|
BY DONNA SHOR GLAMOUR GALORE Diahann Carroll, Jane Curtin, Delia Reese, Loretta Swit and The Lion Kings Julie Taymor, five groundbreakers in music, film, theater and television, joined the National Museum of Women in the Arts' 20th anniversary celebrations. After short video biographies of these gutsy women, - each with a strong point of view - they took questions from the audience, with Kathleen Matthews moderating. Seen: Sam and Jan Smith Donaldson, Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, Mary Mochary, Philip Wine, Carol and Climis Lascaris, Myrna Col ley-Lee (Mrs. Morgan Freeman), Irene Natividad and the Museum founder and president, Wilhelmina Holladay and her daughter-in-law Winton Holladay.
NOCHE TROPICALE One of the spiciest evenings in town raised funds for one ofWashington's most quietly deserving charities: Mary's Center for Maternal and Child Care. PBS newsman Ray Suarez, La Romana's scorching salsas, the Tobias Dinastia dancers and a great dinner (tender hunks of filet, nothing "mignon" here) raised $250K, said Center founder and CEO Maria Gomez.
DISHING ON THE PRESIDENT Connie Carter chaired the Woodrow Wilson House reception opening The Presidential Dish, a re-creation of Mrs. Wilson's White House China Room with 130 pieces of rare presidential porcelain in widely varying patterns. That weird red ice-cream plate topped by a scupted gold snowshoe landed in Lucy Hayes' cabinet after husband Rutherford B. - the president who pulled the last Union troops out of the South - celebrated unification with china picturing the four U.S. compass points and snowshows meaning "north."
THE SPANISH INFANTA Stately Princess Elena, daughter of King Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Sophia, opened the National Portrait Gallery's Legacy: Spain and the United States in the Age of Independence:1763-1848. At this don't-miss exhibit, magnificent paintings of the American and Spanish notables involved and the accompanying texts remind us of the help Spain gave us in winning our Revolutionary War. Infanta Elena, who spoke authroitatively and warmly to the guests, is now fourth in line to the throne after her brother, Crown Prince Felipe, and the two daughters born to him and his wife Letizia, Princess of Asturias, a former television journalist.
IT'S ALL RELATIVE Two family tales, one royal, one noble: At the National Portrait Gallery reception with Infanta Elena, we learned that Sandy Stackelburg, son of the late Washington personality, Baroness Garnett Stackelburg, shared the same godmother with Elena's brother the Prince of Asturias.Through her husband Constantine ("Steno") Stackelburg, Garnett was related to the Spanish royal house (as well as those of England, Greece, and Sweden), son Sandy and the crown prince had as godmother Victoria Eugenia, wife of Alexander XIII, and Queen of Spain. There was another "relative connection" at Barbara and Chiswell Dabney Langhorn Jr's cocktail party, "Shaken, Not Stirred," benefiting the privately funded Trees For Georgetown. The first Chiswell Dabney Langhorne of Virginia fathered five celebrated beauties. One sister married artist Charles Dana Gibson, and became the model for his "Gibson Girl," the legendary - but discreetly covered - "pin-up" of a century ago. Sister Nancy left Virginia for England, became the wife of Lord Waldorf Astor and scored fame as Lady Astor, the first woman seated in the English parliament. And, said "Chillie" (Chiswell) Langhorne, through two great-grandmother sisters, yet another Washingtonian is also in the loop - his first cousin, Tandy Dickerson. Ancestor Astor, a no-nonsense American and tart-tongued firebrand, was famous for her put-downs: On her hapless husband: "I married beneath me. All women do." And when hard-drinking Winston Churchill was invited to her costume ball he asked what would be his best disguise and she answered, "Come sober, Mr. Prime Minister, come sober." Is there an event Around Town should know about? email, aroundtown@washingtonlife.com.
|
||||||||||
