Met gala

New York Tennessee Williams wrote Baby Doll with her in mind, and she was considered the sexiest blonde bombshell ever, much sexier than Jean Harlow, whom she portrayed on film. She was great in The Carpetbaggers, The Great Divide, Harlow, Giant and countless other 1950s, ’60s and ’70s hits. Carroll Baker is 91, still very much compos corpus and without make-up; a lively dinner companion who Michael Mailer and I took out to dinner last week. No, they don’t make them like her any more – except for Lily James and Keira Knightley. I sat next to her in an Italian outdoor restaurant, ordered some good wine and the three

New York Back in the good old days the Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was the hotel for Yankee swells, rich politicians such as JFK, and, of course, upper-class Eurotrash. Both my children were born at a hospital nearby, and both newborns spent their first month of life at the hotel. Alexandra and I would leave our nearby brownstone, which was more upside down, and move to the Carlyle, which was more sideways, thanks to my dad’s generosity. We were given the presidential suite with round-the-clock service and doctor availability galore. While waiting for her brother to be born, my five-year-old Lolly had the run of the hotel