High life
Gross profits
Taki
Southampton, Long Island The Hamptons were once a series of quiet, tiny, tranquil villages by the sea that served as a country refuge for New York City's rich. When I say rich, however' I mean those among the privileged who wished to live a quiet life by the sea, away from the hustle and bustle of 0"A„ Westbury, or Locust Valley, where the Jel Gatsbys of this world went hunting fArIr social acceptance as soon as they had Intle their pile. The rich who preferred Elje Hamptons built vast frame houses, silt' rounded them with long green lawns, d°I• ted the lawns with yellow-and-white 11 brellas and wicker chairs, and planted state' ly maple trees and tall hedges to shield thee' from the not so rich. Everything was; hunky-dory, as they say, until the Pat': cians decided that the only way to get vote' was to take from the rich and give it to the poor — in exchange for the latters' stiPP°11' They called this unique system of robbell' taxation. Needless to say, the rich survived. What they did was cut back on their lawns and the : size of their houses. The panicky ones among them sold parts of their lawns ,,', speculators, who in turn cut the 'proPerr? s' up some more and sold it for vast profit Before the Swinging Sixties had even begun to swing, the Hamptons were full of Pet/P.r; who would have been too vulgar even Los Angeles. (Incidentally, a bleached middle-aged blonde by the name of Jeal:e Valelly devoted a full page column in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner to attack Oil for having written that El Lay is a place fill of phony blondes, trained seals and Pe?'" is without class. My dear Miss Vanilla. It 'f not only poor little me who says so. Want Winchell said it was a place that movies instead of actors and actres1 while Raymond Chandler called it a only with the personality of a paper cup. I ts said that there are as many good restaurall„ HinolElylwLooay.)as there are good writers to Well, asd you might have guessed, r,nlie, tranquil villages are no more. In the als..,wd mer, that is — when the Hollywood Crow, moves in. Do you believe that across 1e0cly, the stately Meadow Club lives Mr W °I) 71. Allen? That three blocks away from the ex, elusive Beach Club lives a Hollywood big!ci called Barrish, a man so vulgar he 1.11;1, trouble getting a table even in Ma Mais°,4 Worse, on a typical summer weekeo,' herds of gaudily dressed day trippers swag along the Hamptons' streets, and .logg tie sweat, grunt and wheeze along everY aver' and strip of grass. Needless to say, the few great estates telly have not been broken down bY gre speculators, have been bought by What
known over here as greenmailers. These are People who are mostly fat and bald, and who buy large amounts of stock in a com- pany, spread rumours that they are about to take it over by offering much more per share, and when the stock shoots up, either sell what they already own at a great profit, i
or take over the company and strip it of its assets and sell them for vast gains. The Hamptons, for some strange reason, are ftd1 of greenmailers of late. They drive around in white Rolls Royces, give large luncheons every Saturday, and instruct !heir press agents to give away their list of Invitees to the gossip columns. Although old-time residents of the Hamptons look upon these vulgarians in a way not unlike that in which the Kremlin looks upon democrats, unlike the Kremlin, there is not Much they can do about the invasion of the body snatchers, as a local wit described the greenmailers. What does all this mean? It means that the old guard has something more to talk about than the weather, or who has boffed Whose wife. In fact there is a plethora of subjects that can be judged safe enough to talk about this spring. The latest has nothing to do with houses, it has to do with • • a book. But before I mislead you, no, it Is. not a book about ideas, but about the tellnedys. And no, it is not the one 1 wrote 'bout recently. This one has been written °YJackie K.O's first cousin, a professional writer named John Davis. It is a serious ,study of the Kennedys and it reveals certain pall say weaknesses in their character. revelation that has everyone laughing is e one concerning Jackie's mother, Janet 'ee, Bouvier, Auchincloss, and yet another 'Pine can't remember. It is alleged that eackle's mother went as far as telling verYone who toured her house — Ham- mersmith Farm, or the Summer White ,,rlotise, as she liked to call it — that she was descended from the Lees of Virginia. As Jackie's cousin points out, nothing is fur- ther from the truth. Janet Lee was as Irish Iv blarney and the shamrock. Her father _as an Irish immigrant who made good and Berried her off to the poor Bouvier fellow. revelations no, t worry. If you don't find these that earth-shattering, it only means at You won't fit in the Hamptons scene.
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