New Year's Eve

New Year’s Eve recurs in the diary not as a single fixed celebration but as a changing test of company, performance, and belonging. At Halston’s party, tulle dresses and familiar guests helped make a subdued gathering look full; in Aspen, the diarist and Jon Gould stepped outside to avoid the crowd’s midnight ritual; and in 1985, an evening of expensive entertainment unfolded against the diarist’s sense of being left out. Fireworks, introductions, and invitations return, but each year ends on a different note.

A Carefully Filled Room

The earliest of these scenes appears in the diary entry before January 3, 1981, placing it at the turn of 1980–81. After a day’s work, the diarist went to Halston’s, where Victor was helping Benjamin Liu dress in drag; in drag, Liu called himself Ming Vauze. From there they went to Halston’s New Year’s Eve party at Olympic Tower. Word arrived there that Steve Rubell had called to say he would be released from jail in two weeks, bringing news of confinement and anticipated return into the party’s conversation.

The celebration was subdued. Halston remained in a low mood and had invited mostly the girls and boys who worked for him. He explained that he had dressed all the girls in tulle to make the place seem full. The detail turns the room into a deliberate production: the appearance of abundance had to be assembled, even as the host’s mood and the limited guest list suggested otherwise. From the window, the guests watched the Times Square ball descend and fireworks over the park. Marisol looked glum, while the familiar crowd made the evening socially demanding: everyone seemed to be somebody the diarist knew, and each person had to be kissed.

Leaving the Aspen Crowd

On December 31, 1982, the setting changed to Aspen and the evening began at Jimmy Buffett’s. Earlier, Chris Makos had gone skiing with Cornelia Guest, while Mark Sink, who handled Interview’s circulation in Denver, had called. At the party, Couri Hay had taken one of the group’s tables and filled it with guests, including Tab Hunter and a male companion. Jamie Buffett then provided another table, and the party improved. The company included Barry Diller with Diana Ross and Jack Nicholson with Anjelica Huston; the celebration had a country-western character.

The decisive moment came just before midnight. Five minutes before the new year, the diarist and Jon decided they did not want to remain in the crowd. They went outside rather than listen to the group sing “Auld Lang Syne,” watched the fireworks, and returned ten minutes later, after the kissing had finished. Their brief absence gave them a way to participate without submitting to the central ritual: the crowd carried on, and apparently nobody noticed they had left. Where Halston’s guests had been expected to greet everyone they knew, this pair chose when to enter and leave the celebration.

Feeling Left Out in 1985

The December 31, 1985, entry opens on a less festive assessment. The diarist called it a starless New Year’s Eve and felt left out. He suspected Calvin Klein had held a party without inviting him, and Bianca Jagger was in town but had not contacted him about collecting her Christmas gift. He had intended to call many people with New Year’s greetings, then found he could not get himself to call anyone. Unlike the earlier party scenes, where the problem was how to manage the crowd, this one begins with missing invitations and connections that do not materialize.

The evening nevertheless acquired a full itinerary. Sam picked up the diarist and PH, and they went to Jane Holzer’s, expecting to reach Roy Cohn’s party at nine. Holzer had said she wanted to arrive early to work the room for her real-estate business, but she was still in her bathrobe. She then did her makeup and changed into a black Armani jacket and pants. At Cohn’s townhouse, the diarist found Cohn looking very sick, though not old, and described the gathering as a sad sight. The party included Joey and Cindy Adams. When Steve Dunleavy asked for a New Year’s bon mot, the diarist could not think of one. Cohn’s ninety-year-old aunt was also there; she had given permission for the diarist to use Ronald Reagan’s old Van Heusen advertisement in a painting. Jane Holzer greeted her, and the aunt remembered Holzer and asked after her son Rusty and his horseback riding.

Regine then invited the group to a Julio Iglesias dinner-concert at Essex House, priced at $2,000 per plate. The event supplied the evening’s most theatrical objects and gestures: guests received brass key chains engraved like tickets with the concert, date, and price; Angie Dickinson was there; and Regis Philbin introduced the celebrities. When the spotlight landed on the diarist, he froze. At midnight, cannons sent out large spangles, and orchids added to the display. Julio Iglesias spoke of love and of everyone as one family, but the diarist noted that, despite what attendees assumed, the costly event was not a benefit; the money was for Iglesias.

After Midnight

After Essex House, the group went to the Hard Rock Café, where the diarist found the rock-and-roll crowd corny. CNN people asked what he planned to do in the coming year, and he said he was working on a Barbie doll. Then someone reported that Ricky Nelson had been killed in a plane crash in Texas. The abrupt news altered the evening’s register: after the staged countdown, celebrity introductions, and talk of the year ahead, the night closed with word of a death.

The January 1 entry offers a quiet coda. Sam called, eager to work, but the diarist decided to stay home, rest, and watch television. The holiday’s public rituals had given way to an unceremonious day off. Across the three occasions, New Year’s Eve moves from a party made to look full, through a consciously chosen retreat from the crowd, to a celebration whose glitter could not dispel the diarist’s loneliness. Its recurring spectacle never guarantees intimacy; the diary’s sharpest contrasts are between being surrounded by familiar faces and feeling, or choosing, to stand apart.