Hamptons Social Diary: Going out with a bang
By Lee Fryd
New York Social Diary
September 7, 2021
EXCERPT
Brian Mcdermott, Amanda Frazer, and Julie Ratner. Photo credit: Todor Tsvetkov
The season’s not winding down, it’s going out with a bang, with back to back parties, several a day, days in a row. Summer on steroids. We stuck to one a night, sticking to the end, catching up with the hosts, prolonging the pleasure — three nights in a row.
Tovah Feldshuh gave props to the crowd for staying, at the Ellen Hermanson Foundation’s Back in Black summer benefit. “When I do a concert, I always like to go on before dessert,” she told them, “because rich people leave. So, I’m honored that there are still a—-s in the seats.” They stayed, then danced in the aisles. It might have been the charity’s best gala ever, thanks in part to the cool reggae band (Winston Irie and the Selective Security Band), a great Vietnamese menu (from the Hampton Racquet’s V Cafe), and the good vibes that always surround co-founder Julie Ratner.
Julie Ratner and Emily Levin started The Ellen Hermanson Foundation 26 years ago in memory of their baby sister, Ellen, felled in her 40s by breast cancer. It started as Ellen’s Run, conceived around Julie’s kitchen table. Today, it’s a full service breast cancer support system for Long Islanders, offering state of the art treatment and psychosocial support, regardless of ability to pay. The jewel in the crown: the Ellen Hermanson Breast Centers of Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.
Walk into a grocery store with Julie, someone will bound over and hug her for seeing them through the disease. The gala is filled with those stories: how she connected those in need to surgeons, rides to chemo and moral support.
Tovah Feldshuh and John Graham, who owned the Hampton Racquet, where it was held, were honored. Jean Shafiroff chaired. Jill Rappaport, Anne Ciardullo, Letitia James, Rebecca Seawright, Robert Chaloner and Oscar Mandes, Ingrid Arneberg and Will Marin, Patti Kenner, Barbara Rosen, Karen Sachs, Melissa Cohn and Bill Hart, Stanley Baumblatt and Chaz Austin, Iris and Jay Dankner, Jackie Lowey, Hugo Moreno, Dee Rivera, Eileen Rappaport, Iris Shokoff, Jodi Wasserman, Constance Chen, Hope Klein Langer, Amanda Star Frazer were among those who came out to support the cause.
“I have no idea why you are honoring me tonight, except that Julie Ratner and a few others here love me, as I love you,” Tovah Feldshuh told the crowd. “So, if honoring me raises some money for this wonderful organization, I say, screw it, let’s do it!
“One of Julie’s greatest virtues is that she doesn’t hold judgment,” Tovah told me later. “She’s incredibly kind and respectful, even of people who do not share her point of view. It makes perfect sense from who she is that the Ellen Hermanson foundation would be born. Love is strong. Hate is strong. Trust is fragile. Julie kept her word to her sister (to advocate for breast cancer care) and then some.”
Feldshuh also honors strong women onstage. Her Golda’s Balcony was the longest running one-woman show in Broadway history. These days, she plays Ruths: Ruth Westheimer in Becoming Dr. Ruth, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Sisters in Law. Feldshuh and Westheimer are old friends. Ginsberg spent time with Feldshuh for the role. Tovah wanted to know her perfume, her lipstick (The justice wore whatever her college roommate sent.)
“‘Madame,’” Tovah said she asked her, “’I’m going to be your voice out in the planet. How do you want to people to think of you?’ With her head craned forward, she looked very Benjamin Franklin serious. From those little brilliant fish lips, she said, ‘I want them to know … I’m funny!’”
Ginsburg was raised by a strong loving mother. Westheimer was orphaned by the holocaust. “One stands up straight as a rail and the other one is hunched over,” Tovah continued. “I feel Dr. Ruth became a sex therapist to give others intimacy in their relationships because she lacked it as a child.”
Tovah loved to greet Dr. Ruth, by lifting her for a hug. Until Ruth told her, “You can’t pick me up anymore. I’m an endangered species!”
Still. she is a friend with benefits. When Feldshuh started playing her, Goop sent the actress a vibrator. Like these women, a gift that keeps on giving.
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Original article: https://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/hamptons-social-diary-going-out-with-a-bang/