Least surprising news ever: When pollsters from the Associated Press and iVillage asked 1,000 women about their weight, 26 percent of the women who were not technically overweight—by body mass index standards—still said they think thought they were too fat. The rest, apparently, have yet to be told that you can never be too skinny. Kidding! [AP, NYDN]
The Robin Hood Foundation's spring fundraiser took place last night at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center and some 3,200 people turned up to munch on grilled shrimp and chicken Milanese, mingle with the likes of Oprah and Anne Hathaway, and open their wallets and give to the non-profit that funnels millions of dollars a year to worthy causes across the city. The mood was a bit subdued this year, which isn't surprising considering Robin Hood remains the charity of choice for a big bunch of Wall Street chiefs and hedge fund titans like Dan Och, Steve Cohen, and Paul Tudor Jones. To reflect the mood, the lavish auction items that were a staple in previous years weren't part of the program this time around. But emcee Jon Stewart managed to keep the crowd laughing with Bernie Madoff jokes, and George Soros gave the evening a big boost by making a $50 million pledge. (The organization collected a total of $72 million last night, up from $56 million last spring.) Coverage of the event can be found here, here, and here. For a slightly more informal take on the evening, a brief dispatch from the wife of a hedge fund manager is below.
Marc Jacobs having lunch with a friend at Da Silvano ... Helena Christensen walking with son Mingus in the West Village ... Hugh Jackman hailing a cab for his wife in Soho ... Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany picking up their kids from school ... Robin Williams arriving at his hotel ... Jennifer Aniston going for a walk ... Sarah Michelle Gellar holding a script on the set of her new cable series, The Wonderful Maladys, on the UWS ... Kelly Ripa leaving ABC's studios ... Jessica Biel walking alone in Soho ... Veronica Webb leaving a party at the Waverly Inn ... and Claire Danes stopping at Dean & Deluca en route to the gym.
Hedge fund manager Dan Loeb hasn't had the easiest time as of late. Heavy losses forced him to dismiss a number of employees at the end of 2008 and the $5 billion he managed a year ago had dwindled to $1.8 billion last month. But Loeb is nothing if not crafty and he's since come up with a handful of way to cut costs and raise cash. He started renting out his jet on an hourly basis a few months ago, and he put an extra $5.5 million in his pocket when he sold off his carriage house in the West Village back in March. And now he's done it again.
• NBC chief Jeff Zucker's former duplex at 239 Central Park West (left), which he sold to Marti Meyerson and her husband Jamie Hooper in 2006 for $15.7 million, is back on the market. The 11th and 12th floor apartment is now listed for $17.5 million. Meyerson is the daughter of Morton Meyerson, Ross Perot's onetime business partner and the former chairman and CEO of Perot Systems. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Bob Weinstein and his wife Annie Clayton have paid $15 million for a four-story, 6,580-square-foot townhouse at 39 West 70th Street. [Real Deal]
• Big time art collectors Donald and Shelley Rubin, who made fortune with the MultiPlan health care network, have put their townhouse at 122 East 70th Street on the market with Kathy Sloane for $20.2 million. [NYO, BHS]
Stephen Colbert turns 45 today. Harvey Keitel is turning 70. Stevie Wonder is 59. Vogue publisher Tom Florio is 53. Tim Zagat is turning 69. Legendary divorce attorney Raoul Felder is 75. Writer/director Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under) is turning 52. Dennis Rodman is 48. Twilight star Robert Pattinson is 23. Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker turns 43. P.S. 1 founder Alanna Heiss is 66. Former Guggenheim Museum director Lisa Dennison is turning 56. Social fixture Amanda Cutter Brooks is 35. And Miss California Carrie Prejean celebrates her 22nd birthday today.
• George Clooney went out to celebrate his 48th birthday last week, had too much to drink, and ended up hurling in the VIP area. Clooney denies it was him, though, and says he was just "sitting next to someone who did throw up." [NYDN]
• Cops were called to Lindsay Lohan's house yesterday after a security alarm sounded and officers initially thought the house had been ransacked. It turns out Lindsay always keeps her house that way, which means in addition to everything else, she probably could use a good housekeeper, too. [TMZ]
• Marie Douglas-David has been embroiled in a nasty divorce with her elderly husband George David. Now she has a new man. She's dating a Swedish financier named Johan Saxon, and he's only seven years older than her. [P6]
• Lydia Hearst is going topless—again—in a new movie with Jason Behr. [P6]
• Disappointing retail sales figures and a surprising rise in the number of foreclosures are sending stocks lower this morning. [CNN, WSJ]
• The Obama administration is looking into ways to change the way people across the financial services industry are compensated and that includes companies that didn't even receive federal bailout money. [WSJ, NYT]
• Ed Liddy may be jobless soon: Trustees overseeing taxpayers' stake in AIG are seeking a CEO to replace Liddy as well as new board members. [WSJ]
• Speaking of AIG, were officials like Tim Geithner aware of the bonus situation at the company months before the news broke? It looks that way. [WaPo]
Peter Brant is in the middle of a messy divorce with his wife Stephanie Seymour. But that didn't keep him from the opening party for his new private museum this past weekend. A long list of art world A-listers headed over to his 53-acre estate in Greenwich on Saturday to have a look around The Brant Foundation Art Study Center. (And despite all the personal drama as of late, Brant looked "dashingly handsome," according to the Journal.) Seymour wasn't present, naturally. Not physically, at least. But guests walking around the space did get to see Maurizio Cattelan's sculpture of a naked Seymour clutching her breasts, which, as the WSJ's Jeffrey Podolsky observes, "pokes out like a pair of deer's antlers over the fireplace" in Brant's library. He's not kidding. The rather striking piece of art that Brant will always have to remember Seymour by is below.
• Photog Todd Selby has a fab set of photos taken inside Julia Restoin Roitfeld's Noho loft. If you've ever wanted to take a look at her expansive shoe collection—or peek inside her medicine cabinet—now is your chance. [The Selby]
• Sir Philip Green is still looking to establish another Topshop outlet in NYC. Where, exactly? "Basically, anywhere H&M has a store." [NYO]
• Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone won't be moving into their new $13 million townhouse for awhile. The house is a "shell" and doesn't even have walls yet and will take a year to renovate, says Jacobs. [NYM]
• J.Crew's new men's-only store opened today. [Style.com]
• The restaurant formerly known as Ago will reopen next Tuesday under the name Locanda Verde. Andrew Carmellini is executive chef and a co-owner with Robert De Niro; Ken Friedman consulted on the new design. [NYT]
• Rumor has it Per Se's Jonathan Benno may be going off on his own. [TFB]
• Tasti-D-Lite isn't intimidated by Pinkberry or Red Mango: It plans to open 35 new outlets over the next decade. Related fro-yo news: Pinkberry is opening stores abroad and a chain called Yogurtland is expanding, too. [AMNY, NRN]
• Famed Coney Island pizzeria Totonno's won't be back in biz until July. [LC]
• Style.com's list of the 13 dumbest boomtime cocktails saves special mentions for local spots like The Eldridge, PDT, and World Bar. [Style.com]
Just when you were beginning to worry you'd never get to see Tony Danza on primetime TV ever again comes the news that Danza is back! Or he will be in the near future, and he'll be back in his native Brooklyn, no less. A&E has signed him up to do a new reality show, which is "billed as a real-life 'Welcome Back Kotter,' with Danza returning to teach high school students in his native New York." We can't say basing a program on Welcome Back Kotter is a recipe for rating success, although to A&E's credit, having Steven Seagal take a job as a sheriff's deputy in Louisiana for a new series? A no-brainer, clearly. [THR]
In her latest video, Cutrone declares the headband trend dead, although the "Michelle Obama bringing back Camelot" head kerchief is totally hot. And you should make sure you've buried your cowboy boots in the back of the closet and have you have your collection of open-toed shoes ready for summer. And what is Kelly, herself, wearing while she says all this? Cowboy boots, of course. As she explains at the end of the video, being totally out of style is totally in style, and "pretty much everything I just said is now cancelled."
More than 45 percent of New York residents say "they don't feel so hot," according to a new survey. It's not because the temperature isn't as high as it normally would be this time of year, or because half of all New Yorkers are hypochondriacs and think they've come down with swine flu. It's because we're all stressed out—or that's what researchers think the culprit is, but since they didn't bother to test stress levels, they're not sure. Guess we'll all just have to wait and wonder (and not feel so hot). [Crain's]
Bank of America has informed fired employees that they cannot accept job offers from competitors for three months unless they give up deferred compensation or waive their right to sue the bank. An outrageous demand, clearly, and certainly not the wisest PR move for the struggling bank. Although it's not as if it's going to pose much of a problem for most people given the likelihood of finding a new job in banking in three months or less is, oh, about nil. [Reuters]
• Jim Dolan's Cablevision says that Newsday is not for sale, which is good since there isn't a company on the planet that wants to buy it. [E&P]
• David Geffen made an offer to acquire the stake in the New York Times Co. controlled by Phil Falcone's Harbinger fund; Harbinger passed. [Fortune]
• The mood isn't too upbeat at the Cannes Film Festival, unsurprisingly. [THR]
• 60 Minutes' segment on Anna Wintour should air this Sunday. [Gawker]
• As of the publishing biz didn't have enough to worry about, "web pirates" are now posting copies of books on the Internet. [NYT]
• Anderson Cooper's ratings have been on the decline all year. [LAT]
• OK! appears to be dissolving into chaos. [ASSME, Gawker]
