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| A family walk in Central Park. Photo: Jeffrey Hirsch. |
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| July 1, 2013. A very warm, quiet weekend in New York with the weatherman forecasting thunderstorms, flash flooding and even maybe a tornado. Not. Sun on Saturday. Overcast on Sunday and no rain. This was the first summer weekend and at least in my neighborhood, the town cleared out. New York is really wonderful when that happens. Although evidently it’s not like that in midtown where thousands of tourists pack the pavement along Fifth Avenue. |
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| On Saturday night I went down to Broadway and 45th Street to the Booth Theater to see Bette Midler in “I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers.” Broadway was more than jammed with people. Don’t go near the place in a car because it will take you hours to get near the Main Stem as Walter Winchell used to call it (hyperbole but feels that way too). There was also a Street Fair on Sixth Avenue from 42nd Street to 57th Street until 7:30 on Saturday, so, as I said, forget it. I got out of the taxi and walked the two and half city-wide blocks. By the time I got to Seventh Avenue and Broadway, I was in the middle of throngs of humanity on a summer night, thousands and thousands of people of all ages, many with children, even infants, just taking in the promenade of ballyhoo and neon. It’s quite a sight.
If you’ve never seen it, do try, at least once. I’m always awed by it all, although each time I do think: I’m never coming here again on a Saturday night in summer (or warm weather). Nevertheless, I was once a tourist too, many long moons ago, and that tour was something that inspired a whole life, and an interesting life. But geezus! The clamoring crowds! The Booth was full up for Ms. Midler and her show. It wouldn’t be a bad guess to think that many, if not three quarters (or more) of the audience never heard of Sue Mengers until Bette Midler came along to play her. As soon as the curtain went up, the audience applauded and cheered and applauded and cheered. A good way to start of any show. Midler who is nothing if not a a supremely talented performer, never let that energy drop for even a second. There was no intermission and the show ran for ninety minutes. She sits on a couch and except for moving around on it frequently, she never gets up until the very end. And it wasn’t miked (and should have been). But yet even with that, she kept the audience rapt and hanging on to her every word (including the blue stuff). And laughing, even guffawing all the way through. This is Bette Midler. |
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| She can’t be bad because she is Just Brilliant. It’s the personality and her connection with her audience. I doubt very much if the real Sue Mengers (who was once the super-ist of Super Agents until Michael Ovitz& Co. stole all her mega-stars) could have held an audience with her natural monologue. Or kept them laughing. Nevertheless, Midler made it a big big hit and it’s been reported that the investors got their money back and then some in this limited engagement – almost unheard of since Richard Burton did the same in “Hamlet” forty years ago. |
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| The play itself is a one-woman show, and although it was packed with one-liners that Midler delivered with hilarious sleek bravado, Menger’s life, the “real” life — which was mainly her career in a career-oriented town — had a very bittersweet denouement. And it came when she was still a comparatively young woman. She had everything and suddenly she lost it all. This was not funny, and no amount of ironic cracks could have made it thus for her. She retired because basically she got kicked out of her business (by some bad choices and mainly by her clients — many of whom were friends — which tells you a little something about the gentlemen of the community as Billy Wilder used to say). She had such a powerful personality and an ability to endure and revive (or “survive” as they like to say). In “retirement” she created a new world for herself: that of hostess/priestess on her sofa smoking her cigs and her dope, having her drinks, entertaining all her buddies (many of them her former clients), but nevertheless. “Sunset Boulevard”— Norma Desmond as former agent. |
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| Bette Midler made it her character but another actress, another kind of actress could really cast a different spell (laughs and all) in that role. Someone mentioned Streep or Redgrave as examples. It’s a great part for an actress and I can imagine another interpretation. Anyway, when Bette Midler finished (Mengers gets up from her couch and slowly makes her way out of the room and down the hallway to her bedroom), the audience gave her a thunderous ovation that must have lasted what would have a been three or four curtain calls (if the curtain had rung down). Bette Midler is a joy; it’s that simple. You feel good when she’s there in front of you. Once she starts, she takes you on her trip, and never misses a beat. It’s smiles and laughter all the way. I was watching a great star performing at the Booth on Saturday night. |
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| Last Thursday morning at 11 at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, they held a memorial service for Paul Soros who died on June 15th, just ten days after his 87th birthday. Mr. Soros had been very ill for the past several years – although he made the best of it and lived his life to the fullest possible right to the end. There were several hundred guests all but filling the auditorium, including many of the city’s prominent philanthropists, businessmen and the many friends of Mr. Soros and his wife Daisy. Memorials of this sort – of prominent New Yorkers are uniquely impressive because of the great public curiosity and the guests they draw. The program began promptly at 11.Peter Soros, the eldest of the two Soros sons, spoke first, followed by his brother Jeffrey; then by the Soros grandchildren – Preston, Simon, Sabrina, Tommy Soros; then Stella Powell-Jones, a relative through marriage, and then his nephew Robert Soros. His younger brother George, was not present. |
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| Emi Ferguson then performed a delicate and moving rendition of “Ave Maria” on the flute. Ms. Ferguson was followed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an admiring, longtime friend of Mr. Soros; followed by one of the Soros doctors, Dr. Louis B. Harrison, and then Kathy Cohen who was a longtime bridge partner. Afflicted with Parkinsons, among other physical ailments, at the very end of his life he was unable to hold his cards and sometimes unable to speak. Nevertheless, he played – with someone holding his cards for him, with him pointing to which card he wished to play. Ms. Cohen remarked that in all the years they played together, unlike many card players, he remained unruffled (and un-angry) at the end of any game. |
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| After Ms. Cohen, pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe performed a powerfully haunting interpretation of Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op.27 No.1. She was followed by a longtime friend Peter Georgescu, then Lera Auerbach, a young composer whose education had been assisted by a grant from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans; and finally with a few words from his wife of sixty-one years, Daisy. The Soroses were well-known as a couple. It was always clear to anyone who knew them that they were a very successful and dynamic team always on equal and respectful (and often amused) footing with each other. Although I was in his presence, in his company a number of times, and I came to know his wife Daisy as a friend, I never knew him, or had a conversation with him. I did observe him frequently, however, and he was especially interesting to the eye because he was a handsome man, in a distinguished way, and carried himself with a courtliness unique to most men, no matter their financial or socially sophisticated stature. He had an almost royal, yet modest bearing. I once remarked about it to Daisy because Paul always gave a slight bow with a smile when shaking one’s hand or greeting. Daisy laughed when I mentioned it, adding, “you know, he answers the phone like that, too.” |
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| I knew he was a very successful businessman who had made his millions as an engineer. I knew he had endured the Second World War in Hungary first surviving the Nazis and their deportation of Jews, and then the Russian victors who pillaged and murdered so many (the Russians accused him of being a Nazi officer and he barely escaped with his life from captivity). He and Daisy had long been very active philanthropists here in New York. For almost two decades they underwrote the Midsummer Night Swing (dance-a-thon) every summer at Lincoln Center. They were also big supporters of the New York Philharmonic and their Fellowships program for New Americans had an endowment that eventually totaled $75 million. His friend Peter Georgescu spoke about how Paul Soros was a good man. He was a good man and a good man. His grandchildren, all probably not more than 12 or 14, each spoke briefly but articulately with wit and affection about their grandfather and the deep and kindly impression he made on them. |
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| He was a man of few words in the sense that he had the ability to listen and then respond thoughtfully. The young woman Stella Powell-Jones in referring to her conversations with him – whom she admired greatly – told how he once quietly counseled her that she needed to show more “curiosity” in her pursuits in life. Lera Auerbach recalled meeting him when she couldn’t speak English and how he infused her with confidence with his kindly interest. He was a champion skier who lost his chance to participate in the Olympics because of a freak accident on the slopes which ended with him losing a kidney. He was an excellent tennis player who also lost an eye, but kept on playing. He came to this country with $70 in his pocket. He was accepted at MIT and at Harvard but chose Brooklyn College because it was only $14 a credit. |
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| Paul and Daisy have long been a popular couple here in New York. While he appeared to be the quiet partner, they both clearly enjoyed “having fun.” Their funding of public dances is a perfect example. They infused their friends and guests with the same warmth and cheer. Each speaker at the memorial shed light on different qualities and characteristics of the man. What fascinated me about their comments was that although I didn’t know Paul Soros (except to say hello to), he was exactly the man I’d imagined from frequent observation. This was not so much because of my perception or perspicacity as it was a reflection of who he was as clearly defined by his conduct with and respect toward others, and by others’ reverence and respect for him. He was kind, he was brave, he was sensible and sensitive, courteous and courtly, highly intelligent and thoughtful; a man who had a lust for life and the ability to enjoy so much of it. He was curious and therefore inventive and innovative, and he never lost track of who he was as merely a man, very often a feat itself for those graced with great success. |
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| The program lasted for about an hour. The tributes were a comfort not only to the memory of the man but to the guests who felt graced at having known him as a friend, a partner, a father, a grandfather, a supporter, a mentor and a good man. The program, which I’ve included contained some of Paul Soros’ thoughts about life and about his life that articulate in another way what the speakers referred to from personal experience. To learn more about this remarkable man and his extraordinarily rich life, read the New York Times obituary, here. |
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Contact DPC here. |