High life
All about Eves
Taki
eave it to a woman. In the year the Berlin Wall came crumbling down, the mother of my children erected her own by stipulating that no bimbo, not even a nubile young thing or two, would be allowed across the threshold for our annual Christmas Eve party. The result, needless to say, was that my bash turned out to be a rather tame affair, almost as depressing as I imagine one of those ghastly Harold Pinter 'I hate Maggie' soirees must be like.
Mind you, the seating arrangements were OK. As always, I sat between the best looking mother and daughter combo in the world — Carolina Herrera senior and junior — a fact that helped alleviate the boredom of sudden respectability. What was less interesting was the policy of exclusion as practised by my guru, Profes- sor Van Den Haag, and young Carolina against yours truly. My guru is well into his seventies and Carolina nearing her 19th year, but between them no one managed to get the proverbial word in edgewise. Caro- lina is studying bio-psychology at Vassar, a relatively new subject that the good profes- sor once taught along with law. At the end of the four-hour dialogue the truly beauti- ful Carolina announced that the prof was cool, and promptly went home. After that it was all downhill.
One week later, however, the trend was reversed, and reversed with a vengeance. As I don't think I've ever met anyone except for myself who actually likes New Year's Eve, I decided to do something about it. (I love the fact that on New Year's Eve I can do what I do every night — get roaring drunk but without a guilty conscience). Reinaldo Herrera and myself took over Mortimer's, hired a black jazz band, and invited 100 of our closest and dearest, as well as some nocturnal friends of ours one would never dream of present- ing to polite society.
The result was predictable. Although at Eton I was taught never to brag, it was one of the best parties for a long time, in fact the best New Year's one ever. I guess the mix of sweet young things, business, books and nightclub characters is what did it. Name-dropping ain't my style, but what the heck? The Nineties are upon us, so I might as well start them right. From the world of people who can also read the captions to pictures came such heavyweights as Norman Mailer and Car- los Fuentes, Dominick Dunne, Peter Maas, Bob Tyrrell and Lewis (Lou to the liberals who seemed to be everywhere that night) Lapham. The nubile ones got ex- cited when a certain Mr Matt Dillon arrived, a young man who my little girl tells me is a film star, but one whom I knew only as a polite soul I spent an evening psychobabbling with at a downtown place called Peggy Sue's. There was Chuck Pfeifer, my old Vietnam hero buddy who has disgraced himself by appearing in the most anti-American film ever — something about being born on the 4 July — and Roffredo Gaetani, the once noble Roman and ex-pro boxer who at present has turned into a sex object for Big Bagel ladies. r There was Philip Niarchos and Edward (Zaharoff) Ulmann, and others much too poor to mention. Oh yes, I almost forgot. Behind the jazz band lay Anthony Haden-Guest, who welcomed the Nineties in the same manner he has wel- comed the last three decades, out cold.
Needless to say, I missed Adnan Khashoggi's party due to drink, as well as Philip Niarchos's, which began immediately after mine. But it didn't matter. The year's end celebrations had started early for me this time. They began in London last week on my way to the Bagel. That is when I met the divine Miss Katie Braine, once erroneously described in the world's greatest magazine as a rubber sculptress. (She sculpts in bronze and marble). They continued at Fellini's, the best London nightspot at the moment, in the company of Bill Lovelady, and went on far into the night at Claridge's, where I now have to bunk, as my flat burned down in my absence. Well, it could have been worse. I could have been at Oscar de la Rentals with Henry Kravis and the rest of the gang.
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