The Liz Smith Column | 11/19/2009 6:00 am

Liz Smith: In a Concert Hall Far, Far Away

What else is Our Gossip Girl up to? Making ‘dough’ with Martha Stewart.

Anthony Daniels/Image: Starwarsinconcert.com

"When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults," said Brian Aldiss.

I am personally very much into my second and perhaps my third childhood. Last weekend I trekked to Boston in the rain to see the amazing "Star Wars: In Concert." I had to buy scalper’s tickets to get in because it was SRO in the city’s massive TD Garden, but it was worth the trouble and the money.

Not that I’ve been such a fan of these phenomenal George Lucas films, but the 11-year-old in my life is a big fan. He has seen the movies out of sequence, but knows which one goes where. And he knows the names of all the actors and their characters. And he understands all their sci-fi details and what they are talking about. I didn’t know what to expect of such an expensive and commercial venture, but was I ever pleasantly surprised!

This show presents London’s Royal Philharmonic Concert orchestra in white tie and tails plus evening dresses and they "make" the John Williams musical scores as exciting as "The William Tell Overture" or Beethoven’s "Fifth." Huge moving cameras also photograph the elegant members of the orchestra as they play under the baton of maestro Dirk Brosse. Then there are the sound and light sequences, plus flaming torches shooting up between sets and these are heightened by excerpts from the various six "Star Wars" movies seen on a screen as big as all get-out.

Maestro Dirk Brosse/Image: starwarsinconcert.com

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The nicest touch is the live appearance of the moderator who turns out to be actor Anthony Daniels. You may be more familiar with him as C-3PO in his gold metal suit, but even out of it, you’ll find him perfectly recognizable. He and C-3PO have the same flighty, comic characteristics, urbane but fey. Daniels is simply excellent, has a neat easy-to-listen-to voice and his best moment comes when he veers off course from his storytelling, explaining and introducing and allows himself to drift into C-3PO’s ego. At that, he catches himself but not before he has revealed that under his all-black shirt, tie and tuxedo, he is wearing a shining gold weskit.

If you live near the Meadowlands in New Jersey; Nassau Coliseum in Long Island; Ottawa, Canada; Montreal; Toronto; Michigan; Pittsburgh; Toledo or Columbus or Cleveland; Chicago; Omaha; Kansas City; St. Louis; Cincinnati; Indianapolis; and Nashville – you can still see this incredible event. Call up Starwarsinconcert.com for the dates in that order.

I highly recommend this for children and those children they are taking care of – their parents and grandparents and guardians.

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Hey, kids – do you know what the glamorous life in Manhattan means? It means going to the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Center one night where they were raising lots of money for Martha’s Center for Living at Mt. Sinai Hospital. (This organization keeps older folks in the eye of a great medical unit, enabling them to live independently with proper health care.)

Martha Stewart © Shutterstock

OK, Martha could have simply named it Martha I, II and III, but then we’d still have to explain what it is. I was the emcee for this event. It was wonderful. Martha’s organization operates on high-octane achievement. They leave nothing to chance. Martha has one of the most dynamic PR reps in the world, Susan Magrino. And for this party they had the help of the Buckley-Hall party people who none of us in NYC can live without. (I do a lot of charity fund-raisers and when I work on one without them, I feel sorry for myself and the charity.)

Harry Evans was honored at this night because his major book on his life in journalism, My Paper Chase, has just come out. But here’s what tickled me at the party auction. Harry and I were offered up with Martha for lunch at the Pierre Hotel’s new Caprice restaurant.

14 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

We have such curious heros and heroines in this country. None more curious than Martha Stewart whose troubles I always find myself comparing to those of Leona Helmsley.

Leona Helmsley got into trouble by telling the truth to a grand jury in the Van Cleef & Arpels investigation. She paid a flat price for jewelry that included the sales tax and if they were evading the taxes and sending empty boxes to her home she didn’t feel she should turn them in. She could have lied and said she never saw the empty boxes. She asssumed the state at some point would catch them on their own. She didn’t owe the taxes. Van Cleef & Arpels did. But suddenly she was the master criminal. Off with her head!

Martha Stewart on the other hand lied repeatedly about having insider information. And yet was defended by one and all. And still revered by one and all. And people are paying to dine with her.

Leona Helmsley never slapped anyone with a lettuce leaf. But I bet Martha Stewart has.

By BabySnooks on 11/19/2009 6:54 am

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All these immensely rich folks probably have their secret tax havens and people helping them skirt the laws. Martha Stewart and Leona Helmsley were just more heavy-handed about it and got caught. I admire Martha because she built her company from scratch. She has tons of people behind the scenes but she is a master at coming up with new creative ideas, figuring out how to make them appealing to the masses and making money from them. I don’t particularly like the format of her current show, with the live audience and ditsy celebrity guests. I loved her former show which was really about instruction. You could watch a segment and come away really knowing how to create a recipe or a craft. She made even the most complex things understandable (as the viewer you knew she had lots of back scene help making it look so easy) and she introduced so many interesting people in the food world to a larger audience. That’s where I first heard of Ina Garten, Rick Bayless, many, many others. I miss that old show but I keep tabs on what’s going on with MSO because she has her well-manicured finger on the pulse of what’s hot in America.

By Barbara1 on 11/19/2009 7:51 am

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Martha Stewart and Leona Helmsley were just more heavy-handed about it and got caught.

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Some believe Leona Helmsley was wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted despite her having occasionally succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome and acted repentant - among other things the tabloids never printed was the curious fact that the IRS never audited the Helmsleys and in fact they had overpaid their taxes by $15 million during the same period they were accused of evading approximately $1.5 million in taxes.

As for Martha Stewart "making it on her own" so did Leona Helmsley and she was a wealthy woman in her own right when she married Harry Helmsley and after he died she managed to increase their net worth. Despite the tabloids painting her as a golddigger.

The only thing Martha Stewart and Leona Helmsley have in common is that their main crime was being successful without a man. Successful men are merely good businessmen. Successful women are usually just bitches.

By BabySnooks on 11/19/2009 8:10 am

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From the movie Silence of the Lambs:

You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition’s given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you’ve tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you… all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars… while you could only dream of getting out… getting anywhere… getting all the way to the FBI.

Whenever I hear of Martha Stewart, I think of this line from the movie Silence of the lambs, because the world is filled with women who have acquired success and wealth. They teach themselves how to speak correctly, walk the right way and dress with style and class. They live in all the right communities and hob-nob with all the right people.

But underneath it all you just know they are all walking balls of insecurity. Filled with the need to appear perfect, do everything perfect and be control freaks to mask all the "stuff" they dealt with as children. I know a handful of Martha Stewart wannabees and I’m not impressed.

By BelindaJoy on 11/19/2009 10:02 am

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I’m afraid that in real life we would have been treated the following day to "How to prepare cannibal with an orange sauce" had Hannibal spoken to Martha this way. Her classic television moment was during that morning show during the "scandal" when she picked up a knife and committed mass murder on a head of lettuce.

By BabySnooks on 11/19/2009 12:20 pm

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It must be put down Martha Stewart day. She certainly paid the price for what she did. I’m happy to see Martha recover in public like so many men have in white collar crime. Yet she’s still being punished as any former felon. She can’t vote nor be CEO again. And there’s so much more she’ll never get back, respect from certain people.

By LauraWard on 11/19/2009 12:37 pm

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I don’t know , as I wasn’t there, whether these women were any more or less culpable than men in similar positions. Since I’m not close personal friends with any of these people, and didn’t serve on any juries, I can’t and won’t voice an opinion in that regard.

But, the thing that I respect about Martha Stewart is that she accepted responsibility , didn’t try to foist the blame onto her accountants, went to prison and got on with her life. I have never heard her whine, or try to excuse what happened. I don’t know or remember what I did know about Leona Helmsley , but I know the whole thing, pretty much , ruined her life. Martha didn’t let it ruin hers. Of course, Leona Helmsley was, I think, a lot older than Martha Stewart when she had her troubles. I just wish I had bought Martha Stewart’s company stock when she was convicted, and it was 7.00 a pop.

By SallyK on 11/19/2009 5:13 pm

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Leona Helmsley didn’t blame the accountants but merely pointed out that neither she nor her husband kept the books so to speak and there were two hotel chains, numerous corporations on the commercial properties including Helmsley-Spear and secretaries who made mistakes on ledges and used white-out to correct them which didn’t look good but still didn’t add up to tax evasion and tax fraud. The deductions on the home in Connecticutt, which the tabloids had a field day with, are a gray area for many people. Depends on how the IRS decides you actually use the house. More for business entertaining or for personal relaxation is what it comes down to. Some of the accusations were absurd. I doubt anyone would risk going to prision over a girdle that was entered in a ledger as a corporate expense rather than a personal expense.

Martha Stewart on the other hand made the choice to sell the stock on the basis of insider information and made the choice to lie about it and sorry but she did whine and blamed everyone but herself in the beginning. She accepted responsibility when she realized she was going to prison. And tried to turn that into a "Martha Turner Goes to Prison" show.

I don’t know that it ruined Leona Helmsley’s life although it hastened her husband’s death and she ran it all from the prison cell and even when Rudy Guiliani tried to put her out of business over the liquor license she merely rearranged the cvorporate structure. Despite the ongoing tabloid fascination with her she led a relatively happy life all things considered. Every schmuck in Manhattan attempted to take advantage of her. And didn’t get far. And despite the "formidable" personality she had a heart of gold that may organizations throughout the coutnry can attest to. As can some firemen in Manhattan who discovered that the odd woman who wandered in the afternoon of 9/11 was Leona Helmsley. Who presented them with a check for $5 million for the relief fund and opened her hotels to anyone who needed something to eat or somewhere to sleep which the media never really reported because they feared Rudy Guiliani. Who was still cowering in bunker.

By BabySnooks on 11/19/2009 6:20 pm

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Oops. Talking on the phone and typing at the same time. I meant “Martha Stewart Goes to Prison” show.

By BabySnooks on 11/19/2009 6:37 pm

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Martha Stewart, in the face of an investigation of her activities, claimed over and over that she had done nothing wrong. I doubt that many of us would have done differently. In most worlds, the government would have proceeded with prosecution only if they could prove that she was guilty of insider trading (they did not even hint at this in their indictment). But, because she was a woman and a big name, Martha was prosecuted for saying "I’m innocent." They had their way and sent her off to prison, and even that didn’t daunt her. Isn’t it reassuring to know that while all the sins and crimes that led our country to the brink of disaster were taking place without apparently any government oversight, the government was forcefully and doggedly tracking down and sending to prison a woman whose biggest sin is wanting us all to live healthy and productive lives. Go figure!

By KennethHamlett on 11/24/2009 8:43 pm