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The Scene at the Met Art Gala, photo credit: Kevin Tachman

Gunter and Bardot in Vegas

In his memoir Don’t Mind If I Do, the Hollywood playboy emeritus George Hamilton, now a ripe 72, provided some tips he learnt over the years for attracting the most gorgeous women in the world, including the hardly press-shy Liz Taylor. “A world-class playboy once told me that the key to mesmerizing women is to listen to them and look deeply into their eyes. It was a lesson I’ve never forgotten. My father also had advice for me. It was always important, he told me, to be a ladies’ man and a man’s man.”

“The playboys always married for a time,” says Dana Thomas, a longtime Saint-Tropez vacationer, and the author of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster. “They were hopeless romantics after all. It just never lasted because they all had wandering eyes.” (Rubirosa was married five times, Robert Evans, the American film producer, seven.)

Their fables entered the zeitgeist in the form of pop-culture swordsmen like Thomas Crown, Simon Templar, John Steed of The Avengers and, most famously, James Bond (played for a while by one-time Gstaad resident Roger Moore). “Why is this bunch of endlessly naff, morally dubious, sun-damaged sex addicts so beloved by the media?” moaned The Guardian recently. Well, because they were beloved by so many men who wanted to be them and women who wanted to be with them.

Today we are left not with real playboys but with synthetic playboy nostalgia. There is Mad Men and its paler imitators, such as Pan Am. Hugh Hefner, America’s home-grown playboy, is a husk of his former self, celebrating being ditched at the altar on the cover of his own magazine. Perhaps the phoniest version of the jet-setting “good life” appears in Sean “Diddy” Combs’s television ads for his Sean John I Am King cologne. Diddy rides a jet ski in a full tux, arrives at a helipad armed with supermodels Bar Refaeli and Ana Paula Araújo at his side, and strides through the Mediterranean in his black tie. If he saw it, Sachs, the impeccably dressed, tousle-haired heir to Germany’s Opel automobile dynasty, might shoot himself all over again. In his day, a playboy didn’t shout he was a “playah” he just… was. What the deuce did he care if anyone else knew it?

Some fabled playboys were born to the manor, and provided with hefty trust funds, but made something of it. As a young man, the Italian Casanova Agnelli, the heir to the Fiat fortune and one-time lover of the screen goddess Anita Ekberg, was provided a faux title at the auto company. As vice president of nothing, he was told by his grandfather to “have a fling [at the job] for a few years. Get it out of your system.” His allowance was $1 million per year. After buying a 28-room villa on the Côte d’Azur (as well as playboy pads in Manhattan and St. Moritz), becoming a Formula One race-car driver and ultimately smashing his Ferrari going 140mph above Monte Carlo (breaking his leg in six places), Agnelli grew up and “stopped playing and started thinking”. Under his run as the company president, he saved the beleaguered Fiat from going the way of the Edsel. Agnelli lived to a respectable 81.

Some had real life thrust upon them. Roman Polanski, Helmut Newton, Kosinski and the composer Serge Gainsbourg (subject of the new bio-picture Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life) survived Nazi and wartime threats, poverty or family tragedy, and still won fame and fortune.

Evans, the Hollywood producer of such classics as Chinatown and The Godfather, was “discovered” tanning by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. When his acting career proved fatal, he turned to movie producing, and the ladies followed. His father was a dentist.

The message such men sent out was: This could happen to you. Even the talented Mr. Ripleys of their day, the skilful gold diggers, proved to be loyal friends, generous hosts, discreet lovers and, well, just too damned much fun not to invite to the party. Take Rubirosa, who wed two of the richest women in the world, Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton, helping to support his race cars and polo ponies, while befriending his country’s president, who provided him with diplomat-in-residence titles and salaries. Men and women alike adulated him, enjoying his “ride” in the sidecar, regaling in his getting away with it all.

Cheryl Tiegs and Peter Beard

The Rat Packer asked him how he kept going. “Your profession is being an entertainer,” said Rubirosa. “Mine is being a playboy.”

How couldn’t you like a guy like that, a throwback to Bogie in Casablanca, a ladies’ man and a man’s man? Rubirosa, by the way, exited the scene in 1965 in true playboy style, wrapping his Ferrari around a tree just a day after his racing team won the Coupe de France polo cup and celebrating all night at a Paris nightclub. He was 56.

According to Venezuelan-born Reinaldo Herrera, Carolina Herrera’s husband and heir to his family’s art-and-land-owning fortune, real playboys, “an unflattering term to be called in that day”, “were gentlemen, and often sportsmen”. Herrera, once an accomplished horseman, now a Vanity Fair contributing editor, adds: “They were interesting to be around. They worked but played well and lived well. They didn’t buy $10,000 bottles of champagne to impress a girl or their friends. They were brought up with an instinctive sense of obligation.”

“The word ‘millionaire’ was like the clap, you didn’t talk about it,” says Evans, who at 81 still counts in his intimate circle playboys such as Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski and Warren Beatty. “When money is everything, charm goes out the window.” Evans differentiates between style, a good thing, and fashion, a superficial thing. “Style preceded fashion for these guys.” Newton, the photographer who died in a 2004 car crash by the driveway of the Chateau Marmont hotel, in Los Angeles, was to the film producer “the epitome of style. He was the only person you couldn’t officially invite to a party because then too many people would try to crash it. He was that much of a wonderful charmer.”

Saint-Tropez acts as a bellwether of what’s been lost. It’s now all about alcohol-brand-and-celebrity-endorsed private parties, pop-up clubs and techno-Gaga spectacle and whirling choppers hitting the Riviera with the subtlety of a Transformers movie. Baggy shorts and backward baseball caps are the uniform worn by the new players, even at once-chic seaside spots like Club 55 and La Voile Rouge. This summer, the Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin stayed in an $8,000-per-night suite at the Hotel Byblos and ran up a $50,000 bar tab entertaining a flock of models.

“I don’t go to Saint-Tropez anymore,” says Evans, who spent more than a decade hitting the French Riviera and staying at the once discreetly chic Hôtel du Cap. Evans says that the problem with the new-money players is that they’re money-smart but culturally anemic. The 10-digit successes have come so fast for them that there’s been no time and, for most of them, no inclination to pursue character-broadening hobbies like Lepidoptery or Oenology, or interests in Flemish paintings, Gregorian literature, the opera, learning new languages. No time to break Everest records for the Explorers Club or hunt black rhinos in Tanzania.

Have pity on the nouveau-riche playboys, for they know not what they do.

Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal Europe, Copyright © 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Follow Mr. Glitterati on Twitter: @MrGlitterati

The Millennium Biltmore

I arrived the weekend of the LA Marathon and saying the property was swamped is an understatement. Amidst this hustle and bustle the staff maintained poise and managed to move an army of people rather quickly. I would actually like to commend the staff as they managed to remain friendly, capable, and timely. At onset the renovation and team members were impressive, however, once checked in and after arrival in my room I was a bit disappointed. The hallways, as some others have stated, carry an unfamiliar smell or odor, along with carpeting clearly taped down with gaffers tape and paint in need of rampant repair. My room, albeit very spacious, was in need of repair in many facets and the list is rather long and invasive. I feel as one renovation has finished, the remodel should begin.

Giving credit to the amount of effort required to renovate a property of this age and size, one cannot slight the entire property for peeling paint, odors, and yesterday’s technology. Nevertheless, until the “room renovation” occurs, The Biltmore will ever so slightly miss the mark.

The Smith Center for The Performing Arts

Taken in from the outside, the Smith Center for the Performing Arts is a statement of opulence. Defined by its art deco/Hoover Dam-inspired exterior and its major accent note of Symphony Park, it visually lifts downtown Las Vegas onto its shoulders and carries it forward.

Rising above all its design touches, lush landscaping, sculptures and courtyard to symbolize that is its Carillon Tower. Climbing 17 stories into the downtown sky, it is the center’s capstone, housing a four-octave carillon of 47 handcrafted bronze bells — nearly 30,000 pounds of them — that will ring with the promise a cultural nexus brings a city.

Surely, with Las Vegas’ Strip-full of massive, magnificent hotels that make for eye-popping spectacle and a global playground, the tower is comparatively modest, structurally. Yet for what it represents as a turning point into another level of accomplishment, it stands unmatched.

Though sparkling with surface sophistication that passers-by can absorb, it is the center’s previously unseen three performance spaces — plus the gateway into the largest one — that will leave visitors with lasting impressions and provide the most memorable experiences.

Thanks to a sneak peek given to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, here’s a look into the beating heart of the Smith Center for the Performing Arts:

■ ■ ■

Look up. That trio of massive chandeliers dominating the ceiling and a good deal of available air space? Seventeen feet long from top to tip.

With that, welcome to the grand lobby of — and elegant entranceway to — Reynolds Hall, the center’s 2,050-seat performance hot spot.

Slowly level your gaze to take in the expanse of the lobby, all 5,000 square feet of it — from the rich marble floor (Fior di Pesco is the specific style) and marble lining the walls to the majestic, stainless-steel staircase that widens into a balcony embracing and overlooking the lobby.

Staring down at the floor pattern from the 4,000 square-foot upper lobby, beware of dizziness. That handrail is there for a reason.

More than a well-appointed holding pen for patrons to idle before performances and between play acts, the two-tiered Reynolds lobby is its own experience. Flowing in its feel, the design eschews the boxy and rigid atmosphere that marks lobbies of many performance halls, its semicircular layout fostering a social atmosphere. (Go ahead, lower-floor patrons: Hobnob with the box holders.)

Emphasizing an airy vibe, the space features huge windows revealing dramatic views of downtown Las Vegas. Natural light streams through the staircase via skylights and circular twin cupolas, or domelike structures that are open-air, allowing views down to the main lobby (dizziness alert again). Beyond the chandelier behemoths that anchor the ceiling design, other chandeliers and lamps accent the hall. (Note the local pedigree: Though designed in New York, light structures were built by Creative Light Source Inc. of North Las Vegas.)

Further decorating the lobby are designs of the iris, the favorite flower of the late Mary B. Smith, for whom the center is named along with her husband, former Review-Journal executive Fred W. Smith.

Highlighting the lobby is a Benjamin Victor sculpture. Inspired by the Hoover Dam, the winged piece is depicted moving forward, representing progress.

Should you for some reason forget you’re at the Smith Center, its logo of architectural lines, inspired by the Hoover Dam’s penstock towers, is everywhere: columns, door handles, even carved into the handrails.

Abundant wheelchair access exceeds federal requirements, and the Smith Center has addressed the most vital intermission issue. Forget your fear of 5-mile-long bathroom lines; there are 66 stalls for women and 38 for men.

Lollygagged outside enough?

■ ■ ■

Certainly there’s a “wow factor.” Reynolds Hall is more an arts arena than a mere hall, a symphony of elegance in brown and beige. Contradictory as it sounds, the horseshoe-shaped venue marries immensity to intimacy, creating a cozy colossus inspired by centers from New York’s Carnegie Hall to Milan, Italy’s La Scala.

As theater designer Joshua Dachs, president of Fisher Dachs Associates Inc., told the R-J when construction began, stacking the gently curving balconies, rather than staggering them on an upward curve, was crucial to creating a shared experience for the audience.

“If you look around the world at theaters people love to go to, they all have a very compact footprint,” he said. “By stacking vertically, everybody gets much closer. If we took the same audience and made it with just one balcony, the room would be twice as long and patrons would be twice as far away, and that would be very damaging to the whole experience.”

Using state-of-the-art computer software, Dachs and his designers were able to virtually sit in every seat to gauge sightlines until they were convinced that they provided good visibility. Perhaps the only slightly compromised views are a couple of seats at the extreme corners of the hall, where the first moment of a performer’s entrance might be blocked.

Around 90 percent of the seats are fixed, but there is more flexibility in the boxes, where mohair-covered chairs can be shifted around for comfort, as well as making more maneuvering room for wheelchair-bound patrons. Boxes also have private anterooms.

Continuing the Italian marble theme are terrazzo floors, lending a warm, burnished feel. Design flourishes include sawtoothed patterns in the ceiling surfaces, disengaged pilasters on the walls and, notably, the music-inspired paintings of artist Tim Bavington.

They are, however, supporting players to the hall’s big visual bang: a ceiling light of five large cascading rings of opal glass set into a silvery metal armature and crowned by a glowing laylight.

Wide, deep and dramatic, the stage is equipped to be reconfigured for different types of performances with a fly tower providing space for sets and curtains ferried in and out during theater productions. Below, a full orchestra pit can hold a hearty 98 musicians.

Built for the Las Vegas Philharmonic — which is sharing Reynolds Hall as a permanent co-tenant with Nevada Ballet Theatre — is a “shell” that creates a controlled environment that will prevent sounds from shooting off into space, balance them and allow musicians to better hear each other. Housed in an upstage niche with an 80,000 pound ceiling measuring 60 feet wide and 40 feet deep, it can be lowered in place and secured by 13 wheeled-in wall towers.

Visiting performers are sure to be spoiled here. Defying show-biz tradition that usually relegates show people to airless, basement bandboxes as dressing rooms, Smith accommodations are hotel suites by comparison. Most are set along the street with plantation shutters over frosted glass, allowing the sun to shine through. Inside the “star” dressing rooms, showers, fold-out buffet tables, wall-mounted flat-screen TV monitors and plush furniture join the makeup area to make quarters so comfy that it might take a bit of cajoling to lure performers out and up to the stage.

■ ■ ■

Kindly walk this way as we stroll over to the Boman Pavilion, which houses the smaller of the center’s three performing spaces. Emanating a jazzy classiness redolent of the late Bobby Short’s legendary dates at New York’s Cafe Carlyle, the Cabaret Jazz room could create something similar for local favorite Clint Holmes, who will hold forth there monthly.

Intimacy is the key inside the two-level, 3,800-square-foot Cabaret that accommodates approximately 260 patrons and features table-and-chair seating on its mezzanine level. Performers including Barbara Cook, Branford Marsalis, the SFJAZZ Collective and Andrea Marcovicci will take the stage against a windowed backdrop to expose a vivid panorama of Symphony Park and the downtown area against the neon-lit night sky of Las Vegas.

With no disrespect intended toward the smaller clubs and restaurants that have nobly kept jazz breathing in this city, not since the former Blue Note has that distinctly American but neglected genre had a local home of this caliber, inspired by the Jazz at Lincoln Center program in New York.

U-shaped and radiating warmth, it is an intriguing layout in that the upper level, creating a double-decker viewing area, lends it a sense of minigrandeur rare for most jazz outposts. Atmosphere can match artistry here. Aficionados could argue that it is grittier venues — basement clubs and little performance nooks tucked into the urban maze in other cities — that gave jazz its authenticity over the years.

But there will be an undeniable feel here: that blue-light, late-night vibe in which clinking glasses provide their own musicality to accompany the music onstage.

Versatility is the watchword for the Troesh Studio Theater, a 3,000-square-foot space that can entertain up to 240 people and is designed to be redesigned from event to event to fit the needs of performing ensembles or community groups. Large windows can be covered to create a “black box” for smaller theater shows — including those by children’s groups — and a softer “sprung floor,” favored by dancers, was installed to absorb shocks and minimize injuries.

Dedicated patrons of locally produced theater probably will feel that the longtime studio theaters or “black boxes” in town — at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the College of Southern Nevada and Las Vegas Little Theatre — have a funkier, down-and-dirtier off-Broadway feel when compared to the Troesh. Here, the sense is more pristine as opposed to dark and contained, especially with those sizable windows.

Unlike those other venues, however, Troesh is a multipurpose space, meant for variety and a wider performance palette. Productions come in packages big and small, and this space is the other end of the seesaw from Reynolds Hall.

■ ■ ■

Opulence and artistry intertwine at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, as glimpsed in this peek of what could represent our cultural peak.

Whether the city responds over time to what it offers is the X factor — the city of gaming’s half-billion-dollar gamble.

BY STEVE BORNFELD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
View original piece here: Click Here

What is the most impressive way to open a bottle of champagne? I present you The Noble Art of Sabrage

History

Sabrage is the technique of opening / beheading a Champagne bottle with a sword or a Saber. It's origins have been traced back to the Napoleonic Era and practiced to celebrate victory.

In those days the wire ‘cage’ around the cork was very tough and not easy to remove. After doing battle, the cavalry were hot, thirsty and also in a hurry to quench their thirst, which is what led to this impressive technique.

Technique

Sabrage is done with a slicing action rather than a chopping one. The sabre is slid along the body of the bottle towards the neck and the force of the blade hitting the lip (called the annulus) breaks the glass to separate the collar from the neck of the bottle. Due to the high pressure inside the bottle the cork shoots out at high speed and can travel quite far. The inside pressure of a typical traditional method sparkling wine bottle is around 5-6 atmospheres – the same amount of pressure as the tyres on a London double-decker bus.

One must be very careful to remember to slide rather than chop. Chopping the neck of the bottle will shatter a cold pressurised bottle, deluging the area and, what is very sad, leaving one with no wine to drink. A baptism of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir is perhaps nothing to complain about however.

Safety

One should be extremely careful regarding the safety of others (and oneself!) when attempting this ceremony. Whilst there is no risk of glass falling into the bottle because of the pressure of the wine, the cork and annulus at the top of the bottle fly at some speed. Always point the bottle away from yourself and anyone else in the vicinity.

The Hood Survival Guide

The Hood Survival Guide: Make It Out Alive
www.amazon.com

The Hood Survival Guide, Book 1 – Make It Out Alive is your sarcastic key to survival against the many threats that face you in The Hood. This book, the first in a series, covers beginner knowledge and defines The Hood, dangers, and preparation.

You may browse directly to Amazon by following this link: http://www.amazon.com/Hood-Survival-Guide-Alive-ebook/dp/B005BSTDL8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=merchant-items&qid=1310232929&sr=1-1

From Click to Brick

When 1stdibs.com went from click to brick, it was an overnight success, far beyond what was expected. Until the opening of its new home 1stdibs.com was only online. It was the luxury marketplace site for antique and vintage design from the United States, Canada, France, and England. In other words, a treasure trove of jewelry, lighting, furniture, antiquities and especially design classics that you could buy online. Now 1stdibs has expanded to bricks and mortar. Some 53 dealers occupy a huge 1stdibs space on the 10th floor of the New York Design Center in Midtown Manhattan on Lexington Avenue between 32nd and 33rd streets. With the expansion from virtuality to reality, the new 1stdibs@NYDC is a big hit with designers as well as the general public. The Design Center, which in the past was to-the-trade, decorators only, is now open to the general public even on Saturday.

An Unrivaled Three Day Experience

Private jet juggernaut Flexjet is offering an alluring incentive to new fractional owners via a promotion with Kentucky’s Keeneland, one of the world’s leading thoroughbred racing and auction facilities. The three-day Unbridled experience centers around the 2011 Breeders’ Cup World Championships this fall. Known as the thoroughbred industry’s most prestigious championship event, the Breeders’ Cup attracts fierce competition for the richest prize-money event in the world with over million in purses at stake. There’s a lot more to the Unbridled experience, however, as you’d expect considering the cost for a 1/16th fraction (or 50 hours / year) on one of the company’s Learjet 40XRs starts at 2,500.

Each owner and their guest will enjoy the Breeders’ Cup races in the comfort of a finish-line owner’s suite at the iconic Churchill Downs, one of the world’s greatest racetracks and home of the Kentucky Derby, as well as an invitation to attend sun-up morning workouts. A one-on-one meeting with a renowned thoroughbred trainer and an insider’s look at a famed horse farm are also in the offing. The Unbridled experience is available in limited quantities at no extra charge for Flexjet customers purchasing a new fractional share now through June 12, 2011; the all-inclusive experience takes place November 3 – 6.

Caddies take Las Vegas golf to new heights.

The holes at Royal Links Golf Club are inspired by the history of the British Open. But if you would like a little more inspiration, you might want to check out the course’s new Par Mates program.

In keeping with the style and sex appeal of Las Vegas, golfers who play Royal Links Golf Club can book one of eight gorgeous young women who act as a hostess throughout the golf experience.

These aren’t your daddy’s caddies – or really even caddies, for that matter. Royal Links already makes available its white-clad walking caddies and forecaddies in the tradition of golf across the pond. Par Mates are part of a course ambassador program, as Royal Links likes to call it. These extremely attractive and outgoing women are there to take your round to the next level.

So far, the reviews from players who have booked Par Mates have been glowing, said Matt Tripp, general manager at Royal Links Golf Club.

“They’re ecstatic to have somebody they can enjoy their time with,” Tripp said. “And make them look good, no matter how bad their game is.”

Plus, if you hit a bad shot with one of these lovelies around for encouragement, it’s probably easier to shake it off. (At least it should be.)

The whole experience starts 20 minutes before tee time. Once introduced, the Par Mate becomes your personal assistant. She can help you with all your course arrangements, like orientation around the facility, or introduce you to course personnel.

She can also call in your food and drink orders, write down your scores or even help you pick out the perfect souvenir in the golf shop for you or your significant other. She can also repair divots, fix ball marks, clean clubs and give you a hand with yardage. She may even help you find your lost balls.

Although the Par Mates don’t really play golf themselves, many of them played in their youth, and all have been trained in all the duties described above, so they know their way around the golf course. They can be hired per individual or foursome – “whatever the customer wants,” Tripp said. The cost is $225 per Par Mate.

The only requirement is that Par Mates be booked at least 72 hours in advance. To do that, simply go the Walters Golf Web site and book your round of golf online. Then download the Par Mates request form and either fill it in online or fax it to (702) 450-8144. You can also call (888) 427-6678 for more information on the program, Las Vegas golf and Walters Golf properties in general.