Tuesday, May 11, 2004

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Friday, December 31, 1976

Worked at the office until 7:00. Went home to change for Kitty Miller's party. Walked over to 550 Park. Fred was there. Elsie Woodward, my Kitty-date for last New Year's, had called and cancelled because she said she was dizzy and that she can't fight it--"I'm old."

Princess Minnie de Beauvau was there with her father and stepmother and her sister Diane. She introduced me to her grandfather Antenor Patino who I then realized I'd just met at C.Z. Guest's. He's little. He looks like onf of Paloma Picasso's little boyfriends. He's the tin king of Bolivia.

I overheard Kitty describing me to somebody and I guess somebody must have talked to her about me because what she was saying was sounding like somebody had told it to her--"He's one of the furthest off-Broadway, and a far head of his time." and things like that. Maybe it was Billy Baldwin or somebody like that she got that stuff from.

I missed Kitty's regular butler, the one that had the fight with Diana Vreeland's maid. He was fired for being too familiar, but I really liked him--he's the one who told me to watch those A.E. Coppard stories on channel 13.

And after dinner, I sat underneath Goya's "Red Boy." Kitty has this most famous painting right there in her house, it's unbelieveable.

Kitty's parties used to be the biggest thing in New York with every Hollywood star there and now it was down to just her friends. Aileen Mehle--"Suzy"--didn't even RSVP this year.

Diane de Beauvau took my hand and we ran into the next room right as midnight was coming on. I sort of wanted to stay and kiss the old bags like I did the year before because actually it was so much fun to do--to kiss ninety-year-old Elsie Woodward and say, "Happy New Year, darling." Then Minnie de Beauvau came in and got Diane and told her she had to go back in and say Happy New Year to their father and stepmother--because she knows where their bread's buttered.

And the food at Kitty's--it was the canned frozen stuff again. At first you think that maybe these rich people don't know any better because they've been going to charity dinners all their lives, but then they do go to La Grenouille, too, and that's really good food. So they must notice the difference. And there were six servants serving the canned food.

Right after midnight it was everybody grabbing their coats, they couldn't wait to go on to the next party. Fred was really drunk. We got out on the street and he thought he was the "It Boy"--he gave Minnie his coat--the wind-chill factor was making it around twenty below--and he was just in his top hat, kissing everyone on the street. We walked Diane to the Westbury to pick up her boyfriend who'd stayed home to write a script, but when we got there he was in the nude waiting to fuck her, so we left her there.

Went home. Called Brigid. Called PH. Nobody was home yet. At 6 A.M. Jay Johnson woke me up calling to speak to Jed. He was drunk and I hung up on him and he called back and let it ring twenty times.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Wednesday, December 29, 1976

Hoveyda brought the Iranian ambassador to England to the office, they came to see the portrait I did of the empress, and they liked it, so it's going to be shipped out.

Vincent drove out for the hearings on the Montauk property, wetlands commission.