New York
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.’
Subtlety and witty bitchiness are truly things of the past, especially here in the Bagel, where cringe-inducing woke has everyone offended over everything, with no one daring to actually offend anyone. Gone are the days when an actress could say about a rival that ‘she never turns anything down except the bedcovers’. People are very reluctant to express any opinion, let alone say anything that might be construed as insulting to a group. One can be sued for anything and everything. At times I think half of the American population is made up of lawyers.
The Brits are among the last ones left with a sense of fun
Almost 40 years ago, I took my little girl and a school friend to a Broadway show, On Your Toes, and after two terrific hours we found ourselves in the middle of the Great White Way in pouring rain and not a taxi in sight.
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