FIFTY-FIRST ANNUAL RED CROSS BALL
Mar-a-Lago Club, Palm Beach…the Red
Cross Ball is one of the world’s most glittery
galas with diamonds galore ($5 million dollars
worth bedecked Suzette, wife of international
jeweler David Morris), and tiaras, emeralds.
and rubies. All this, plus Melania Trump,
Susan Lucci, Archduke Georg
von Habsburg-Lothringen,
and his wife Archduchess Eilika.
Ambassadors who flew down
with The Donald on his private
plane were Shamin and Said
Jawad (Afghanistan), Rajmah
Hussain (Malaysia), Benedicte
and Joseph Weyland
(Luxembourg), Birgitte and
Arne Petersen (Denmark),
and dynamic National Red
Cross Chair Bonnie McElveen-
Hunter. Special thrill: the
patron’s dinner at the 45,000
square-foot, $37 million home
of super-hosts Michele (the
ball’s vice-chair) and Howard
Kessler. A special award was
given to Marion “Joe” Smoak, retiring as the
ball’s chief of protocol (“Never missed once
in 35 years”), who was replaced by former
Ambassador to Denmark Stuart Bernstein.
Washingtonians: Brad and Denise Alexander,
Bill and Norma Tiefel, Bill and Mary Walde,
Wilma Bernstein, Mike and Julia Connors,
Susan Eisenhower, Patti Delano, and Bill
and Julie Thurmond Whitmer, daughter of
the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.
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BAJAN DAYS
Our ambassador to Barbados, Mary
Ourisman was in Washington recently, on
official duty accompanying the Barbadian – “Bajan” – president to the White House.
Aniko and Nash Schott and Sedi and
Maximo Flugelman co-hosted a small reunion
of those who recently had spent four idyllic
days in Barbados celebrating Mary’s birthday
that her husband Mandy Ourisman organized.
Those present at the reuinion included, Ann
and Lloyd Hand, Marlene and Fred Malek,
Wilma and Stuart Bernstein, JoAnn and
John Mason, Bob and Laurie Monahan, and
Lynda and Bill Webster, among others.
BIRTHDAY BOY
To have an ambassador honor you with a
surprise party is terrific, but then to also have
Henry Kissinger praise your “elegance and
ease” and “quick instinct and silver tongue,”
seems the icing on the birthday cake.
This was Timothy Trudeau’s lucky lot recently
when his friends Elena Poptodorova, the
ambassador of Bulgaria, and her husband Georg
Petrov fêted him at the embassy residence.
The guest list included Lady Vivian
Foley and her daughter Heather, Alex von
Auersperg (the son of Sonny von Bulow),
Henry Leish, Alan and Carol Lowe, Gen. |
Lawrence and Pat Skantze, Emmy and
Peabody award-winning Gail Chalef of the
Brookings Institution, Carole Randolph, and
Howard and Dotsy Steele. Timothy’s wife,
P.J.Trudeau, was statuesque in Christian
Lacroix, and his striking,
Chanel-clad mother, Claire
Pate-Trudeau, sported a geewhiz
22 carat canary diamond
ring that Douglas Fairbanks
had once given to wife
Mary Pickford, when they
were old Hollywood’s most
famous pair. Claire’s namesake
granddaughter, Claire, proved
a poised party guest; in her six
short years, she has partied with
royalty and heads of state.
BIG TIME
Everything was huge at the
21st Annual Leukemia Ball:
the crowd (2,500); the venue
(the vast Walter E. Washington
Convention Center) and TV’s late night big
star himself, Jay Leno, who did a generous
hour-long show of signature riffs, posed affably
with the guests, and raffled off a $68,000
Mercedes. The theme “The Roaring ’20s”
featured fleet-footed Charleston flappers and
an over-the-top décor, and raised a big $3.3
million to fight blood cancer. To thank a big
giver, the Titan of Business and Philanthropy
award was presented to Ronald M. Bradley
for his magnanimous contributions and his
dedication to the cause.
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