AUDAX Mortimer’s: Moments in Time revisits the fabled society café. by Jamie maCguire

MORTIMER’S REVISITED

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS Robin Baker Leacock is a documentary filmmaker who produced and directed Stella & Co: A Romantic Musical Comedy About Aging; It Girls; A Passion for Giving; Stella is 95; and I’ll Take Manhattan. All of her documentaries have aired nationally on PBS, and many shown at a variety of film festivals, including Berlin, The Hamptons, and Montreal. Robin is married to documentary filmmaker Robert Leacock, and is the daughter-in-law of the esteemed cinema vérité pioneer, Richard Leacock. She divides her time between Palm Beach, Florida and Sag Harbor, New York. "This mysterious place known DIANA VREELAND as Mortimer’s..."

A NEW BOOK created by Robin Baker Leacock, Mortimer’s: Moments in Time, about the fabled society café of the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, will be published in March by G Editions, with a preface from former Maitre‘d (and today Swifty’s at The Colony impresario) Robert Caravaggi, photographs by Mary Hilliard, and a foreward by our own DPC.

Fresh from Cambridge, I first lunched at Mortimer’s when it was still new in the Fall of 1976 en route to the Peace Corps in Thailand and several years thereafter running health and agricultural development projects in central Africa. Glamorous model Missy Prowell, her late, lamented boulevardier brother Richie, Jamie Niven, Helen Morris and the charming AngloIrish rogue Richard Beamish were in our congenial party that day, and when I got back to New York and started at Time Inc. in 1980 I headed straightaway back to the cozy boite at 75th and Lexington Avenue.

I remember the book party Dick and Shirley Clurman threw for Christopher Buckley’s Steaming to Bamboola in 1982 and

ROBIN BAKER LEACOCK MoMeNTs IN TIMe ROBIN BAKER LEACOCK PHOTOGRAPHS | MARY HILLIARD PREFACE | ROBERT CARAVAGGI FOREWORD | DAVID PATRICK COLUMBIA

G Editions |Geditions.com |Printed and bound in China.

In the tradition of celebrated New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham, Mary Hilliard has been documenting society and fashion in New York City and Europe for the past 35 years. Her work has been seen in Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, Town and Country, Avenue, Quest and many other publications. She was a regular at Mortimer’s and contributed most of the photographs in this book. She lives in New York City. Mortimer’s maitre d’hotel and host Robert Caravaggi, who later opened and co- owned Swifty’s restaurant on the upper east side and currently Swifty’s Pool at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, was left a legacy of Mortimer’s photographs and memorabilia from Glenn Bernbaum. He is the source of this significant archive which he has donated for the creation of this book as consulting editor and con-tributor. He and his wife, chef and business owner Blaine Merritt Caravaggi, currently reside in the Hudson Valley and Palm Beach. Foreword writer David Patrick Columbia is the founder, mastermind, and continuous editor since its inception in the year 2000 of the society chronicle, NY Social Diary, a news sheet for and about the upper crust. In his NYSD, he combines society pages with personal reflection resulting in a unique celebratory chronicle of galas, opening nights, and other society events and their attendees. He travels widely in the United States to venues where his readers and subjects celebrate, but his home base is Manhattan, in New York City. ON ANY GIVEN DAY one might see, at lunch or dinner, Jacqueline Onassis or Bobby Short, Placido Domingo or Oscar de la Renta, Lord Snowden or Greta Gar-bo. Mortimer’s, New York City’s muchloved restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side—a favorite watering hole for socialites, achievers and the hundreds of lesser-known diners who sought its unpretentious ambience—closed in 1998, following the death of its founder and sometimes controversial host, Glenn Bernbaum. But the many patrons, celebrated or anonymous, who thought fondly of it as a home away from home remember it as if it were yesterday. In this remarkable recounting, they are there again, transported back by Mary Hilliard’s stunning photographs and the many memen-tos and ephemera—napkins, banners, menus—lovingly collected by Bernbaum himself and bequeathed to his friend and longtime maitre d’hotel, Robert Caravaggi. And, most tellingly, through the poignant and colorful memories of Mortimer’s regulars and visitors collected by Robin Baker Leacock. In addition, there’s a delectable sample of recipes from the celebrated Mortimer’s cookbook, excerpted here, which were known to be simple yet delicious — and most important, too, reasonably priced. But to set the stage, New York Social Diary founder, author and social arbiter David Patrick Columbia, tells how “this mysterious place called Mortimer’s” came to be. MoMeNTs IN TIMe 9 781943 876211

The most celebrated watering hole and restaurant is now memorialized by the only people who could have done so: its regulars. Join them here, now: “In the late 1970s Mortimer’s one room roared every lunch and dinner with many chic European and American young types partying hard, alongside owner Glenn Bernbaum’s friends named Blass, KJ Lane, Zipkin, Adolfo and Short. These gentlemen brought in the society ladies and a legend was born.” –Robert Caravaggi “Gloria Vanderbilt says Mortimer’s is like Rick’s Café in Casablanca, with Glenn Bernbaum in the Humphrey Bogart role.” --Dominick Dunne “I think my most memorable time at Mortimer’s was the night Reinaldo and Carolina Herrera invited me to a little dinner for Princess Margaret. When Princess Margaret got up to leave, Glenn played ‘God Save the Queen,‘ and Her Royal Highness gave everyone that little royal wave as she walked out of the restaurant, just like the Queen would do.” --Bob Colacello “Mortimer’s looked like the inside of a fireplace and felt snug and warm.” --Taki “As I was walking past a table, Jerry Zipkin called out to me and asked me how my table was. I told him I needed a break because everyone my table spoke Spanish and I was getting pretty bored. He asked me who was at my table and I told him there was a Spanish Countess called Eileen, or something. Jerry said to me, ‘You get back to your table and tell Eileen to speak English; she’s from Pearl River, New York. And you tell her I said so!’” --Kimberly DuRoss “Glenn had New York society lionesses under his thumb: Pat Buckley, Nan Kempner, Anne Slater. They all had house accounts and Nan Kempner got her favorite caviar from Glenn for her special dinners at home. Glenn had great taste, in everything except those hard, ugly French chairs, which were difficult for one’s bottom.” --Andre Leon Talley “Mortimer’s was the most famous society burger joint of the last quarter of the 20th century in New York. Oh yes, there were and are many others, but in its day under the ownership (and dictatorship) of the late Glenn Bernbaum, it was without peer.” --David Patrick Columbia 58500>ISBN 978-1-943876-21-1 $85.00 dozens of other great nights in the following decades. The cast of characters was a Who’s Who of 1980s Gotham and included Peter Duchin, Mary McFadden, Sister Parish, Joan Collins, Nina Griscom, Diane von Furstenberg, Mike Wallace, Jessye Norman, Dominick Dunne, Bobby Short. Tommy and Nan Kempner, Betty Bacall, Bill Paley, Yasmin Khan and Brooke Astor. One wintry night I had the honor of fetching Vladimir Horowitz’s overcoat from the ledge by the window table where crotchety owner Glenn Bernbaum had ostentatiously seated him (“ROBERT,” Glenn would cry out as the evening’s seating approached, “We have to do le placement!”). On other COURTESY OF MARY HILLIARD

Clockwise from above: Fernanda Niven, Taki Theodoracopulos, Nan Kemper, Pat Buckley, Kenny Lane, and Anne Slater with Swifty the pug; Kitty Carlyle Hart and Peter Duchin; Anne Slater with Glenn and Aileen Mehle; Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Oscar de la Renta, David Metcalf, and Ahmet Ertegun. Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Bill Cunningham, Mercedes Bass, and Mary Hilliard; Robert Caravaggi and Stephen Attoe; Mortimer’s: Moments in Time is available on amazon.com.

evenings I relaxed with Sam Waterson over brandy in the side room (called “Also Mortimer’s”) as Frank Owens tickled the late night ivories.

Mortimer’s décor was simple, and the menu was “comfort food”—Senegalese soup, corn fritters, paillard of chicken, creamed spinach, cheese soufles, and Bill Blass’ meat loaf are just a few of the taste memories that come to mind as redolently as Proust’s madeleine.

The book brings back to life a number of epic 1980s characters: Diego del Vayo, the only stockbroker in New York without a telephone; or Anthony Haden-Guest, who as “Peter Fallon” in Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities, was given a standing ovation one night when, after eons of expert Brit mooching, he finally picked up a check. Our grateful publisher, Chris Meigher, tells a lesser known tale of Jackie Onassis in her Doubleday years pursuing Greta Garbo out the door for a possible book deal, and our venerable columnist Taki relates dining at a large table with a bored and possibly overserved Princess Margaret, who, when she rose to leave, reprimanded the company for singing “God Save the Queen.” “No, ma’am,” Taki, helpfully explained, “They were singing that for Jerry Zipkin.” Neither the Princess nor Zip ever spoke to him again.

There are also pictures of movie star handsome waiter and screen writer, David Murray, forever deb Cornelia Guest, Kitty Carlisle Hart, doyenne of the decade Pat Buckley, and too many others to name.

Not pictured but named in the credits is the renowned raconteur George Miller, who lived in a one room rentcontrolled apartment in a tenement down the block but could recite with ease the denizens of every Park Avenue building from 57th to 96th Street. George insinuated himself into serving as

Clockwise from top left: Carolina Herrera and Glen Bernbaum; Liz Smith and Mica Ertegun; Fernanda Niven with her daughters, Eugenie Niven and young Fernanda; Jerry Zipkin’s note. Opposite page, from above: The Mortimer family, 1987; Art Cooper’s letter; Kate Gubelmann, Grace Meigher, Kate Hampton, and Duane Hampton.

Glenn’s social advisor and could usually be found supervising the proceedings as he nursed whiskey and sodas at the bar. One night they bickered when George insisted that his plastic surgeon friend, Dr. Jerry Plotkin, whose primary practice was perfecting the faces of plane loads of Bangkok party girls, be given the privilege of the window table. Glenn objected to the New Jersey-based Plotkin as far too declasse for such a coveted placement. But when Jerry arrived with his dinner guest, King Juan Carlos, all was forgiven.

Another night George went too far. When a customer gushed over Glenn’s snappy tie and asked where he got it, George cut in, “He made it upstairs (where Glenn lived), on the Loom of the Fruit.” The resulting probation turned into permanent banishment a year or two later when, during his trial, Claus von Bulow came in for dinner one night with his daughter

Cosima. “That’s the third time Claus has been in this week,” preened Glenn, to which George replied, “Yes, Glenn, he’s going to prison soon, you know, and he wants to get used to the food.” Thereafter George became the resident bookie in the back room of P.J. Clarke’s.

In addition to Glenn Bernbaum’s foibles he also had a generous side, supporting AIDS research with his annual Fete de Famille. Upon his death and the restaurant’s closing in 1998, he left the bulk of his estate to New York Presbyterian Hospital. The book chronicles these philanthropies as well and is, all in all, a delightfully illustrated paean to a wittier and more gracious age. ◆

Counterclockwise from top right: Bobby Short; the (only) phone booth; note from Irving Paul “Swifty” Lazar; Nan Kemper with Glenn and Gloria Vanderbilt. Opposite page, from above: David Mortimer, Dominick Dunne, and Catherine Warren; New York Magazine cover, 1986, photographed by Harry Benson; Nina Tower, Herb Siegel, Johnny Galliher, and Janna Avis.