High life
Topping
Taki
New York If Sir Edmund Hillary climbed the social ladder instead of mountains, he would not have missed the annual pilgrimage to the Metropolitan Museum of Art ten days ago. I say this because never in my life have I seen so many alpinistes all gathered together. The occasion was a retrospective of Yves St Laurent, the Paris couturier whom everyone copies, a man who started at the top and has managed to stay there for 25 years. It was a glittering black-tie dinner dance and a preview of an exhibition of his work over the last quarter century was thrown in for good measure. But what it really was about was upward mobility. One couple offered $5,000 for a pair of tickets that cost $500 — and were turned down (others, more desperate it seems, had of- fered more). The press, as usual, went wild over lots of women with young faces and old hands, and men with bald spots, soft bellies, sun tans and bank accounts that rival national debts of third world coun- tries. People like Paley, Rothschild and Gutfreund, women like Loulou Klossow- ski, Brooke Astor, Nan Kempner and others much too old to mention. The first and last thing I remember from that memorable night was emerging from the great stairs onto Fifth Avenue carrying Fred Hughes, the president of Andy Warhol Inc, in a perfectly executed fireman's lift, and Hughes suddenly coming to and beating on my chest in the manner that Jean Harlow used to beat on Clark Gable's, and yelling 'Put me down you Greek brute.'
There were more photographers inside the place than there are firing squads in Iran, and for a while it seemed that the whole bash had been stage managed as one big climb for people with more cash than cachet. The only thing I wished was that someone would warn the upwardly mobile of this town that the bends — the dreaded disease that afflicts one coming up from the depths too quickly — can be fatal. But so desperate arc people in this town to make it with what they think are their superiors that even death is not a deterrent.
The next evening, despite everyone's sharp edges having worn off a bit, was
much more fun. Louis Basualdo, or Bounder Basualdo as he's known to everyone, is the greatest Argentinian since Evita. The Bounder threw a party in his own honour, something that a lot of people were surprised to find out existed. I was happy that finally someone was giving a party without making it lax deductible and using charity as an excuse. Charity begins at home, my home, is Basualdo's favourite cliche, and more than one hundred of his friends showed up to say goodbye to him. New York's loss is London's gain. The Bounder is returning to his natural habitat this week. The high moment of the evening came with the arrival of the 'Avvocato', Gianni Agnelli himself. Upon his entering room, the crowd parted, like the Red Sea, in order to let him through. The Argenti- nian Moses led the way.
There were lots of second sons of promi- nent families, people like Eddie Somerset, plus a rev.• from not so prominent a background, like the Crawley boys and, of course, Sebastian Taylor, It seems the Bounder no longer works for Christina Onassis, which is a pity. He somehow managed to keep that whale of a girl from going overboard — food- and men-wise but her family have put on pressure to get rid of him. If I were Christina I would reconsider. The Bounder is rare and lots of fun to be with. And honest, which is more than I can say for most of the frogs and the Greeks she hangs around with.
Things got progressively worse as I at- tended parties on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Friday was a lost day, and I remember almost nothing. What I do recall about the rest of the week was the fact that once again the mother of my children is starting to look disturbingly pretty, and that some ludicrous fellow tried to pick her up by speaking to her about modern art, of ill things. When I told him to piss off he rook umbrage and we almost got into a fist fight, but cooler heads prevailed and he (or perhaps I) dodged a bullet. Greek men simply have no manners. That vulgarian saw that she was sitting with me yet he in- sisted on trying to find out her name and to offer her a drink in my presence. Then, needless to say, when I threated him with physical violence, he immediately referred to my lack of good manners. Thank God I don't live in that awful hell-hole any longer. The sight of Greeks makes me sick .
Needless to say, the constant partying has taken a certain toll — both on the psyche and on the body. But Christmas comes but once a year, as the song says, and nowhere is it more amusing than right here in the Big Apple. After seven parties I tried to think back how many Americans I had run into and it was five: a Vietnam war hero, a pretty girl from Virginia, and three taxi drivers. It could have been worse. Much worse. They could have been the type that do charitable work among the rich — the kind I saw at the Met. Thank God they weren't.
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