Truman Capote’s Black-And-White Ball (1966)
Sometimes, a single night of party can define a moment in time. The alchemy that produces these watershed fêtes can appear mysterious. Is it the guest list? The social climate? Andy Warhol’s R.S.V.P.? Anything substance spiked the punch? From unprecedented extravagance to a guest list that marked a cultural sea change, the last 50 years have seen some meaningful partying. Truman Capote’s Black-and-White Ball November 28, 2016, marks the fiftieth anniversary of Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball. It was once a masked affair that the In Cold Blood writer had planned for over a year, bringing all of New York society to its knees inside the process. Ostensibly given for Katharine Graham, who had taken up the reins of The Washington Post for her family, the ball combined up the everyday social order, inviting innovative doers at the top of their game to mingle with the same old high-society professional party-goer set.
Planning Style
Capote’s party-planning style verged on tyrannical, with each name painstakingly written in a composition notebook. He organized dinners that were to arise previous to the celebration and told the hosts whom to invite. Offend Capote and risk getting a call crossed off the list, thereby being left out of the one event that mattered. “There was a slight word of madness about the party. There is just no rational purpose why the entire situation escalated,” Katharine Graham told Vanity Fair in 1996.
Fashion & Details
Women and men raided the Bergdorf Goodman millinery department, and young upstarts Halston and Bill Cunningham custom-designed looks for others. “Capote got his mask at F.A.O. Schwarz for, like, seventy-nine cents,” Thomas Lannon, the New York Public Library’s assistant director for manuscripts, recently told Vanity Fair. “As much as there was beauty, there were cheap, regular things. It was highly lavish, but, for example, there weren’t any flowers. You can’t say it wasn’t costly, but it wasn’t deliberately expensive. It was once very tasteful.”
The Proust Ball (1971)
Overview
The Proust Ball, thrown in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of Marcel Proust’s birth in 1971, could be considered Marie-Helene de Rothschild’s best triumph. Around 350 guests attended the extraordinarily wealthy dinner at her home outside of Paris, the Château de Ferrières, with 350 or so more arriving in time for a second, later dinner.
Guest List & Atmosphere
Among the guests were Audrey Hepburn, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton, while Cecil Beaton was the night’s photographer. French model and actress Marisa Berenson remembers the night, saying, “As soon as you arrived at Ferrières it was like going back in time, but more luxuriously with surprisingly refined taste. The women wore dresses, bodices, massive headdresses, tiaras, masses of jewellery. It was truly the era of Proust.”
The Surrealist Ball (1972)
Overview
The Surrealist Ball followed the Proust Ball the following year. Proust may also have been considered Rothschild’s best triumph, but the Surrealist images are legendary. Among the 150 guests were Salvador Dalí, Audrey Hepburn, and members of several royal families from throughout Europe.
Notable Highlights
Rothschild dressed as a fallen stag, her mask decorated with massive diamond teardrops. Famously, the invitations were printed backward so that they had to be read with a mirror, and dessert was a life-size naked woman (made of sugar) lying on a bed of roses.
Elizabeth Taylor’s 40th-Birthday Party (1972)
Overview
Inconveniently for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Taylor’s 40th birthday took place while Burton was filming the ultimately unsuccessful Bluebeard’s Castle in Budapest. Luckily for lists of great parties of lavish merit, Burton decided to throw his then-wife a massive birthday party abroad.
Guest List & Luxury
Burton paid airfare for one ticket per guest (dates were extra), and the list included the likes of Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Baron and Baroness Guy de Rothschild, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Raquel Welch, reported Nicholas Tomalin for Britain’s Sunday Times in 1972. Another reporter, who interviewed Burton and Taylor during their travels, called the party, “All expenses paid including caviar and bloaters.”
The Famous Gift
It was here that Burton gave Taylor the “Taj Mahal” diamond, which was originally a gift from the Shah Jahangir, the 17th-century Mughal emperor of India, to Mumtaz-i-Mahal, his favourite wife. Her name is inscribed on the piece, and supposedly her death inspired her husband to commission the Taj Mahal. The diamond has been caught in a major legal battle between Christie’s and Taylor’s estate, which sprung from a $8.8 million auction and questions about the diamond’s age, since 2011.
The Tommy Subway Party (1975)
Overview
Bill Murray recently told a story about the best party he ever crashed. “It was the biggest party ever in N.Y.C. at the time,” he recalled. “It was an inner circle thing. It was at an enclosed subway stop. It was a roar, it was a scream!” He was talking about the premiere party for Tommy, a rock-opera based on the album by The Who, which was held in the brand-new 57th Street subway station in 1975.
Inside The Event
Murray and his group—John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, and others—went in through the “back door” with the help of the caterers. There, they mingled. “I said to Andy Warhol, ‘I love the soup can!,’ and he looked at me like, You don’t belong here,” Murray said.
Guest List & Planning
Bobby Zarem, the legendary New York publicist who was instrumental in securing the famous location and the even more famous guest list, told Vanity Fair, “I wrote 60 notes. Handwritten, hand-delivered notes to the people I most wanted there.” The contents of the notes focused on how easy it was going to be to get from the theater to the party. There was just a block between the two, and the entire path between was lined with a red carpet, Zarem said.
Memorable Features
The unusual location is what made the party most memorable. The guest count may have ranged between 600 and 750, though the black-tie affair was literally underground. Among those who received Zarem’s special invitations were society people like Pat Buckley and D.D. Ryan, and others in the “crowd of people [he] almost wanted everywhere.” Other attendees included members of the cast, like Elton John, Ann-Margret, and Jack Nicholson; those who provided the soundtrack (Pete Townsend, et al.); and then more boldfaced names like Lauren Bacall; the mayor John Lindsay and his wife, Mary; author Gay Talese; and of course, Andy Warhol.
Ronald Reagan’s First Inauguration (1981)
Overview
Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration was the most luxurious ever held at the time, with a final cost of $8 million. Among other marks of opulence, The Washington Post hailed, “Laser light shows, two large fireworks displays, performances by dozens of big-name entertainers, and nine invitation-only inaugural balls telecast across the nation via satellite.”
Contrast With Carter’s Inauguration
Barring the price tag, inauguration spokespeople trotted out perks like “celebrity master of ceremonies” including Elizabeth Taylor and Hugh O’Brien at the balls, as well as the limousines driven in from New York to chauffeur guests to their events.
Television-Ready
The entire celebration was cast as a sharp right turn away from Jimmy Carter’s administration, which ushered in his presidency with a “people’s party.” Reagan’s inauguration cost $4.5 million more than Carter’s—despite being a day shorter—and was orchestrated with television in mind. “I will have succeeded in this job if I make the best seat at the inauguration the one in your living room sitting in front of the television,” Robert Gray, Reagan’s inaugural committee co-chairman, told The Washington Post at the time. Gray also noted, “He will ride in a car from the Capitol to the White House (unlike Carter).”
