BAJAN DAYS
Our ambassador to Barbados, Mary Ourisman was in Washington recently, on official duty accompanying the Barbadian – “Bajan” – president to the White House. So Aniko and Nash Schott and Sedi and Maximo Flugelman co-hosted a small reunion of those who recently had spent four idyllic days in Barbados celebrating Mary’s birthday that her husband Mandy Ourisman organized. Those present at the reuinion included, Ann and Lloyd Hand, Marlene and Fred Malek, Wilma and Stuart Bernstein, JoAnn and John Mason, Bob and Laurie Monahan, and Lynda and Bill Webster, among others.
BIRTHDAY BOY
To have an ambassador honor you with a surprise party is terrific, but then to also have Henry Kissinger praise your “elegance and ease” and “quick instinct and silver tongue,” seems the icing on the birthday cake.
This was Timothy Trudeau’s lucky lot recently when his friends Elena Poptodorova, the ambassador of Bulgaria, and her husband Georg Petrov fêted him at the embassy residence.
The guest list included M.B.E. Lady Vivian Foley and her daughter Heather, Alex von Auersperg (the son of Sonny von Bulow), Henry Leish, Alan and Carol Lowe, Gen. Lawrence and Pat Skantze, Emmy and Peabody award-winning Gail Chalef of the Brookings Institution, Carole Randolph, and Howard and Dotsy Steele. Timothy’s wife, P.J.Trudeau, was statuesque in Christian Lacroix, and his striking, Chanel-clad mother, Claire Pate-Trudeau, sported a gee-whiz 22 carat canary diamond ring that Douglas Fairbanks had once given to wife Mary Pickford, when they were old Hollywood’s most famous pair. Claire’s namesake granddaughter, Claire, proved a poised party guest; in her six short years, she has partied with royalty and heads of state.
BIGTIME
Everything was huge at the 21st Annual Leukemia Ball: the crowd (2500); the venue (the vast Walter E. Washington Convention Center) and TV’s late night big star himself, Jay Leno, who did a generous hour-long show of signature riffs, posed affably with the guests, and raffled off a $68,000 Mercedes. The theme “The Roaring ’20s” featured fleet-footed Charleston flappers and an over-the-top décor, and raised a big .
3 million to fight blood cancer.
To thank a big giver, the Titan of Business and Philanthropy award was presented to Ronald M. Bradley for his magnanimous contributions and his dedication to the cause.
