Gossip Central

Hamptons Journal: McArthur Binions at the Peter Marino Foundation, the LongHouse Gala, and Daniel Humm at Guild Hall

The work is detailed and geographic, tonal, you might say, like bop graffiti on brick in a Detroit abandoned building. The artist, McArthur Binions, in fact, comes from Detroit but spent a lot of time in New York meeting Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis, moving on to Chicago where he now lives and works. Artist Rachid Johnson was his student, so favored that he became part of the family, taking care of the kids. At a recent "Brunch with Bob," at the Peter Marino Foundation, he told a packed crowd awed by Binions' art, Binions refused to sell his work at the time, proclaiming it would be worth a lot someday. And Johnson who knew him only in that school setting as his teacher, thought, "This guy is crazy." Yeah, as the saying goes, crazy like a fox. This was the talk's great takeaway.

In the foundation gardens for brunch, Prudence Fairweather asked McArthur Binions if he had ever met her husband, John Chamberlain. Oh yes, that was at the Fanelli Bar. He had a large vial of cocaine. I ask, did he share? "Yes he did. It was very good."

A who’s who of artists show up at the LongHouse gala every year. The evening, honoring Kenny Scharf and Tony Bechara, is always an homage to Jack Lenor Larsen, its founder, and a celebration for nature enthusiasts who love the combo of gorgeously curated outdoor art in the leafy setting: Robert Wilson, Ned Smyth, Joan Semel, mingling among many others. The much-awarded “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” costumer Donna Sakowska said she’s been living in Paris developing a ballet series called “Etoile” with the Palladinos.

Bob Balaban Directs Blythe Danner, Edie Falco, Alec Baldwin for 2024: The Pursuit of Happiness at Guild Hall

Begging the question: is it too soon to laugh about the pandemic year, 2020, a collection of short plays by masterful playwrights, did just that in a one-nighter at Guild Hall, directed by Bob Balaban. That was July 2021. Now for July 2024, as we ponder where we are in an arguably post-pandemic year, Balaban assembled a collection of short plays to consider “The Pursuit of Happiness” starring Alec Baldwin, Edie Falco, Blythe Danner, Jim Bracchitta, Steven Wallem, and Richard Kind.

Baldwin kicked off the staged reading with “Mr. Happiness” by David Mamet, a Dear Abby meets Miss Lonelyhearts, an advice guru which he performed with a stagy voice only Alec Baldwin could muster. Blythe Danner, for a Neil la Bute piece from his “10 x 10 Monologues,” about a woman of a certain age contemplating her current plan to go off for a weekend with a handsome stranger, said after in Guild Hall’s green room, that she merely read it straight, not trying to act at all. The result was so wistful and moving that even this playwright’s words which are often not respectful to women came off as a true insight into the female psyche.

Lynn Grossman’s play “The Keepsake” took on the subject of memory and its lapses during the COVID era. As performed by Richard Kthis was the longest and most direct evocation of the virus and its aftermath, still uncharted. Grossman said she wrote the play with Richard Kind in mind as perfect to perform its manic ins and outs of memory and ending with a recitation of a Shakespeare sonnet.

Remembering Audrey Flack

At the end of Audrey Flack’s new memoir, With Darkness Came Stars, published when she was 92, she takes stock of a life well lived:

I am lucky that my mind remains clear and sharp, filled with ideas for new art. The creative spirit is running strong and I continue to work.

These words, and the fact that Flack’s mother lived to 100, gave the impression that she would always be there, encouraging artists of every kind, dispensing wisdom on every subject, exuding enthusiasm in her belief that art can heal. Her recent death at age 93 from a torn aorta was a great shock.

A noted pioneering photorealist, abstract expressionist, and sculptor, she was controversial in every genre. As a photorealist, her work featured lipsticks, mirrors, beads shining bright as the chrome veneers of the men’s autos. Flack’s very subjects, Marilyn Monroe to ç1 as Cleopatra, to teary eyed macarenas, were seen as secondary to the men’s “reflections on metal surfaces.” Excluded from a show, she knew women were being written out of the history of art. Her dealer Ivan Karp told her flat out: “Paint cars and trucks and I’ll make you famous.”

Flack went her own way. Airbrush was a no-no but she experimented anyway, and favored figuration when abstract expressionism was all the rage. Against the feminist grain, her bejeweled goddess statues were deemed kitsch, totally out of phase. Flack observed the art world from the inside: And she told her stories in the memoir and through her songs written for her “History of Art” bands. She played the banjo.

Jackson Pollock was a favorite subject, but not the only one. Often drunk, the male artists come off as boorish; the women subservient, and catty, always second place. Flack opines on who’s a feminist (herself) and who is not (Elaine DeKooning and Alice Neel) and tells juicy stories describing the artists’ loft scene, galleries and gallerists, liaisons. In one, she’s instrumental in introducing Jackson Pollock to Ruth Kligman, an aspiring artist, instructing the voluptuous young woman to the far seat at the Cedar Tavern’s bar.

Alec Baldwin Returns to East Hampton for Summerdocs: Skywalkers: A Love Story

Even more than meeting any Hollywood star, Alec Baldwin loves documentarians, he said this week, after a screening of Skywalkers: A Love Story, the first film screened at the newly refurbished Guild Hall and the first of the series, Summerdocs. The elite doc series, a cornerstone of HamptonsFilm programming, founded by Artistic Director David Nugent and Chairman Emeritus Baldwin, has since its inception showcased crowd-pleasing, feature-length nonfiction films that have gone on to Oscar nominations and wins (think Navalny). With its international focus, outstanding cinematography and core romance, expect Skywalkers to be an awards contender as the season approaches.

Baldwin, despite legal battles around the accidental shooting on set making Rust, was in top form interviewing Tamir Ardon and Maria Bukhonina, the filmmakers of Skywalkers, on the frontier of a new era of cutting-edge documentaries. Two Russian rooftoppers, Vanya Beerkus and Angela Nikolau, already popular on social media, team up and fall in love. Challenged to climb the tallest construction site in the world, in Malaysia, they allow a film crew along for the trip, but, as Bukhonina pointed out, Vanya was already an expert drone photographer. They climb a 118-story building and spire, a nail-biting journey, and perform a balletic stunt atop, with Vanya holding Angela, a trained gymnast, as she “flies.” Believe him when he tells her, “I will never let you fall.”

Prior to the film coming to the Hamptons, I had the opportunity to speak to director Jeff Zimbalist and producer/ director Maria Bukhanina:

 What was the most difficult part of making your film?

Jeff Zimbalist: Our primary challenge was safety. We developed a protocol with Vanya and Angela's families to reassure them that our crew wouldn't distract them during their most daring climbs and we had an agreement with Vanya and Angela that they wouldn't do anything for our cameras that they wouldn't do otherwise. We kept reminding them, this isn't a film about the fear of falling from heights; it's about the fear of falling in love. Like the metaphor Angela uses in the film about trapeze couples, there's the flyer and the catcher, sometimes we found ourselves grounding our subjects when their heads were in the clouds and other times, they grounded us, and fortunately for a film about trespassing and death-defying stunts, that led to a process with few injuries and no arrests.

Diane Von Furstenberg, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli: Icons at the Tribeca Film Festival

Opening the Tribeca Film Festival, DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: WOMAN IN CHARGE, features the famed fashion designer who was to the late 20^th century what Coco Chanel was to the early century, a game changer on how women dress. Her signature wrap frock, effortless and affordable, was in every closet, and made DVF’s name. Asked, how she became a princess? In my case, I married a prince, she deadpans in the movie. A celebrity life ensued including liaisons with many men (and one girl), respite in Bali, and marriage to Barry Diller. She attributes her success to the lessons in fearlessness taught by her mother, a survivor of Auschwitz.

As she tells it, upon liberation, her emaciated mother was fed by her parents using a medicine dropper. To those of us who share second generation Holocaust legacy, some essential details are missing in this otherwise informative, vivid documentary of a fascinating life. Belgian Jews, how did her grandparents elude Nazi round ups? Focusing instead on her life in America, two-time Oscar-winning director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy takes us through DVF’s insecurities and pleasures as a mother, the glitz and glamor of Studio 54, the devastation of AIDS, feminist activism. It’s a lot. And nothing says icon more than the portrait of her by Andy Warhol.

Of course, Elizabeth Taylor was famously a Warhol subject too. In the new documentary, ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES, we are reminded of Liz as child actor, the many beloved films such as NATIONAL VELVET, FATHER OF THE BRIDE, among them, and Liz in the tabloids, the many marriages including Nicky Hilton (enough said), Mike Todd (probably the love of her life), Eddie Fisher (not so much), Richard Burton (twice). Her friendships with Debbie Reynolds (America’s sweetheart) and Cybil Burton, women whose marriages she broke up is not much mentioned. Then again, much of the story comes from Liz Taylor herself, from an interview for a book by journalist Richard Meryman.

Given these “lost tapes,” documentarian Nanette Burstein had access to Taylor’s personal archives. In a zoomed conversation Burstein said she was most surprised by Elizabeth Taylor’s insecurities. Yes of course Taylor was uniquely beautiful, but she wanted to be known for her art. Awarded her first Oscar for BUtterfield 8, Taylor had a mixed response: she plays a prostitute during a period in her life when her love life was intensely scrutinized. Burstein strategically shows a scene where her character confronts her mother. In real life, her father had called Liz a whore.

Steve Van Zandt: Disciple at the Tribeca Film Festival: It’s More Than Rock ‘N’ Roll

Wearing orange leathery skinny pants and his signature bandanna, Steve Van Zandt, greeted guests as they attended the premiere of Bill Teck’s documentary about him, Steve van Zandt: Disciple, to air on June 22 on HBO. Many were friends and family, and many knew him simply as Bruce Springsteen’s guitar partner in the E Street Band. Everyone got a refresher on decades-long dedication to R&B. In a riveting two and a half hours, Van Zandt’s energy provides evidence, even in his ‘70’s, there’s more to come: the film limns his early Asbury Park/ Stone Pony years, ups and downs in his music/ songwriting career, acting in the HBO’s “The Sopranos,” and in a Netflix series, “Lillyhammer.” His political activism led to a boycott of Sun City that resulted not only in Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, but to an end to apartheid and change for South Africa’s black community. What’s next? Above all, rock ‘n’ roll has legs, and heart.

As with many subjects of biopics, seeing his life in a cogent narrative was startling, “more coherent than the way I lived it,” said Little Stevie at the Q&A. Director Teck promised to follow the work, and “Disciple” gave him focus. He worked hard to get the ok, and thanked Stevie’s wife Maureen for her help in finally securing it. Copious research gleaned pictures from their hippie-style wedding, and a two-shot of Van Zandt with Nelson Mandela. Yes, that really happened.

John Slattery in The Subject was Roses: Waiting for Sarah Jessica Parker

At Bay Street Theater, the stage was set for The Subject Was Roses. In the courtyard, the drama was palpable. A wine cart selling Wolffer sparkling rose, a summer intern named Lily giving long stemmed roses to VIPs beside the red carpet where theater royalty such as Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin smiled for cameras. The play features an all-star family, that is John Slattery, his real-life wife Talia Balsam, and their son Harry Slattery, a star-in-waiting in his theater debut, but everyone was waiting for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick who brought family and friends Andy Cohen and Bridget Everett, star of HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, now going into its third season. The show would go on.

A family story, The Subject was Roses begins as Timmy (Harry Slattery) returns home from war to find his parents, grateful for his return but living out age-old marital issues. Alcohol is involved.

Let’s just say, he has good genes: Said Balsam, herself the child of actors, Joyce Van Patten and Martin Balsam: “It’s a period piece but it’s the internal lives, the alcoholism, the family dynamic of a boy watching his parents in a dysfunctional situation. Someone who wants to get out and make his own way is universal.”

As Timmy, navigating the emotional roller coaster of this post-WW II family in Frank Gilroy’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play, Harry makes it all look so easy. John Slattery was happy with opening night, especially for his son. First time out of the gate, “Harry hit it out of the park.”

Bernstein’s Wall: Leonard Bernstein Uptown

An elite group gathered this week for a special screening of BERNSTEIN’S WALL, a documentary about the great composer/ conductor/ educator, a fixture of 20^th century American cultural history. Well-timed, the riveting documentary comes after Bradley Cooper’s success with MAESTRO, his Oscar nominated biopic of the legendary artist. But here, with Leonard Bernstein’s own words dancing across the screen, we get the inner life of this creative genius.

This week’s screening and dinner at Jean-Georges’ new Four Twenty-Five restaurant hit every high note, hosted by Spectrum One’s Frank DiLella—not far from the Philharmonic where Bernstein’s illustrious career was launched at 25, when, as an understudy conductor filling in, he garnered raves. Ditto for this exceptional movie. Not quite a biopic, as filmmaker Doug Tirola makes clear—a proper one might be hours long—this film, comprised only of Bernstein’s own voice from tapes and readings from personal letters, recounting the importance of music, his own process, how music informs his life, still manages to touch all bases: his political activism—starting with the Berlin Wall, and coming to the “Kotel” in Jerusalem.

BERNSTEIN’S WALL was actually ready prior to MAESTRO, and the filmmakers—including producer Susan Bedusa-- strategically held it back. Bradley Cooper’s focus on the Bernstein’s marriage to Felicia Montenegro and homosexuality was a point of contention. What about Bernstein’s politics? At an early BERNSTEIN’S WALL screening put together by Peggy Siegal, Peter Duchin, who had attended Bernstein’s legendary parties, remembered the infamous one Tom Wolfe sensationalized in his Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Chasers. Duchin said the encounter was Lenny’s wife Felicia’s idea to bring the Black Panthers to the Dakota: Let’s just hear what they have to say. A not-so-outrageous event that nevertheless made headlines.

Tirola illuminates these subjects: Black Panthers, McCarthyism, Bernstein’s Talmudic style as a teacher. His pulse attuned to the politics of the day, and mensch that he was, Leonard Bernstein did not turn away. Jewish, he fixed neither his nose nor his name. And even though Bernstein clearly states that at age 10 he wished his strict immigrant father dead—he was dismayed at his son’s career choice—Lenny came to understand and to love him.

The Commandant’s Shadow: Rudolf Hoss’ Secondhand Smoke

“I had the best part of my life in Auschwitz,” says Hans Jurgen Hoss, son of the killing camp’s commandant, Rudolf Hoss—without a trace of irony. A fictional version of his time there can be seen in the Academy Award winning, THE ZONE OF INTEREST; he’s one of the five children who frolicked in the garden beside the camp’s walls, oblivious to what was going on. As he says in the documentary, THE COMMANDANT’S SHADOW, he thought it was a prison and was happy to be able to live where his father worked. In his late ‘80’s, taking the filmmakers around the house, he shows where the crematoria could be seen from an upstairs window, noting there were fewer trees then. He does not recall a stench. His son Kai, Rudolf Hoss’ grandson says, understating the difficult matter of his father having been a child next to the murder of millions, “I think my father has repressed memories.”

Astonishing but true, awaiting trial for war crimes in Nuremburg, Rudolf Hoss wrote his autobiography, segments of which form a compelling narrative of what exactly went on in Auschwitz, providing a detailed account and perhaps varnishing his reputation, a confession. He watched as children were torn screaming from their mothers and thought of his own family, he writes. Director Daniela Volker was amazed that his book was not more widely known. Even Hans only read it for the film.

Is it merely a German boast when Kai Hoss asserts repeatedly, “My grandfather was the most successful mass murderer in human history?” Tasked with creating an efficient killing machine as the Fuhrer demanded the Final Solution for the Jews, Hoss was hands on. Now a man of the church, his grandson Kai copes with this legacy through scripture, God’s grace, and his ministry to others in Stuttgart, he tells me at the film’s New York premiere at the Whitby Hotel.

Also present was Maya Lasker-Wallfisch, the daughter of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who, as a young woman transported to Auschwitz, was in luck. The orchestra needed a cellist; playing music kept her alive. In the film we see her celebrating her 98th birthday in London. Distant and tough on her daughter, Anita’s mothering was no-nonsense. Now a psychoanalyst, Maya sees her life as a mess.  Moving to Berlin, she memorializes her murdered grandparents who she never met in the effort to reclaim what might have been-- had life in Germany been possible. Despite a hopeful and generous world view, Anita’s open hyper-criticism of Maya is evident. “Your Auschwitz is different from my Auschwitz. I did not know if I would live another hour,” she tells her daughter even as Maya is desperate to know more. Anita triumphs hosting Hans Jurgen Hoss for coffee and fruit pie in London—an utterly remarkable, historic meeting, given the sides of the wall each occupied in the war years. This coming together is the film’s climax, and summing it up, Anita delivers the film’ zinger: “Isn’t that beautiful?”

Ladies Who Lunch: Designs by Josie Natori to Benefit Cancer Research

On my way into Riverpark for the fashion show marking the annual “Collaborating for a Cure Ladies Lunch” to benefit the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, I ran into Dr. Waxman making his way out ‘round the revolving door. I’m here to see you, I said, always reminding the esteemed cancer specialist that my mother died in his care. But did we do the best we could for her? Yes, I replied. And I thank you for that. My mother died in 1996, and since that time I come to see the doctor at these special events, to learn how much more has been done by his researchers to combat a disease that affects just about every family.

While Dr. Waxman had to be elsewhere, he was there at Riverpark to support his wife Marion Waxman and the women who help this annual event such a huge success. This year designer Josie Natori, who I knew for her lingerie created for Lord & Taylor back in the day, presented gorgeous embroidered caftans. Models worked the spacious, elegant room as the ladies lunched on burrata and branzino. One stopped at every table to show off a stunning necklace from Mikimoto to be auctioned. The opulence was palpable at a time when most of us worry about the future of the planet. But that was not the point. The point is cancer, and it is still killing us.

Dr. Waxman often explains the latest accomplishments of his research foundation, reminding everyone, while we are all ageing beautifully, the older we get, the more vulnerable we are to the disease. I am sure no one wants to hear that news, but it feels worse because as life is extended, that means the greater possibility of illness for our kids—and grandkids. That hits home.