| GUILD HALL
Henry And Peggy Schleiff
Boost Academy of Arts Gala Story by Edward T. Callaghan
Photos by Barry Gordin  EGGY SCHLEIFF and her husband, Court TV founder Henry Schleiff, opened their beautiful Park Avenue apartment for a cocktail reception for the committees of Guild Hall’s upcoming 21st Academy of the Arts Gala and as the kickoff for Guild Hall of East Hampton’s 75th Anniversary program, Celebrating Creativity.
Board Chairman Mickey Straus, with wife Leila at his side, announced that this year’s gala would honor businessman Stephen A. Schwarzman for leadership and philanthropic endeavors. He is chairman, CEO and co-founder of the Blackstone Group and chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He and wife Christine Hearst Schwarzman are familiar faces on New York’s social scene. Academy president Roy Furman noted, " We are changing the usual routine. Instead of honoring individual recipients in the visual, performing and literary arts we are tweaking the format to enable us to honor the past 21 years of recipients in the Academy of the Arts. In honor of Guild Hall’s 75th anniversary, we are making a one-year change to honor all 60 lifetime achievement awardees who are so deserving." This illustrious group include Robert A. M. Stern, Chuck Close, Steven Spielberg, George Plimpton, Edward Albee, Lauren Bacall, Itzhak Perlman, Jerome Robbins, Alan Alda, Sidney Lumet, Cy Coleman, Marshall Rose, Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher, Kurt Vonnegut, Alec Baldwin and Willem de Kooning. They were thrilled that the incomparable Chita Rivera, currently dazzling Broadway audiences in her biographical tour de force, The Dancer’s Life, will perform at the gala at the Rainbow Room. A number of Guild Hall trustees and committee chairs were on hand, including Barbara Slifka, Richard and Renee Steinberg, Ninah and Michael Lynne, Pam and Ed Pantzer and Frieda Furman. For more information about Guild Hall’s programs visit www.guildhall.org. |
