F O O D & L I F ESTY LE
THANKSGIVING AT
CONNIE’S BY ALEX HITZ
This page, from left: Connie Wald, Jerry Wald, Andrew Wald, and Robbie Wald at home
88 QUEST
started spending time in Los Angeles, Dominick Dunne said, “Alex, you’ll only need ONE friend out there. Through that one, you’ll meet EVERYBODY.” Early on—like, the second day I was there—Marguerite Littman, who was visiting from London, introduced me to Connie Wald. Connie was the
ultimate Hollywood hostess—a former model, a mega-producer’s wife who served stylish home-cooked lunches and dinners for six or seven decades to the who’s who of Hollywood. In 1941, Connie and her husband, Jerry, had bought a three-year-old “Connecticut farm house” in the flats of Beverly
CO LLE C T I O N O F CO N N I E WA L D
MOST OF THE TIME, if you move to a new city far away from the one you grew up in, you end up making another kind of family: the family of beloved friends. I’ve now done this twice, both in New York and in Los Angeles. This family, not the one you were born into, is the one you choose—and it chooses you. When I first
CO U RTE S Y O F A LE X H I T Z ;
in Beverly Hills, 1961.