Joan Collins enjoys a fete hosted by the Hollywood super-agent Swifty Lazar in 1988 (right, in glasses) who once told Vanity Fair that 'Glennbaum' (as he called Bernbaum), had 'a genius for seating.' Collins later threw her own party at Mortimer's that same year for her book, 'Prime Time,' which was attended by media heavy weights Walter Cronkite, Carl Bernstein, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Jann Wenner. Barbara Walters celebrated her 61st birthday with 30 of her closest pals which included: Diane Sawyer, Gloria Steinem and Nora Ephron. As were the princes of fashion: Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass and Valentino. Fran Lebowitz, Henry Kissinger, Roy Cohn, William Paley and Mike Wallace were notable regulars. The bare brick dining room became a nexus for swells to mingle with the Big Apple's intelligentsia. Or where Venezuelan socialite and landowner Reinaldo Herrera and his dress-designer wife, Carolina could throw a private party for Princess Margaret, safe from the prying eyes of the hoi polloi. It was the only place in Manhattan where Charlotte Hambro, the granddaughter of Winston Churchill, could be spotted doing a mock striptease on top of a table, in front of a Mexican mariachi band and 60 friends. Mortimer's was, according to Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair, 'the best show in New York,' that is. It features dazzling photographs by society snapper, Mary Hilliard, that depict life behind the velvet rope of Manhattan's most exclusive bygone boîte. Now almost three decades after the restaurant closed abruptly upon Bernbaum's death in 1998, a new book titled, Mortimer's: A Moment in Time, by documentary filmmaker Robin Baker Leacock, offers a glimpse into the clubby zeitgeist of a forgotten era, when jet set relics of the social register dominated nightlife in a pre-digital world. He opened Mortimer's in 1976, with no experience in hospitality, and named the socialite watering hole after his boss at the garment company, Mortimer Levitt. Legendary Vogue editrice, Diana Vreeland, had a standing Sunday reservation for table 1B.Ĭosseting these famously high-strung guests was Glenn Bernbaum, a jaunty retired executive for the Custom Shop Shirtmakers, with 'Ivy League style' and trademark horn-rimmed glasses.
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Guest, Brooke Astor, Marietta Tree, Katharine Graham and Greta Garbo.
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Wedged between a Catholic church and a now-defunct gay bar, it served as a private preserve for the kiss-kiss celebrity types of café society - and a launching pad for its proprietor's swift ascent into Manhattan's beau monde.ĭuring any given lunch or dinner, one was likely to see Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis sitting pride of place by the front window devouring three little golf-ball sized crab cakes with her posse of Fifth Avenue swans that included Gloria Vanderbilt, Nan Kemper, Carolina Herrera, Estée Lauder, C.Z. Published: 14:19 BST, 23 March 2022 | Updated: 14:54 BST, 29 March 2022įor 22 years, Mortimer's restaurant stood as a high-society saloon on the corner of Lexington and East 75th Street in New York City. According to society chronicler, Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair, Mortimer's was 'the best show in New York' -but impossible to get a table as outsiders were peremptorily dismissed at the door.Mortimer's was the inspiration for Tom Wolfe's 1987, book, 'The Bonfire of the Vanities,' where he also coined the term 'social X-ray' after the restaurant's regular Nan Kemper and her coterie skeletal ladies-who-lunched.It's also where the Venezuelan socialite Reinaldo Herrera and his dress-designer wife, Carolina Herrera, threw a private dinner for Princess Margaret where the pianist played 'God Save the Queen' as she got up to leave.It is where Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland, had a standing Sunday reservation for lunch, and where Barbara Walters hosted her birthday party with 30 pals, all female titans of media.Bernbaum was a former officer in the Army's psychological warfare unit during WWII, he commanded his domain as social gatekeeper using the same intimidation tactics on those her perceived as 'outsiders'.
![swifty lazar swifty lazar](https://img.youtube.com/vi/t-tqg-T_zXU/0.jpg)
Mortimer's was opened in 1976 by Glenn Bernbaum, a retired garment executive industry who famously ran the Upper East Side establishment 'like a private club' for jet set celebrities.A new book, Mortimer's: A Moment in Time, memorializes a bygone restaurant in New York City that once served as an elite playground for socialites like Gloria Vanderbilt, Estée Lauder, C.Z.The Army vet who became the king of Manhattan's social scene: New book lifts the lid on man behind '70s high-society hotspot Mortimer's - and his cut-throat vetting process that welcomed rich elite like Anna Wintour and Jackie O and cast out 'unwashed social dead'