Amy Phillips Penn - Elaines : The Rise of One of New Yorks Most Legendary Restaurants from Those Who Were There

This personalized essay collection is based upon the memories of its contributors. All the events in this story are as accurate and truthful as possible. Many names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of others. Mistakes, if any, are caused solely by the passage of time.

Copyright 2015 by Amy Phillips Penn

Photograph credits appear near photographs

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

Cover photo by Jessica Burstein

Print ISBN: 978-1-63220-272-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-007-4

Printed in China

Contents

BY LIZ SMITH

BY AMY PHILLIPS PENN

BY AMY PHILLIPS PENN

BY AMY PHILLIPS PENN

BY DAVID BLACK

BY PER BJURMAN

BY STEVE MCPARTLIN

BY CHINA GIRARD

BY JESSICA BURSTEIN

BY JESSICA BURSTEIN

JODI GARDNER

BY ELAINE MADSEN

BY KEN PLISKA

BY DANA MOYLES

BY CURT BLOCK

BY ASH BENNINGTON

A Q&A BY AMY PHILLIPS PENN

BY CHARLES KIPPS

BY RON GALELLA

AS TOLD TO AMY PHILLIPS PENN

BY MARK ROSSINI

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY FINK

BY DABNEY COLEMAN

BY ESTHER MARGOLIS

BY STEVE (PALLY) MCFADDEN

BY KEN MORAN

BY AL SAPIENZA

BY BOB DRURY

BY TAKI THEODORACOPULOS

BY FRED MORTON

BY STEVE WALTER

BY TONY HENDRA

BY RICHARD JOHNSON

BY LIBBY SCHOETTLE

Preface

L IKE ALL FAMOUS folks who do something really unusual and special in this old world, its important to understand Elaine Kaufman in a historical context. In the movie Casablanca , they say, Everyone goes to Ricks.

In recent New York, everyone tried to go to Elaines! Everyone tried to be accepted, tried to get the okay of the owner.

Rick says, famously, Of all the gin joints in the entire world, you had to walk into mine!

Elaine said to me when I was writing about her in a book titled Dishing : Liz, dont say I ever threw anyone out; it makes me sound so tough.

Having once been ejected from Elaines for coming in with a DuPont heiress, which annoyed Don (Donald Ward, Elaines then-factotum), I was highly amused at this. Don told me that unescorted women werent welcome; it must have been before Gloria Steinem.

Unescorted women arent welcome? I asked. I thought they were the best kind.

Elaine found this vastly amusing.

She herself was the original unescorted woman. She never needed an escort, though she certainly liked men more than she liked women.

And men loved Elaine. One of my handsome brothers came to New York just for the purpose of bedding Elaine. So we were more or less related.

In her time, Elaines did turn out to be a bit like Ricks. Deals were made... controversies spawned.

Dramatic things happened here; here were the beginnings of beautiful friendships and terrible hatreds.

I first met Elaine in the 1950s at Portofino in Greenwich Village. She was then in love with the charming owner, Alfredo Viazzi.

Elaine was a damned good waitress, but she soon bested her Italian lover and became bigger and better known herself, against all odds. Eventually, Elaines was full of Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winners with a lot of writers eating on the cuff.

She couldnt resist talented people, adored writers, and was the inheritor of traditions from places like that haunt of the old Herald Tribune newspaper, Bleeks Artists & Writers Restaurant, where James Thurber would play the Match Game against Lucius Beebe, who was wearing white tie and tails.

In time, Elaines inherited remarkable literary stars, much like those from the heyday of the old Algonquin Roundtable and from the confines of 21, a place grown glitzy & expensive, as it changed from being a speakeasy after Prohibition. The elite fled to Elaines, even though the address was inconvenient.

Elaines was a legend on its own terms, ranking her as a host of the grandeur of John Perona of El Morocco, Sherman Billingsley of the Stork Club, and Toots Shor, who once said of Hamlet, I bet Im the only bum here who dont know how this turns out.

Elaine revered the likes of Tim Costello and creative hamburger guys like Danny Levezzo of PJ Clarkes. You couldnt buy a hamburger at Elaines. She sneered at people who asked for one.

Elaine made up for any lacks. She had stars like Elaine Stritch and Jackie Gleason, who vied for the privilege of serving drinks behind the bar.

She was big-hearted, a closet intellectual in her way, a pushover, but also a hard taskmaster for phonies, fakes, and wannabesthe civilians, she called the greater public.

She put her stamp on New York caf life in an utterly focused career. Though she learned from caf & saloon forebearers, there has never been anyone even vaguely like her. Texas Guinan, are you kidding? If Elaine was your friend, you hardly needed a lot of other ones. And in spite of a cynical veneer of sophistication, she was a pussycat, softhearted to a large extent.

Yes, she played favorites and sometimes she could be unreasonable.

One had to mind ones manners in Elaines. You couldnt be demanding, you couldnt bother and pester the famous, you couldnt ask for autographs.

In 2003, Elaine Kaufman was made a Living Landmark by the distinguished New York Landmarks Conservancy.

She was childishly impressed by this honor and she supported this charity, which tries to save New York, ever after, attending every event until her death.

We of the Conservancy were also stunned to discover that Elaine Kaufmans becoming a Living Landmark had sold more tickets and more tables than anyone else except for George Steinbrenner.

While other honorees often accept becoming Living Landmarkssome of them making fun of it all, some bringing others more famous to laud them, and a few singing, dancing, reciting poems or offering films of themselves, and other self-aggrandizementsI shall never get over Elaines acceptance speech.

I introduced her to giant fanfare, for there was only one Elaine Kaufman and one Elaines, and her fans were there. She stepped up to the microphone, looked around, and then said simply: Thank you. I accept this for the late George Plimpton.

It was heaven. It was priceless. It was classy.

It said everything there was to say about art and artists, about culture, taste, good writers, vulgarity, tradition, New York City, indeed, about class, sass, and pizzazz.

Liz Smith

Introduction

A WRITER S JOURNEY is an epic one that brakes for banal. While its soothing to believe that you have control over your own odyssey, these wise words linger and crescendo: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.