Woman’s Day Red Dress Awards: Seeing Red on Heart Disease

“I see a sea of red,” became the cliché of the night at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room for the Woman’s Day Red Dress Awards. Indeed, red was encouraged for stars on the red carpet, Angela Bassett, Susan Lucci, and everyone else, and it seemed a giant homage to Valentine’s Day and the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration all wrapped in one. But the unifying image was the heart, meaning heart health for women. Lucci, the queen of soap operas, told a story of being the picture of health and suddenly feeling pressure in her chest in October, averting a heart attack. Bassett, the queenly Ramonda in Black Panther, lost her mother in 2014 to heart disease. She wanted to create awareness for the link between Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease. Each speaker, and including doctors Dr. Sharon Hays and Mary N. Walsh, had a message: these episodes are preventable.

Joy Bauer presented five women who were learning the ABC’s of good eating, and just as she does on NBC, applauded their weight loss. Hoda Kotb promised a great night of entertainment, and even with the corny remarks of host Ali Wentworth, it was. Highlights included the Japanese dancing drummers, Cobu, Alexa Ray Joel knocking “(I’m in a) New York State of Mind” out of the atrium, and dedicating her performance to her mom Christie Brinkley seated in the front row, and her deceased grandma Marge Brinkley. Heart’s Ann Wilson performed “Barracuda,” and then some songs from popular songwriters we’ve lost, including Leslie Gore’s 1965 “You Don’t Own Me” and rocker Tom Petty’s “Luna,” not one of his hits, she said, but “I have a romantic spirit.”

Chandra Wilson accepted an award for an episode on “Grey’s Anatomy” in which she, as Dr. Miranda Bailey, was a patient and poo-pooed by her doctor. The message about insisting on being taken seriously was resonant for viewers. She summed up the evening: “We have to make an effort to stick around as long as we can.”

Regina Weinreich

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