LAST week’s exclusives with New York’s First Lady Michelle Paterson talking about the White House looking to muscle her husband David the governor out of the State House were all done at my home. Michelle (how come every first lady’s named Michelle???) and I planned this luncheon in her honor six months before and it fell on just That Day. After the 50 ladies, TV cameras and notepads left, this elegant woman — in black-and-white Rachel Roy suit with matching pumps — and I talked.
“Yes, it’s been rough,” she said. “But, listen, I went through a terrible divorce and custody battle with my first husband. He wanted to take my daughter Ashley away from me. That’s tough. After something like that, you feel you can go through anything.
“David was hurt. But somewhere he has this steel inside him. This nerve. This resilience. In our 17 years together, I’ve never seen him so he couldn’t pull himself together. I don’t know where that grit comes from, but I know he’s always had it.
“I was with a friend fund-raising in Seattle for David when he called and told me the White House wanted him to get out of the race. He’d gotten it from a reporter. One way would have been to ask him. This way was disrespectful. He’s not going to be disrespected.”
Also, “I’m told my husband shaved off his moustache today. Since I was out of town I didn’t see him. In our whole marriage, I’ve never seen him without his beard or moustache. And would you believe I had to hear it from someone? I didn’t even see it yet myself!?” [Cindy‘s note: She now likes the look.]
Michelle earlier told me: “We originally met on a double-date at a Temptations concert when I was in junior college. I was with the other guy. I then married, divorced and again met David, who was studying for the bar. He was smart, funny, caring, all things good. He was then a state senator. I’m a very private person so, until all this publicity came about, people didn’t know who I was. And since David can’t see, they’d push me aside. Believe me, I got to learn an awful lot that way.”
This handsome lady talks softly but carries a big stick. “When this happened with Spitzer and the job suddenly fell to David, the first words out of his mouth were: ‘I think I’ll kill myself,’ and I said to him: ‘So then who would be governor?’
“Look, David and I will get through this. Neither of us is a quitter. As for my family, my daughter is away at school. My son doesn’t talk, but he did ask me, ‘Did you read the papers?’ He was glued to TV watching the news.”
And the first lady’s plans immediately after my luncheon? “As soon as I leave your apartment I’m going food shopping. I have to cook dinner for my son.”
AT last week’s Milan collections, Giorgio Armani took his usual end-of-the-show bow. Big applause. Gaunt, unseen for months, plagued with illness rumors, he’s now put weight back on. Seems it was hepatitis C plus depression . . . “A Star Is Born,” maybe getting reborn a fourth time, would star Beyoncé . . . More toys becoming movie stars. Barbie is coming up as a live-action job and so might “Masters of the Universe” . . . Frank Langella looking to get a country place upstate . . . Amy Poehler‘s ears aren’t just ringing from critiques of her new TV show. She just got those ears pierced . . . Bill Pullman, opening Oct. 11 with Julia Stiles in Jeffrey Finn–Arlene Scanlan‘s production of “Oleanna”: “It’s like Yiddish theater. The audience is so close and emotionally involved that they talk back to the actors. One said aloud, ‘Gimme a break.’ When it’s upsetting, you actually hear them groan and another audience member shutting them up.”
ALL of us knew, wor shipped and re spected Bill Safire, who loved when I repeated to him how Maureen Dowd once described herself to me. She said: “Next to Bill Safire, I’m the Times’ worst-dressed writer.”
The man had a delicious sense of humor but he took no prisoners. He tolerated no stupidity. Except for this final one, he lost no fight. I once pressed him on his calling Hillary a congenital liar. Said the quintessential grammarian: “You got it wrong. What I called her was a ‘congenial’ liar.” Following his own big laugh I asked, “Did anything happen after you called her that nasty thing?” Said sharp, smart, savvy Safire: “Yeah. I got 15 more high-paying lecture dates.”
IN “Shrek: The Musical” Christopher Sieber plays Lord Farquaad. On his knees. With fake legs. The other night, onstage, doing whatever he sung on the Tonys, word backstage was he’d broken his leg. Panic reigned until the crew realized it was his Lord Farquaad one. In exactly seven minutes, the fakola leg was changed and he was back out finishing the song.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.