The Parties of the Century That Destroyed Their Hosts (Documentary)

In this in-depth, full-length documentary, we explore the two most scandalous "parties of the century" and the hosts each one destroyed: Truman Capote's 1966 Black and White Ball at the Plaza Hotel, and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild's 1972 Surrealist Ball at the Château de Ferrières. Both evenings marked the absolute apex of their hosts' social power. Both were followed, within a decade, by the collapse of the world each one had so perfectly assembled. ------------------------ Gain FREE access to secret full-length documentaries on wealthy families "too scandalous for YouTube" by joining our newsletter: https://www.substack.com/@oldmoneyluxury ------------------------ On November 28, 1966, five hundred and forty people arrived at the Plaza Hotel in black and white, wearing masks. The host was Truman Capote — forty-two years old, the most famous writer in America, and at the peak of everything he would ever achieve. He had come a long way from Monroeville, Alabama, where his mother had abandoned him at four with elderly cousins and a neighbor girl named Nelle Harper Lee. Other Voices, Other Rooms made him famous at twenty-three. Breakfast at Tiffany's confirmed the phenomenon. In Cold Blood, published ten months before the Ball, made him inescapable. By 1966 he had assembled his swans: Babe Paley, Slim Keith, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Lee Radziwill, C.Z. Guest, and Pamela Churchill Harriman. Each had arrived at a point in life where everyone wanted something from her and no one was interested in who she actually was. Capote was interested. He listened. He remembered everything. The Ball was the summit. Kay Graham was the guest of honor. Frank Sinatra came with Mia Farrow. The Secret Service vetted the list. For one night at the Plaza, Capote had placed himself at the exact center of the world he had spent his life climbing toward. It took him nine years to destroy it. La Côte Basque 1965 was published in Esquire in November 1975. The story ran twenty-six pages and purported to be fiction. It was not. Babe Paley never spoke to him again. Ann Woodward, whose story he had retold in barely disguised form, killed herself before the issue reached the newsstands. Capote died in Joanne Carson's Bel Air home in August 1984. The swans outlived him, most of them significantly. Six years after the Plaza Ball, on December 12, 1972, a different party took place at the Château de Ferrières outside Paris. The hostess was Marie-Hélène de Rothschild. The artistic consultant was Salvador Dalí. The theme was surrealism. The invitations arrived in mirror script. The château was lit from below in red light that made the façade appear to be burning. Servants in cat costumes lay on the grand staircase as living sculpture. Dinner plates were arranged on a fur-covered table. The guest list included Audrey Hepburn in a birdcage head-dress, the Duchess of Windsor, Baron Alexis de Redé in a mask of wolves, and Dalí himself with Amanda Lear. It was the last time that particular world assembled itself at that particular density. May 1968 had already signaled the end. The 1973 oil shock would arrive within a year. By the end of the decade, the economic conditions that had allowed a single family to maintain six French châteaux simultaneously had evaporated. Guy de Rothschild donated Ferrières to the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris in 1975, less than three years after the Ball. Marie-Hélène died in 1996. The imagery of the evening — the upside-down plates, the red light, the cat-costumed servants — has attached itself to conspiracy theories ever since, most of them ignorant of the fact that surrealism had always trafficked in precisely this kind of provocation. Both Balls were thrown by hosts who understood social composition as an art form. Both marked the peak of their hosts' power. Both were followed by the collapse of the world each had condensed into a single evening. The parties were perfect. The hosts were ruined. These things are not unrelated.