Since we never read Liz Smith’s column unless doctor prescribed (which happens more often than you think), we missed this spectacular Jann Wennderful item she ran about Bette Midler’s 60th birthday party. And we do mean spectacular.
I NEVER thought I’d be at a birthday party where the chieftain of Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner, made a toast wearing a yarmulke, noting that someone famous had turned him from straight to gay. This was at Bette Midler’s fabulous 60th birthday party down in TriBeCa, at what was once a synagogue. Wenner brought down the house. But all the speeches were sensational: Barbara Walters, joking that she’d been gay and has become straight; playwright John Guare, who recited all the historical instances of happenings on the date Dec. 1; and Ahmet Ertegun hilariously recited how he “discovered” Bette.
Wenner queered out in a former Jewish temple and nobody rang us? Where’s the holiday spirit, you guuuuys? (And don’t think we missed that Babs WaWa item, but the joke is in the copy.)
FROM B’WAY TO CLASS [Liz Smith]