Dear Rowley,
I have a new guilty pleasure picked-up on the home flight from Toronto. I had heard tell from the camp record shop on Monmouth Street that Liza Minnelli stars in the new Sex & The City film at the top of the show playing herself as the pastor at a lavish gay wedding. This would be worth the ticket price alone but as it happened the film was part of the in-flight entertainment.
Well, I put the DVD on and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker, the love child of Bette Midler and a horse) says ‘can this wedding get any gayer?’ Then out comes Liza as the pastor saying ‘marriage is a very profound relationship…or so I’m told’. For the reception, Liza changes into a black sequin shortie nightie, opaque tights and thigh boots to belt out Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies aka Put a Ring on It. My dear, she rocked Beyonce into a coffin as my friend Anda said when we went to worship Liza at the London Coliseum a couple of years ago.
Liza nailed it. She really did. YouTube it darling if you want a smile put back on your face. One of the SATC characters said she didn’t expect Liza at the gay wedding. The ginger one replied, ‘when there’s this much gay energy in a room Liza just manifests’. I have comparable experiences on Savile Row. For instance, I was just trotting home from a fabulous and gigglesome haircut and manicure with Liz and Sidik at Trumper on Curzon Street when who do I see in the shop front at Lodger but founder Nathan.
Nathan ushered me in and told me that on the eve of this remarkable shoe shop’s 2nd birthday, he had gone into business with the equally remarkable bespoke tailor and manufacturing magnate Tony Lutwyche. The business will be re-christened Lutwyche & Lodger and my darling it is going to rival Kiton, Loro Piana and Brioni. I have always adored Nathan – who opened his shop as if it had been around for decades – and always adored Tony who I almost missed a flight home from Tokyo for after a night on the tiles with a gorgeous (female) model and the two of us.
As Eugene at the Savoy said only yesterday, ‘your life!’ My life yesterday took me to Cecil Court where I dropped in unannounced to Natalie Galustian Rare Books. Natalie had helped me immensely in building the Signature Suite libraries at the Savoy. As a thank you I said ‘get your bag Ethel, we’re going to the Savoy and we’re going to buy ourselves a drink’. Well, we did and the charming Salim allowed us to skip the queue and take the lover’s table in the American Bar.
We laughed and chaffed until 8pm then snuck off for dinner at Joe Allen. Gordon Ramsay was sitting in the lobby looking concerned as well he might considering the Savoy Grill is going to be a month late. Well, the night was young so we went back to Natalie’s shop for another bottle of Chablis, stuck Liza on the sound system and danced in the street like two giddy gazelles. Indeed, my life.
The most fun of the evening was my recreating Charles Pierce’s Bette Davis act that I chanced upon on YouTube last week and have been unable to resist replaying every night to much jollity. My favourite routine of hers was about Elizabeth Taylor’s fat years. I have to write this phonetically in order for you to get the full Bette Davis effect. ‘I said Liz Darling, you know you’re fat when the crotch on your kaftan is tight. I caught her in Woolworth only yesterday trying to buy stretch jooolry! I saw her standing on Hollywood Boulevard last week and the cops drove by and told her to BREAK IT UP’.
Cruel I know but you have to laugh. The funniest Bette Davis mannerism is her tapping her cigarette from left to right to emphasize a point. ‘So you do know who I am’, emotes Pierce. ‘How Nice! Very Nice! Peachy Keen! I would like to do a scene for you from ALL of my films. We could be here a long time…until Angie Dickinson combs her hair. Until Shelley Winters dies of ANOREXIA’. I tell you Rowley, Charles Pierce is a genius. GENIUS!
The highlight of my last week was an appointment to take a private view of high jeweller Leviev’s latest collection. It is a strange manifestation, but when I hold magnificent diamonds my mind turns to Champagne. Leviev’s stones are arguably the finest in the world. Their settings are simply to die for. Last season, Leviev showed me a ‘scarf’ made of white diamonds as pliable as Josephine Baker. This season we had two flawless yellow diamond cushion cut drop earrings and a collar of flawless white diamonds that was as slinky as Honor Blackman.
Anyway darling, have to dash and dress for the opera. It is Romeo & Juliet at the Royal Opera House with House tickets on the third row of the Grand Circle. I have invited my dear friend Patricia who will also accompany me to Florence in January to Pitti Uomo to launch my book in Italiano.