Quest magazine turns 30
“LIKE HOLLYWOOD, but nowhere else, in New York you can find yourself around a table of people talking about the people you read about because here they know them, grew up with them, went to bed with them, went to school with them or whatever. Talk at dinner this night was mainly about four women; Pamela Harriman, Mercedes Bass, Jan Cushing and of course, Jackie.”
That was the opening of David Patrick Columbia’s first Social Diary in Quest magazine, in October 1994. ( Jackie, as in Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had passed away four months previously. Pamela Harriman would go three years later. Mercedes Bass and Jan Cushing are still very much with us.)
It was fascinating to read this column, which is a part of the luscious current issue of Quest, its 30th anniversary celebration.
The entire magazine is a treat — a deluxe look at the yesterdays, todays and even tomorrows of what still passes for “society” in a hopelessly crass time. There are all sorts of throwbacks and remembrances of galas and charity events and parties just for the heck of it, also fashion shows and weddings.
We get eloquent little essays on Central Park, Slim Aarons, Diana Vreeland, Brooke Astor, Michael’s restaurant, Dominick Dunne, the New York Yankees, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the retirement of the big yellow checker cab, George Plimpton, and on and on. There’s not a name or face that hasn’t made a mark on Manhattan as a glamour or charity figure (or both) who isn’t mentioned or seen. Why there is even a page devoted to a Texas dame named Liz Smith (page 135, not that I noticed).
The work of every major photographer of the last three decades is represented. Quest is masterminded by Elizabeth Meigher and her proud papa, Chris.
I CAUGHT Rita Hayworth’s signature film, “Gilda” the other night on Turner Classic Movies. Each time I see it, I am more and more convinced that the words “Love Goddess,” which were invented for her, were not only entirely correct, but no woman since has inherited the mantle. Perhaps Ava Gardner came close. But Rita, in “Gilda,” is perfection — the incredible structure of her face, the elegant, but-ripe-inthe-right-places body, the hair which seemed to have a sensuous life of its own, and her juicy, insinuating vivacity.
Rita would lose that juice, that liveliness after “The “Loves of Carmen” (silly movie, thanks to Glenn Ford, but a brilliant Hayworth). Whatever happened to Rita, during her marriage to Prince Aly Kahn and then a worse wedlock to singer Dick Haymes, robbed her of a certain inner-life. She was still beautiful (that profile) and could come to life in her dance numbers. But, when she said to Robert Mitchum in 1957’s “Fire Down Below” — “armies have marched over me” and he responded, “I don’t make love to the dead” one feels an autobiographic sting. Whether it was drink or early Alzheimer’s, she seemed profoundly disconnected. Which is why “Gilda” aside from its own pleasures, is so valuable; the woman whose most casual utterance seemed a triple entendre would soon vanish.
I was also charmed, before and after the screening, with the talk between guest hosts David Letterman and Alec Baldwin on the subject of “Gilda.” I thought I couldn’t love Alec any more than I do, but his admiration for Miss Hayworth in her greatest film, was the cherry on the sundae, or — the satin gown on the parquet floor upon which Gilda performed “Put the Blame on Mame.”
But, then, I’ve always known Alec has great taste. Heloise
Dear Readers: Today’s SOUND ON is about a U.S. Postal Service worker, Kevin Kennedy:
“Dear Heloise: We have a co-worker, Kevin Kennedy, who’s retiring with 40 years of service from the U.S. Postal Service. Kevin takes his breaks in my office and reads your column out loud so all of us in the office can hear. Kevin also has cut out some of our favorite hints and hung them on the board, and we just love your col-