The death of waspish wit

It’s party time in the Bagel, and also the last week I’ll be spending in this unrefined place. The Bagel has lost its je ne sais quoi for me. It is now as subtle as a knocked-out Russian T-72 stuck in the mud. There’s as much wit around here as there used to be virgins in Hollywood, when the great Oscar Levant referred to Elizabeth Taylor’s numerous marriages as ‘Always a bride, never a bridesmaid’. Or, as someone meaner said of another lady actress: ‘She’s the original good time that was had by all.’ I never met Walter Wanger, the very grand and successful movie producer, but I’m a friend of his daughter Shelley, an editor at Knopf, and I’ll never forget his perfect description of a Hollywood bash: ‘In the old days, if you didn’t take the young lady on your right upstairs between the soup and the entrée, you were considered a homosexual.