High life
Trade names
Taki
New York Miss Koo Stark, who, wits claim, shows up nowadays at each and every open- ing, even that of an envelope, blew into town last week for the start of the Britain Salutes New York festival. So did the air- craft carrier Hermes, thus sending the pulse rate of a few New York hostesses soaring in anticipation of a royal catch. But it was not to be. Koo was escorted exclusively by her Svengali, Michael White, and although the theatrical impresario is a prince among pro- ducers he was hardly what social climbers in New York expected You Know Koo to be with. It's also too bad that Michael White didn't follow a friend's advice and provide Miss Koo with an actor-look-alike of the brother-in-law of the greatest 0-level getter of all time. I say too bad because New Yorkers are quite desperate where royals are concerned, as well as regarding them as figures.of fun, and fun was something bad- ly lacking last week. In fact even with Koo Stark, Britain's salute to New York turned out to be the non-event of the month.
The festival is supposed to be a six- month-long extravanganza celebrating British art, ballet, fashion and music. Up till now most of the British who have come over have either been Americans who live in London, like Miss Koo, or foreign jet- setters posing as English ladies and gents and peddling their goods under the auspices of the festival. Take the case of Nona Sum- mers, a.k.a. Lola Winters, for example. She is as British as I am, yet here she was in New York selling a new line of leotards that she has designed. Now I still don't know who the organisers of the festival are, but I am sure that flogging leotards by Lola Winters to a naive and unaware American public was not part of the original plan of how Britain should salute New York.
But never mind. I can't work out why anyone would want to salute this filthy place, especially Britain, but I suppose there are a lot of things I don't understand. Like the altruism shown by Martin Sum- mers, a.k.a. Mark Winters, for example. Martin paid for an orchestra to fly over and play some rather bad Beethoven, but it was Beethoven, (at least I think it was), and that makes a change from the type of music the jet-set usually listens to. The trouble was that the crowd who went to the concert were more concerned about which nightclub's bash they would go to afterwards — whether it would be Xenon or Regine's — than about Ludwig. As it turned out it was Mr Chow's• Still, it was nice of Mark to introduce the jet-set to Beethoven and TchaikovskY, although Rirnski-Korsakov would have
been a bit more appropriate.
Speaking of intellectuals, there is no place that venerates them more than the Big Apple. The only caste system that exists that money cannot buy into in this city is the achievers' caste system of writers and actors. One is aware of the caste system at all times. Especially when entering a restaurant or a chic party. Or while brows- ing through a New York newspaper. Needless to say, this makes the under- achievers a bit envious, but what is a little envy when there are more important things like getting a good table at Elaine's, or an invitation at Jackie O's to be considered. (Gore Vidal has explained the attitude of New York intellectuals perfectly. He said that the chief emotion among thinking cir- cles is envy, and for once I agree with him.)
One person who was over here and whom I happened to have dinner with and who could hardly be described as a jet-setter flogging his tights was James Fox of White Mischief fame. Mr Fox was a very pleasant surprise in view of the fact that he once worked for the ghastly Frank Giles. But he was very pleasant and unassuming, an unheard-of pose among writers who have struck it rich in New York. Every hostess seems to want him more than they want You Know Koo's boyfriend, but apparently Mr Fox is as elusive as some of those Characters he wrote about in Kenya. Jackie KO, however, did get him for an evening, and if his next book is a coffee-table one that costs over £100 then we shall know that their dinner was successful as far as she was concerned.
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