Industry Insiders: Elaine Kaufman, Legendary

New York legend Elaine Kaufman of Elaine’s gets inside a writer’s mind, grabs lunch with the New Yorker boys, and throws a bash for a Swedish dance troupe.

Point of Origin: I'm a New Yorker, born and bred. I was a frisky kid, you know? I was always game, always interested, you know, curious. Curiosity, that was it. I didn't like school. I thought it was dumb. Of course, I had a lot of cousins and all that stuff who were teachers and I had older brothers and sisters who were always involved in the literary world. My parents worked and used to drop me off at the library, so I was always brought up around a lot of books, and it fit in, because it was a part my particular character. I couldn't ask for better education. Books. I understood what they were talking about, and I was compassionate. It was more fun at the library than school. It was intelligence -- this person talked about this subject; the other person talked about that, and I put people together who were interested in the same things. Even as a child, I was gregarious, so it was a fit.

Occupations: It’s not as if I wasn’t like this all my life. I just worked, every day. This kind of work seemed to suit me better than other people’s educations. Restaurants. I knew some people: Elizabeth McKee, one of the great agents. I got lucky in meeting Ted Purdy, her husband, a record editor and wonderful man, famous in his day, who knew so much about publishing, and he sat and talked. He became a major player in the literary world, and informed me about a lot. I knew how to put people together; and eventually, Elaine’s was born. I opened the new place in 1963. How does that happen? It opens. They came here and talked, listened to James Jones and George Plimpton and that fed that. Truman Capote came in with the woman writer he’d known since he was a child, Harper Lee. He knew all of the southern writers, and their minds. Bruce Jay Friedman was here the other day and he was waiting for somebody, but in the meantime a couple of young writers were here, and I introduced him to them.It’s almost impossible to drop the name of a major player in the art, film, and literary world who hasn’t been here—and one of your waiters is a playwright.

Any non-industry projects in the works? Well, we do a lot of fundraisers here. And, I’m a big art collector, and have been for a long, long time ... and so I follow that field, too. I mean, the art in my apartment is endless with paintings. [At Elaine’s, she’s surrounded by some of her favorites.] Here is this Samuel Johnson poster that Jack Richardson had done for me, here (on the wall over Table One). Yeah, and Sven Lukin, Jack Youngerman, all those kind of guys; they were all on to new things. Julian Schnabel was the new boy in that area, innovative. Emile de Antonio was an innovator in finding the art, and he was in here all the time. Jamie Wyeth was here a lot before he moved out of New York.

Favorite Hangouts: Every day, I do Lunch at PJ Clarke’s. A bunch of us meet over there. We all knew Danny (the late maitre d’), the guys from the New Yorker, all of us. The food’s okay, but we still go there for Danny.

Industry Icons: [She smiles as icons do.]

Who are some people you’re likely to be seen with? Jim Brady, Jolly Gibson, Stewart Woods, a piece of work. The Clarkes—Mary Higgins and her daughter, Carol—we all go out once in awhile. They don’t mind to come to the parties, and it’s more fun here than at the [annual] Oscar bash. We have a great time with the sports figures: we just did a birthday party for Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez and Lou Pinella, and George [Steinbrenner] comes in with friends. There are some dear, sweet guys.

What are you doing tonight? We have the whole Swedish dance troupe coming in tonight, so adorable, so cute!