| AMERICAN
CANCER SOCIETY
4
Tonys Gather at Bistro Benedetto
To Support American Cancer Society
Story
and Photos By Sharyn Weintraub
ROSEMARY CLOONEY,
who performed at the American Cancer Society’s dinner dance at New
York’s Pierre Hotel, broke up the audience when she recalled the time
she had knee replacement surgery. She gathered all her grandchildren to
explain what happened. She told them her new knee was half plastic and
half metal. Little Harry ran to the kitchen, grabbed a piece of
paper of the refrigerator door, and tried to stick it on grandma’s knee.
Diana K. Feldman,
special events chairman of the American Cancer Society’s eastern
division, billed the dinner dance as Bistro Benedetto. She could very well
have called it Bistro Tony, as four Tonys graced the Grand Ballroom. Tony
Randall, Tony Danza and Antonia Bennett were there to salute Tony
Bennett as he received the Humanitarian Award 2000 from benefit
co-chair Ann Siegel.
Tony, a show business icon for
half a century, didn’t have to sing for his supper. His talented
daughter Antonia did that – along with Rosemary Clooney. Tony, a
world-renowned painter, donated an exquisite painting of San Domenico
Palace in Taormina, Sicily, to beautify the cover of the souvenir program.
Also on hand were such tony
guests as Donald Trump, Helen Gurley Brown, Sherry Lansing, Joy and
Regis Philbin, Grace Mirabella, Sumner Redstone, Ivan Seidenberg, Iris
Cantor, and John Kluge among many others too numerous to
contain on this page.
The
chairmen of the event – Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, Sidney and
Caroline Kimmel, Herb and Ann Siegel, and Peter and Janice
Worth were pleased that the dinner dance raised $500,000 toward
finding a cure for cancer.
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