from left to right: Mark Mainz, Scott Gries, Evan Agostini, all for getty images
nue, and on the way out of the showing, the woman rudely said to the doorman, ‘Get me a cab.’ Alice turned to her and said, 'Now, you will never get into the building because of the way you just spoke to the doorman. He will tell them.’” Vanderbilt was accepted at 31 E. 79th Street with Mason’s guidance, and he soon introduced her to William S. and Babe Paley, who became clients and huge stepping-stones in her career. “I met Bill and Babe through the Vanderbilts, and then I met the world!” she says. As her connections grew, Mason parlayed them into social strength by hosting dinner parties that soon became among the most coveted invitations. Her first one was in 1956. It’s a testimony to her personal charm that though it was held in her small one bedroom, Vanderbilt and Monroe both showed up. “I didn’t have enough chairs, but I had a queen-size bed, so I put three settings on each side and three at the foot of the bed, which took care of nine guests. People just sat on the floor. We served paella and salad. I wasn’t trying to compete with rich people in beautiful homes, but I had the right people and that’s what counts.” By the time she moved into her current apartment, word had spread, and by the mid ‘70s, Mason’s parties took on another dimension when she entered the political arena. Ted Sorenson’s wife, Gillian, worked for Mason,
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I wasn't trying to compete with rich people in beautiful homes, but I had the right people and that's what counts.” —Mason and in 1975 asked if they could hold an intimate fundraising party for the governor of Georgia. Jimmy Carter was seated next to Mason, and it was a symbiotic match made in heaven: she brought her considerable influence to his campaign, and he leant additional gravitas to her sphere. “He asked me to help him, and I didn’t really know what that meant,” she smiles. She figured it out quickly. Her tactics involved using the reverse directory and sending letters to residents of every building she had sold in—a helpful demographic to be sure. “Even a lot of them who called back and said they were Republicans sent a check; I was a well known persona,” she explains. She wound up raising more money for the future president than any other single citizen, a feat that she considers one of her biggest triumphs. The next year, she threw a $500-per-head fundraising dinner for Jay Rockefeller. “His parents were friends but when I asked his mother if they would like to come and pay, she said ‘I have to speak to Mr. Rockefeller.’ They wound up getting their friend Louis Marx to spend $5,000,
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which covered them and some of my media pals like Tom Brokaw.” Later, a single dinner she held for Bill Clinton raised $1.5 million. Carter and the Clintons became guests at her personal dinners, along with the likes of Alexander Haig, Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace, Diane Sawyer, and clients such as Steve Ross and Alfred Taubman—all fodder for society columns. “An invitation to one of Alice’s dinners was one of the hottest tickets in town,” recalls Renée Morrison, a socialite of that time. “I was young and it was an honor to be invited. I remember the art on her walls was as colorful as her guests. There was quite a potpourri of diplomats, CEOs and socialites. It was like a think tank. The conversation was incredible to say the least. One night I spoke with Ken Auletta, another evening I sat next to Carl Bernstein.” According to the New York Post’s Steve Cuozzo, who broke the story about Macklowe’s purchase of her 72nd Street building, the parties were ideal business tools for the climate of those times. “Alice Mason was queen of residen-
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