Taking sides
Taki
XNew York -ray Bagelites who lunch are in a tizzy over Pauline Pitt's fax to a New York Post gossip columnist accusing Al Taubman of being 'a pig who never does the right thing unless it looks better in high society'. Before I go on, a brief resume of the notso-swells involved. Al Taubman is the shopping-mall tycoon and former head of Sotheby's who is about to do three Takis (a Taki is four months) and a day for pricefixing.
Although I wrote two articles in favour of Big Al. I thought his defence was disgraceful and in a way cowardly. He pretended to be dumb and not in the know, but as a juror said afterwards, 'This guy has been smart all his life, how come he went stupid all of a sudden?' Perhaps it's easy to say, but had it been me I would have stood up in court and attacked the law I broke and take all the blame on my shoulders. Big Al did not do that. Instead he blamed his underlings and got his come-uppance. Dede Brooks, who gave evidence against him, has to pay an enormous (for her financial means) fine, and spend close to a year under house arrest. I called Dede a rat before, but [was wrong. She's a Wasp, and Wasps do not believe in breaking the law. She also has beautiful legs and a ruined career, and America has no soft prisons for women, only men.
Pauline Pitt was born Pauline Baker, of the banking famill.. and has lived an impeccable life as a ,,),:ialite. wife and mother.
She married way beneath her when she became Mrs Dixon Boardman, but she and her family helped her husband make all the right connections in no time. My beef with Boardman is not his womanising — it's probably the only good thing about him — but the way he treated a wife to whom he owed everything. To be a cad one has to be a gentleman first, and in my book Boardman gave us cads and womanisers a bad name.
After Pauline divorced Boardman — he got the Baker family house in the settlement — she married William Pitt, who unfortunately died within a year of the wedding. Pitt, who owned a large real-estate company, was very clubbable, as they say in Greenwich and Palm Beach, and, having gone into the real-estate business with Big Al, proceeded to bring the rather rough Taubman into his far more refined circle.
Suddenly one day Pitt was informed that close to 100 of his top executives were leaving the William Pitt realty, and going to Sotheby's real estate. When he confronted Taubman, Big Al feigned ignorance. The two never spoke again, as Bill Pitt had a rough three years trying to recoup. This is the reason Pauline Pitt wrote the fateful letter.
It has been no secret among those who know, and I'm one of them, that Big Al played hardball in business, some even say that he wasn't always on the up and up. His wife, an ex-Miss Israel, is not very popular because her millions did go to her head for awhile. 'She doesn't even admit to her background — she says that she's Greek,' wrote Pauline. Judy Taubman does pretend she's Greek, but I'm sure there must be some Greek Israelis: she didn't just make it up, although one never knows,
What I do know is that Al Taubman gave the first 10 or 20 million to Dixon Boardman to start the latter's fund. (This was while Dixon was married to Pauline.) After Taubman was indicted, Boardman bought him out at a very good price. For Boardman, that is. The mauvaise taupe has it that Boardman told his benefactor the fund could not have a convicted felon as partner.
Be that as it may, Pauline's letter has everyone talking. Most people say one should not kick a man when he's down, and I agree. Others say that Pauline was absolutely right to fight her dead husband's cause, and I agree with that also. 'All his charitable giving does not absolve him of all the pain and grief he has inflicted on so many people who ever got involved with him ... ' she writes.
The fun, of course, will start next year in Palm Beach, once Al has been released. He will go to a very soft prison, as well he should, and I hope he will be let out for health reasons sooner rather than later. Both Pauline and the Taubmans live in Palm Beach during the winter, and, as everyone who has ever eaten a grapefruit knows, Palm Beach is a very small place. Pauline is described in the gossip columns as Queen of Palm Beach, and she certainly has lotsa friends there. (She also belongs to more clubs than I did days in the pokey.) The Taubmans do not belong to clubs, but carry a lot of weight with those more interested in power and money than the social register. It's going to be very interesting to see who sides with whom down among the sheltering palms. All I can say is I will be there to report, as I will be stopping there on my boat. I hope by that time everyone will be friends, just as I know that one day pigs will fly.
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