Dan's Papers - March 14, 2008

What may be the most elegant fundraising event in the Hamptons was held this past Monday evening. Attending were just about every major cultural and financial figure in our community, and yet the event did not even take place in the Hamptons. It took place at the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center high above New York City, with the glittering tops of the skyscrapers and the rivers taking your breath away just outside the windows all around. Even more interesting was what those honored had to say. You'll read that at the end of this article.

The event was the 24th annual Guild Hall Gala, an affair that has raised tens of millions of dollars for this East End institution and, in prior years, has honored such legends as Peter Jennings, Alec Baldwin, Lauren Bacall, Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Alda and Sidney Lumet.

The honorees this year, given lifetime achievement awards, were for the Literary Arts, Joe Pintauro, for the performing arts, Mel Brooks, for the Visual Arts, David Salle, and for leadership and philanthropic endeavors, Robert F. X. Sillerman.

The main dining room of the Rainbow Room, which has a capacity of about 180, was packed with people all dressed in what the invitation said should be "festive dress." The crowd of people mixed for a while - I ran into Albert Maysles who with his late brother produced the documentary Grey Gardens, Joan Hamburg, who has the long running show on WOR, Brenda Seimer, the widow of the late actor Roy Scheider to whom this evening was dedicated, to "Mr. Broadway" Stewart Lane and his wife Bonnie, to Mel Brooks and to dozens of others.

Mel Brooks told me he was a fan of Dan's Papers and that he admired what I had done. I told him I was a fan of Blazing Saddles and The Producers and Spaceballs and by that time he was shaking hands with someone else.

I could write a whole book about this wonderful evening. But instead, I think I would like to focus on the speeches made by the four people who received the awards. They are all talented, widely respected and very intelligent. And they all had different takes on what this evening was all about.

First up was Joe Pintauro, the prominent playwright who lives in Sag Harbor.

He is not only a playwright, but also a successful novelist and poet. He said he was deeply moved to be receiving this award, that it meant a great deal to him and that he was especially pleased to be part of what is surely an extraordinary arts community on eastern Long Island, a community that he has enjoyed for nearly all of his adult life.

David Salle, the prominent painter, said that, unlike Pintauro, he had not been born and bred into this art community. He was, he said, born in Oklahoma and raised in Wichita, Kansas before coming east. In accepting his award he said that he didn't really put too much emphasis on whether he received an award or not because he didn't think that artists were in competition with one another. But he was happy to accept it anyway, particularly because Guild Hall was this rare and important thing that was not only a theatre but also a museum, and that combining the two in one building created many opportunities. What would it be like, he asked, if the Met or MOMA had a theatre in it? He left us to ponder that.

Robert F. X. Sillerman, who is a billionaire businessman with a genius for promotion - he recently bought the rights to the promotion of Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali and "American Idol" - held up his award and said that unlike the others being honored who had earned their honor, he had simply bought his. He was, he said, just a businessman who had done very well at what businessmen are supposed to do, which is make money. "Here's how you get this award," he said. "You give Guild Hall a million dollars. They give you an award." He looked around the room to see who might buy the award next year. He also talked a bit about the new building at Brandeis that will have his name on it and will house a division of that University that teaches Philanthropy to those in a position to give away large sums but would like to be taught how most effectively to do that.

Mel Brooks spoke next. Actually, he didn't speak at first. He was announced, got up from his table in the audience like everybody else, went up front, snatched up his award, turned around without speaking and went back toward his seat which, fortunately, was completely blocked by admirers who said he had to get back up there and say something.

"This is an amazing coincidence," he said when he got back to the podium. "David Salle was born in Oklahoma and was raised in Wichita. And I was born in Oklahoma and raised in Wichita." Everybody howled. "Then I went to Hollywood and people said forget Wichita, do that Jew thing. So that's what I did. And I'm glad of it."

Brooks talked a little about Guild Hall.

"They have a museum there? I didn't know that. I thought it was just the theatre. I never went in the back. Imagine that. A museum."

Brooks told a story about being a young man in his early days in Hollywood and learning that the hotel bar he was sitting at was frequented, every day at noon, by Cary Grant. "I couldn't believe it! Cary Grant? It was ten to noon. I didn't move. And there he was. He wore a pin-striped suit, shined up black shoes, and he came up the escalator from his Bentley and came right in and sat down. Later I called my friend in New York and said guess who came right in to where I was? Cary Grant!

The next day, he came in again, and I came up and introduced myself to him. He asked me to sit down. I said sit down with Cary Grant? He insisted. We talked. He asked me my favorite color. I said blue. He said that was his favorite color. He asked me my favorite movie. I said Top Hat. He said Top Hat was his favorite movie too. We had something going here. We had all this in common.

Afterwards, I couldn't believe it. I had made friends with Cary Grant.

The next day, there he was again and he called me over and now we had lunch. He asked me what my favorite car was, and I said an Oldsmobile. And he said how about that, his was the Bentley. I said wow and there's one right there outside. We were becoming buddies now. I picked up the check for lunch of course.

He called me the next day and we met again. Then he called me on Thursday and we met again. When he called Friday, I thought about it for a minute, and then I told my secretary - tell him I'm out."

That was Mel Brooks. The King of the, where the hell were we?

What a wonderful evening. Comedian Angela LaGreca, who also writes for the "Today Show" and before that "The View," hosted the evening and was hilarious. The dinner included a crabmeat salad, herb crusted roast lamb and wild mushroom risotto, vanilla cream meringue cake and Corey Creek Chardonnay and Bedell Merlot wines from the North Fork. The key figures today for Guild Hall, Mickey Straus, Roy Furman and Ruth Appelhof, did an absolutely marvelous job of putting together this wonderful and glittering evening high up at the top of Manhattan.