lot of other girls did too. All’s fair in love and war; remember that one?
However, alas poor Jessica. After the Diary came out, we got a lot of comments and not a small amount of “information”on Jessica and her new cookbook and Jessica and her 21 pairs of Christian Louboutin (not, as I reported incorrectly, Manolo Blahnik) shoes that she gave to Oprah, the new Kitty Kelley subject. And Jessica and her alleged “four press agents” and her bid for public attention and her treatment of others she doesn’t deem as important as she (she ignores them pointedly), and how she treated a hairdresser to whom she allegedly once confessed that her husband liked to watch porn all day. And alas poor Jessica.
If Jessica Seinfeld really did go after Jerry Seinfeld because she wanted to be married to a famous man (and a rich one too), and if she went to the gym just so she could meet him, then I guess we could also conjecture, considering all the dish being dished, that the girl got what she wanted. We can’t begrudge her that, can we? Besides, it doesn’t sound like such a bed of roses after all whatwith her reputation for rubbing people the wrong way. Perhaps Jessica should learn the art of the massage.
However, if Jessica is really as rude to others as people say she is, and is as self-oriented and publicity-seeking as people say she is, she’s just acting like a lot of people act when they get a little bit (meaning a lot) of money and a little bit of celebrity (which can be confused with notoriety since they’re often much the same thing these days).
I didn’t say “everybody.” Just “a lot of people.” In fact, there are several women on the New York social scene right now, whose names could be substituted for Jessica’s and you’d get much the same story. The Christian Laboutin shoes notwithstanding.
Which brings us back to the night before last and the Tom Cruise evening at the Museum of the Moving Image Gala. After Tom jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch (there she is again) and caused a lot of speculation about whether or not he’d lost his marbles (to Scientology), Paramount (and Sumner Redstone) ended their business with him.
I was at a dinner party one night here in New York where there were four editors of major magazines, a top newspaper editor, a famous Broadway and Hollywood director and an internationally famous journalist , all of whom were speculating on the state of Tom Cruise’s mental health and whether or not he’d made a fatal career move. And of course whether or not he was gay.
The fact that all of those people were interested in a movie star’s personal and romantic life struck me as ... absurd ... althought much conversation was devoted to it. And none of it very interesting since no one at the table seemed to know anything more than what they’d read on Page Six.
I couldn’t help thinking of it on Tuesday night at Cipriani 42nd Street, sitting one table over from the man and watching him as his peers and fellow actors feted him with praise and affection, creating a picture of a dedicated, committed, deeply professional individual. In fact, I left the evening convinced that the core of Tom Cruise’s life is his career and his work ethic. It’s self-evident when you consider his body of work and the testimony of those who’ve worked with him. And then add to that the way he conducts himself in public with not only these people, but his fans as well. He’s a striking example of grace and class. His very youthful looks enhance that in some ways and less in others: he looks like a very nice boy. |
