The Mrs. Anthony Weiner story. Supersmart. Loyal. Able. Important. Good-looking. International. Connected. A Rolodex that goes from a Hillary Secretary of State private cellphone, which not even Obama has, to a Sultan chief of state’s unlisted line in his bathroom, which not even his 12 wives have. Knows her way around. Knows everything. Knows everybody. Keeps secrets. Says nothing. Rich hotshot guys on assorted continents with big jobs, big money, big yachts, big planes, big everything would love to love her. So? Why him?
I mean, other than the barely able to conceal unmitigated excitement and joy of sharing a bathroom in a one-bedroom apartment in Forest Hills with a confirmed narcissist, why?
OK, she thought he’d maybe be mayor. At least, he thought he’d maybe be mayor. But Bloomberg‘s ladyfriend knows he’s mayor and still no “I Do.” So . . . why . . . Anthony Weiner?
Is it that she just loves a pretty face? Or could she be a political junkie? Aligned herself with the world’s top lady Hillary Clinton and now aligning herself with who she thinks might be this city’s top gun?
No. Weiner made himself invaluable. Huma had no time. Traveling. Busy. Always needed. Always on the go. She required what every busy professional lady could use — a wife. He became her wife. She relied on him. He made things easy. We’re talking grateful. It rained? Anthony found an umbrella. Needed dinner? Anthony brought it in. A shoulder to lean on? His was under her chin. He’d have taken Huma’s root canal appointments for her if he could. He embodied the one thing she lacked and desperately craved. He was there for her.
Now, did he love, worship, cherish her that much? Or did he know she’d be useful and, thus, cleverly supplied the lone element that would bind her to him?
This I don’t know. Will she stick even after she has the baby? This I don’t know. Just be grateful I know this.
Karen Gravano, mob wife on “Mob Wives,” slurping dainty Pop Yogurt on Stanton Street . . . Hoboken crooner Jimmy Roselli said ciao to us this week. Father-in-law Herb Bernstein was Julie Budd‘s conductor . . . A new restaurant Beauty & Essex. Lower East Side. Its entrance is a pawnshop. Big tables, group dining, family-style dishes, barring fish and steak, most entrees are under $20. Runs hot around midnight, and waiter Stefan and manager Jared definitely run hot even earlier.
Henry Winkler, “The Fonz” from TV’s 21-inch black-and-white days, has done the book: “I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River: Reflections on Family, Photography, and Fly-Fishing.” He says:
“I’m an unbelievably happy man. I have an Order of the British Empire. Milwaukee has a statue of me. I know the fear of not doing something is worse than not handling that fear. I started out learning-challenged. Like fly-fishing? Too complicated. I couldn’t get the cast down in that quarter of a second from hitting the water to getting it in the fish’s mouth.
“Dyslexia is hereditary. My three children have some form of it. Walking along the river, sun’s going down, we heard the fish slurping food and Matt, my son, 10, said, ‘Go ahead . . . you can do it.’ So I did. And caught a fish, which I threw back. I never take them out of the river.
“About the disability, you don’t overcome it. You make it your friend. The elbow out the window when I’m driving I know is my left. I still can’t spell. My writing uses only words I can manage. I thought I was stupid or lazy. I was the class clown. Personality got me through. At 31, I learned I had dyslexia.”
Winkler, now on two TV series simultaneously, says: “I made lots of money as Fonz, but comes a house, wife, children, college and I was out of work 10 years. Couldn’t get an acting job after “Happy Days.” It was difficult. You take nothing for granted. So I started to produce and write books. My cup is half full 90 percent of the time. I’m blessed. Two words, tenacity and gratitude, got me through the journey.
“So I equate life to fishing. Henry’s Fork in Idaho was a lousy 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. experience, where I caught only seaweed and a twig. But you can’t force the issue. Like any business relationship, you must play that fish. Bring it right or left. Play the line.”
Wednesday, 7 p.m., Winkler’s at Barnes & Noble in Union Square.
A loving farewell to Betty Ford, who told me: “A political marriage isn’t easy.” April ’07, reporting she’d “begun slipping,” I remembered the friends with whom I’d met her — Tony Curtis, Johnny Cash, Peter Lawford. They’re all gone. Now she’s gone. But staying is one great memory of a Gucci telephone order. Aldo Gucci himself personally dispatched the purchased handbag instantly to the Ford Model Agency’s Mrs. Eileen Ford. Trouble is, the buyer was Mrs. Betty Ford.
I started with Weiner, I end with the Wienermobile. July 18, 1936, it hit the hot-dog highway to spread miles of smiles. Next Monday, its 75th birthday, Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile taxis across West 75th (naturally!) and if you catch it and you can cut the mustard (joke, joke!) you get a free ride.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.