PARK Magazine

Fete De Famille, an
annual fundraiser
for AIDS health
care at Lenox Hill
Hospital.jpeg
Faye Dunaway
& Jim Brady
Ryan O’Neal & Farrah Fawcett
Robert Caravaggi at the guitar
Kelly &
Calvin
Klein
André Leon Talley
[Glenn] once hosted a party for me, to entertain John
Galliano in 1993. We sat outside on the sidewalk in an
enclosed special tent. Iman came in wearing a long red
Alaïa dress and caused a stir. John wore white powder
on his hair, and John Bult—who helped fund the rebooting
of Mr. Galliano with the March 1994 collection in
Paris, at the late Sao Schlumberger’s landmark mansion—attended.
He later took the Concorde to Paris and
decided to give Galliano fifty grand to make that legendary
show, which really launched his career as a visionary
designer. That all happened because of Glenn Bernbaum
at Mortimer’s.
Robert Caravaggi
My relationship with Glenn Bernbaum was a love-hate
one, and during my extended time there I either quit or
was fired a few times but was always asked back by Glenn.
You see, he needed maître d’s to be nice to his customers.
He generally was only nice to his friends, a list that would
grow as time went on. With Mortimer’s he had found his
vehicle for becoming a social arbiter, a position he relished
beyond any other and that ultimately would seriously
cloud his judgment and health.
Robin Baker Leacock
Mortimer’s embraced eccentricities, just as Europeans
have for centuries. There was always a party going on with
fashionable and interesting people to meet, who loved
living slightly outside the culture of the mundane day-today.
Mortimer’s was full of people attempting to live life
to the fullest, and I was attracted to this attitude!
Mary Hilliard
At one early Fête de Famille, Glenn was actually sitting
down near a little stage where Peter Allen was singing and
playing the piano. Glenn and his friends, Anne Slater (of
the blue-tinted glasses), John Cahill, and Brooke and Peter
Duchin were whispering so loud that Peter, in the middle
of his song, turned and demanded, “Glenn, be quiet! You
can gossip with Anne later!”
Robert Caravaggi
In the late ‘70s, Mortimer’s one-room roared every lunch
and dinner with many chic European and American young
types partying hard alongside owner Glenn Bernbaum’s
friends named Blass, KJ Lane, Zipkin, Adolfo and Short.
These gentlemen brought in the society ladies and a legend
was born. P
parkmagazineny.com | 39