High life
Bounced back
Taki
witnessed a very strange thing at Mortimer's last Monday evening. In the middle of a glittering black-tie affair sud- denly three burly waiters grabbed a man standing outside and forced him back inside among the trendies. When I asked the owner what it was all about I was told in no uncertain terms to mind my own business. The mystery was solved by the mother of my children, who was seated at the same table as the 'prisoner'.
It seems that an ex-waiter at Mortirner's had spotted the silk and satin crowd going in and had joined them in the time- honoured tradition of Sebastian Taylor. The trouble was, he had had too much firewater, or whatever makes uninvited people grab ladies in the rear, pull at their décolleté and act in a boorish manner. His victim was a Brazilian lady, a friend of the mother of my children, who begged for help from the owner and got it immediate- ly. In fact, much too quickly. No sooner had she told him about the boor than he signalled and the three musclemen went into action. Unfortunately, however, they got the wrong man — a gentleman of rare breeding, and one who was actually in- vited. By the time the mistake was disco- vered the wronged man was nowhere to be found. Then, having thrown out the real culprit, the three he-men were sent out as a posse with orders to bring back the victi- mised one. They soon found him standing on Lexington Avenue repeating the sent- ence, 'I have never been so insulted in my whole life . . . .' Well, you know the rest. They frogmarched him back and every- thing was soon forgotten.
Oh, yes. I almost forgot about the party. It was the kind of bash a U-boat comman- der would break silence for. It was given by the ex-high priestess of the jet set, Flor- ence Grinda, and was attended by all the local beauties — Jerry Zipkin, Judy Taub- man, Estee Lauder, Anne Bass, Lord Warwick, Kenny Lane, Diane von Fur- stenberg — and some not so local, like Princess Firyal of Jordan, the Duke d'Or- leans and last but not least my first wife and her hubby. I was feeling a bit under the weather and had to leave early, but not before witnessing the case of mistaken identity, as well as the mother of my children dropping a glass on the shoes of Mrs Taubman, who yelped some Israeli curses in her direction.
And speaking of Judy Taubman, her daughter got married last week, but for some strange reason my invitation yet again got lost in the mail. Although I have never met Tiffany Runick, Judy's offspring, I have known Mrs Taubman ever since she arrived newly married to Herb Runick soon after winning the Miss Israel contest sometime during the Sixties. Runick is now married to the ex-wife of Colonel Roufogalis, the head of the Greek CIA now rotting in jail for life. His ex-wife has gone on to grander things, like becom- ing the wife of the owner of Sotheby's.
Tiffany's wedding (strange name Tif- fany, but understandable) was reported to have cost $8 million, which meant it outdid the Laura Steinberg-Jonathan Tisch mer- ger of last year. But on the very next day Taubman's office put out a disclaimer stating it had cost only $800,000. The gossip columns had to eat humble pie yet again. And the reports were that it was a very conservative affair, in fact so Waspish that some mauvaises langues said the rabbi was dressed in lemon-green trousers, red polo shirt and other Wasp paraphernalia. A blatant lie, as it turned out, and almost as ridiculous as Yoko Ono demonstrating solidarity with the Chinese students by smashing a Chinese vase in front of 1,000 idiots in Paris. The vase was not from Tiffany's, however.
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