Richly traditional
Taki
New York To Roxbury, Connecticut, a tiny, beautiful village covered in leafy verdure and straight out of a black-and-white film from the Forties depicting white, Christian, innocent America. But, wait a minute: white, Christian, waspy, thrifty Americans did not drive turbo Bentleys worth a quarter of a million quid, did not employ discreet minders to protect them from overzealous fans, and did not serve vintage champagne and enough Château Latour to make even a Rothschild wince. Oh yes, there was also a jazz band, a disco barn, and a tent under which the mother of all feasts took place.
Graydon Carter’s wedding to Anna Scott, a Scottish lass of beauty and grace, took place in Roxbury last Saturday, where Graydon’s new old house is situated. Graydon is known for his love of everything old, especially anything made of wood, and his wedding did not disappoint. Not that the bride and groom were wooden — on the contrary — but everything else was old-fashioned: the traditional wedding ceremony, the hymns, the presiding reverend, the sonnets and the dinner dance following.
For any of you unfamiliar with the bridegroom, he’s been the editor of Vanity Fair these past 13 years, the man who turned a bottomless losing glossy into a gushing moneymaker and then some. His boss Si Newhouse has obviously reciprocated in kind. This could have been a very rich man’s wedding, except for the good taste. Mind you, there were a few well-heeled souls about, starting with Ron Perelman, the financier who sued Morgan Stanley and was awarded $604 million last week, and who is likely to gain $2.4 billion in punitive damages sometime in the future. (I thought I spotted a few Morgan Stanley executives panhandling outside the church, but I could be mistaken.) This was not one of those Vanity Fair parties Graydon throws at the Academy Awards every year, full of rather ugly agents and Hollywood types. Every guest was a Carter friend of long standing, and although I was among the poorest present, there were about 150 of us. I must admit Graydon’s friends will not be using soup kitchens any time soon. Start with billionaire Barry Diller, the aforementioned Perelman, Hollywood tycoon David Geffen, the Newhouse sons, Sumner Redstone, and you’ve pretty much cornered the billionaire market. The bride’s dress was designed by Carolina Herrera, as classy a designer as Givenchy and far more beautiful, with whom I drove to Roxbury after a rather wild night with some English friends back in the Bagel. Hollywood was represented by the great Marty Scorsese, Robert De Niro and best-dressed George Hamilton, with whom I had a rather long conversation about men’s ... lapels. Nicholas and Georgia Coleridge, Kate Reardon, Juliet MacDonald, Anna Wintour were among the Brit contingent, and not a Tina Brown in sight, but then Lady Evans is now a Yank.
Martin Scorsese is married to an old friend of mine, and the mother of my children is godmother to his daughter, but I never managed to corner him about when and why Hollywood became antagonistic to Christianity. Once upon a time Hollywood was big on religion. The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, The Robe, King of Kings, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Bible, were all rip-roaring spectacles which were made and remade by tough Tinseltown executives who could smell a bargain despite the huge production costs. Remember the old line, ‘With a cast of thousands!’ There were no computer-generated crowds back then, and Roman and Egyptian mobs were played by real people, mostly Yugoslav and Spanish soldiers. God was used as a plot device, the rest was spectacle.
It all went south round about the late Sixties. That is when Hollywood went intellectual on us and decided that wicked characters are easier to create than holy ones because we understand their motives better. I guess it’s fair comment on our fallen nature, but Milton’s Satan is more convincing than Milton’s Christ. I wish I had gotten hold of Marty. Or De Niro, for that matter. They’re both Catholics and write and say bad words in their movies. It would have been more interesting than talking shop with Ron Perelman, but then he didn’t wish to speak with me either. Oh well, Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller gave a lunch in their farmhouse — houses, actually — the next day and we all drove or choppered back to the Bagel. It had been a long week even before the nuptials. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul, Cuban sugar magnates operating out of Florida and the Dominican Republic in view of a bearded shit ensconced in Havana, gave their annual bash, which started me off on the wrong foot. The liver ain’t what it used to be, so by the time you read this I may or may not be alive.
Not to worry — or pop the corks prematurely, for that matter. Next week is my last one in the Bagel and I will tell you about the biggest scam ever. Yes, among two ... billionaires. Multimillionaires are sure going out of style, and fast.
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