TONIGHT’S Costume Institute gala at the Met has the White House a little nervous, I’m told. First Lady Laura Bush is set to make her New York debut at the glittering event, but there are fears Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will turn up and try to outshine her.
The evening – “Jackie: The White House Years” – will draw a load of Kennedys, but at least President Bush has been reaching out to the clan ever since his inauguration. The real worry is New York’s junior senator, who was invited with all the other living former first ladies. As of Friday night, the information was that both Laura and Hillary would attend. That had the organizers fretting about where to place them. Laura, as the president’s wife, would expect to be at the table of the evening’s chair, Caroline Kennedy.
But where to seat Hillary? Do you give her a table of her own or squeeze her on to the top table? Do you want the horde of international photographers on hand all trying to get shots of Laura and Hillary looking daggers at each other? (The Bushes and the Clintons are like the Hatfields and the McCoys.)
Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who is the driving force behind what is New York’s biggest social event, must be torn between politeness and the urge for revenge. Hillary lent her name and image to the launch of Tina Brown‘s Talk magazine -and that makes her an enemy in Anna’s book.
I couldn’t get anything official over the weekend, but some of those involved told me they think Hillary will today suddenly discover some pressing duty that will keep her in D.C. “Mrs. Bush is the first lady; Mrs. Clinton is just a junior senator,” sniffs one of the gala’s planners. “If Hillary does show up, she’ll have to take a relatively back seat. After all, she never has gone out of her way to make friends among [this] crowd.”
* More on the gala / Page 31
HBO slug ‘fest’
AS if a weekend of the Yanks battling the Red Sox wasn’t enough, tonight we get a premiere screening and party for Billy Crystal‘s HBO movie, “61*.” You probably know by now that the film is about the 1961 race between Bombers Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to break Babe Ruth’s single-season home-run record. (Don’t you wish there were a couple of Yankee sluggers engaged in the same contest right now?)
Tonight’s party venue, the 26th Street Armory, has been decked out with batting cages and huge nostalgic billboards lit by the brilliant Bentley Meeker (who will also be illuminating Lyle Lovett at tomorrow night’s A&E party.) Good old Yogi Berra – who could talk under water, and sounds as if he is – will be there tonight to regale all with his memories of the summer of ’61.
Safe, but not ‘sound’
IF playwright Austin Pendleton says he’s lost for words after his “Uncle Bob” opens at the Soho Playhouse tonight, you can believe him. Two weeks ago, Austin had polyps removed from his vocal cords, and hasn’t been able to speak since. So during previews of the show, he had to send written notes to his players – George Morfogen (currently of HBO’s “Oz” fame) and Gale Harold, who plays Brian Kinney on Showtime’s “Queer as Folk.”
The meekest link
EVEN so-called “Host from Hell” Anne Robinson was all sweetness and light when she and husband John, along with agent Ed Victor, ventured into Elaine’s the other night. The tart-tongued emcee of “Weakest Link” had been well-briefed that owner Elaine Kaufman is not someone you can get snippy with. It all worked out fine. Kaufman says the English redhead, who comes across as a virago on TV, is actually a pussycat, and the two formidable women got along wonderfully. Robinson also got to chat with “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf, who thanked her for giving him such a strong lead-in to his show on NBC last Wednesday.