Sheldy's Heinz Birthday

That's right. 57 Varieties. This was me on the first day of the rest of my life.

Hopped on the train and headed down to my favourite part of town, the Village!
Met up with Mr. Charles Busch for a matinee of the splendid documentary VERSAILLES 73

  The film is pretty much a bunch of talking heads reminiscing about the extraordinary night in 1973 when a fundraiser in Paris to raise money for the restoration of the Palace of Versailles changed the course of fashion history.

The idea was a fashion parade at the Palace followed by a grand supper in what had been Louis XIV's quarters. The show would be a competition between five of the greatest French fashion designers versus five of the best American designers. The French scoffed because they felt there was no such thing as American fashion. Each French designer had a budget of $30,000 for their presentation. Each American had $5,000.

Everyone who was anyone attended, from Princess Grace to Andy Warhol. The French designers Givenchy, Cardin, Ungaro, Dior and Saint-Laurent presented the first half stuffed with talent including Zizi Jeanmaire, Jane Birkin, Louis Jourdan, Rudolf Nureyev, Josephine Baker and the Crazy Horse nude dancers under the direction of Jean-Louis Barrault. Elaborate sets and staging guaranteed the first act to run more than two and a half hours.

The Americans (including Liza Minnelli and director/choreographer Kay Thompson) had been treated with shocking rudeness by the French and given no rehearsal time, forced to wait for hours without food or water in the cold theatre while the rehearsals for the French designers stretched hours overtime. Their minimal backdrop painted by Joe Eula had been constructed with the wrong dimensions and resembled 'a towel flapping in the wind', and had to be dispensed with. Finally, after a brief intermission, the designers Halston, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Stephen Burrows and Oscar de la Renta and their under-rehearsed company now had to follow this huge overstuffed variety show with nothing but their clothes, their guts and their models' energy.

In a mere 35 minutes the Americans had the entire audience on their feet screaming and literally throwing their expensive souvenir programmes in the air. The 11 African-American models who had mostly been hired because they were willing to work for little more than the plane fare completely revolutionised the look of catwalk parades for ever more. The seamless presentation, pounding disco music and classic lines of the clothes caused pandemonium and an instant shift away from couture towards ready to wear.

The models recalled the magnificent dinner they were treated to after the parade (earning another ovation as they entered the dining room) and for the rest of the evening the most beautiful women in the world watched themselves and each other as they promenaded up and down the Hall of Mirrors. One black model noted that the last time their ancestors had walked those grounds they would have been slaves. Now they were there as stars. YAY! A fascinating part of fashion history.

After a quick trip home to clean the bathroom (birthdays are so glamorous) I returned to midtown to meet Ms Keala Settle for a slap-up Italian dinner.

She was waiting for me looking particularly elegant and she would have been none the wiser that it was my birthday except that I made a faux pas and it slipped out.

 Ms Settle decided a birthday portrait was now required. The restaurant was so posh that what we thought was a flower arrangement on the bar turned out to be bread sticks.

 After our delicious din dins we made our way to the Ars Nova performing space to see a one night only concert by Aussie singer-songwriter Matthew Robinson.

Matthew is here working on his new musical ATLANTIS with the help of executives at Disney and composer Stephen Schwartz. He's also trying to organise a production of his completed project called HAPPY PEOPLE about a children's tv show suspiciously like HI-5. At tonight's show Matthew played piano and performed selections from all his shows beginning with METRO STREET, expertly assisted by Jeremy Kushnier, Kevin Massey, Ryah Nixon and Alexandra Socha.

Ars Nova is a really fabulous performing space and renowned as a launching pad for new artists. Matthew & Co really tore the place apart with some truly marvellous material and judging from the small selection we heard tonight HAPPY PEOPLE has the potential to be a smash. Keala, who knew nothing of Matthew before tonight, was smitten and found at least two songs she wants to perform herself.

Matthew told us his meetings about ATLANTIS have been most encouraging and he now has two weeks to do a major restructure of the material.

A couple of surprises in the audience: gorgeous Jeremy Youett, once an original Australian cast member of PRISCILLA and now an exec with the NY Music Theatre festival, and Miss Penny McNamee who I haven't seen since she played my daughter in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK.
She now lives here with her husband and is more beautiful than ever.

After we were thrown out of the theatre Keala insisted I must have birthday cake so we found a diner on 59th Street where I found the closest thing to it: pecan pie!!!! YUM!!!!!!!!!!!

A very jolly day all around. And thank you so much Jodie for this video tribute below!