When Tom Wolfe harpooned Leonard Bernstein in his famous Sixties essay, he did it by quoting directly from those attending the infamous cocktail party Lenny gave for the Black Panthers. Wolfe had finagled an invite to the grand 5th Avenue Bernstein pad, and was taking notes throughout the evening. The end result was devastating. In fact, it killed radical chic once and for all. The rich and famous stopped giving dinners for cop killers and drug dealers and turned instead to philanthropy. Soon after, the great social climb began with a vengeance, John Fairchild’s nouvelle society was created and names like Steinberg, Kravis, Gutfreund, and so on became household ones by paying a hell of a lot of money for their seats at charity balls. But it was Tom Wolfe who slew the dragon of radical chic, started in California — where else? — by publicity-seeking rich lovies.
One of Tom’s quotes I treasure was the one that had art dealer Richard Feigen sweating and rather desperately following some big shot around asking, ‘How does one rent a Panther?’ Feigen, the Panthers and I go way back. When I lived in the Hotel du Cap during the summers of the 1950s and 1960s, Feigen would watch some pretty rich fellows drop by my cabana, people with names like Thyssen and Agnelli, so he hatched a plan. He offered me a job selling his art to people like that. Actually, I took it rather badly. Art dealers back then were considered spivs and conmen, so I told him to shove it. Years later, I went to Algeria and interviewed the top Panthers, including Eldridge Cleaver, who were under house arrest having fled America after killing a few cops. (‘Oh, man, what wouldn’t I give for a hamburger’ was the way Cleaver put it.)
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