High life
Social advances
Taki
aeldng a language whose inflections can suggest precise points on the social spectrum and their attendant values, Noo Yawkers have always relied on nightclubs for identity. During the Forties and Fifties, El Morocco and the Stork Club were kings. Back in those good old days, real society mixed with the café ones only in Elmo's, and both sides enjoyed it greatly.
The ghastly Sixties were made even ghastlier by the lack of an undisputed Iiihrer' of the night. Then came Steve Rubbell, Studio-54, disco, Saturday Night Fever, Quaaludes, coke, Bianca, Andy, Ral- ston, punk-chic, you name it, and the Big Bagel's night-time hierarchy was once again established. (By this time, the Guests, the Cushings, the Mortimers and others of their ilk had seen the future and had beaten a hasty retreat to their chintzy drawing-rooms. Mixing with café society may once upon a time have been fun, but drugs, gays and freaks do not with upper-class Wasps mix.) Gays became huge — no pun intended — during the Seventies, and no chic dinner party went without at least two limp wrists. It all ended in tears, needless to say, when Aids went through the gay community like the Panzers did against the glorious French army in May of 1940. Rubbell died of the dreaded disease, Studio-54 closed down, Bianca Jagger was suddenly taken seriously by people who should have known better, and junk bond kings discovered the quickest way up the social ladder — the charity ball.
The charity ball did to social climbers what smart bombs did for the Allies in the Gulf war. Kravis, Perelman, Trump, Stein- berg, Rohatyn, Kluge, Taubman, Gutfre- und are all names that will one day be engraved in platinum in the social climber's Pantheon, to be erected sometime after Brooke Astor's demise (somewhere between Mortimer's and Le Cirque). The charity ball's balloon burst with the arrival of the Draft Dodger at the White House. What I'm happy to report, however, is that the climbing goes on, the ball, as in charity, now having been replaced by the commit- tee, as in chairman. Let me explain.
There is no better way for a determined climber than the committee route. He gives some money, gets named chairman of some charity, brings in some friends, Ponzi- scheme-like, and, presto, his name is etched in Women's Wear Daily, the bible of the nouveau and desperate: 110.. Two major players on the circuit in the Nineties are Steve and Maureen Rattner, a couple I had the terrible luck to sit next to last week. Rattner — you can take the rat out but you still get a nerd — was recently profiled in Vanity Fair as the 'Paramount Player', an allusion to his financial wizardry and his involvement with the Paramount takeover. Rattner is a 41-year-old invest- ment banker at Lazard Freres, which is controlled by Michel David-Weill, probably the world's richest banker. He is rumoured to be the heir apparent of Felix Rohatyn, the numero uno fixer in the Big Bagel.
All I can say is it's a pity. Michel David- Weill I know slightly, but he's a gent. And at least Rohatyn knows the difference between MacLuhan and Macbeth. Rattner is the quintessential arriviste, a man who knows the price of everything and the value of noth- ing. His wife is worse: she makes Madonna seem to possess plenipotential dignity by comparison. The Rat made tens of millions of late, which means he will be getting on more and more committees. He is reputed to be the best friend of Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the 'liberal' who runs the Big Bagel Times. In fact, Rattner was a hack once for the paper that prints only what it sees fit to, which means all you hacks out there still have a chance. Just think. All you need is a blonde wannabe, an aggressive manner, a nerdy look, lotsa social ambition and presto.
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