Tuesday, May 04, 1999
Lindner's party: 500 good friends
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Dang, guess our invitation was lost in the mail. Yours too, maybe?
That would be the invite to this weekend's BIIIG birthday party — a do honoring Carl Lindner's 80th — thrown by wife, Edyth, and sons, Carl III, Craig and Keith.
As of press time, the Lindner camp wasn't confirming anything officially (“I'll see how much I can get released,” said American Financial Group vice president Sandy Heimann), but details are beginning to leak.
Such as ... It's at Music Hall Saturday (the actual birthday was April 22) with cocktails in Corbett Tower, dinner, show and dancing in Music Hall Ballroom. “There has to be dancing; both Mr. and Mrs. Lindner love to dance,” Heimann says.
Part of the Peter Duchin Orchestra will play for cocktails, then the full band for after dinner dancing.
Whatever band, Psst! is pretty sure a mosh pit is out of the question. About 500 are invited.
There are celebs, too. Tonight Show host Jay Leno will do part of the show. So will Frank Sinatra Jr. and his full band. George and Barbara Bush, family friends forever and a day, will also be there. Ditto The Donald, as in Trump, as in money.
We're hearing Bill and Hillary Clinton are considering (it's hard to plan a weekend when there's a war going on), but the White House is mum. So is Heimann.
Then there are the, uh, amenities: All new china for the multicourse sit-down dinner; new, custom designed linens for every table; flower arrangements three and four feet high; a boulevard, lined with 18-foot pear trees, down the center of the ballroom.
And none of it, not a scrap of food or single flower, will go to waste. Centerpieces are going to churches to dress up Mother's Day services; pear trees are going to tornado victims to get the replanting started; food, if there's any left, goes to charities.
Oh yeah, one more thing: Looking for a limo Saturday? Forget it. Between prom night and the Lindners needing them for out-of-town guests, they're in short supply. The crisis is so acute that Lindner party planners have started grabbing up every black Lincoln Town Car they can find.
HELLO????: It's a miracle! Liz Richards isn't making husband, Jim, general manager of WGRR-FM, sleep on the couch.
Here's why we thought she would: Last week they were renewing their wedding vows at St. Stephen's church. At the very moment he was to slip the ring on her finger, his cell phone rang. And he answered. Really.
It was one of his staff. “I kept saying "I can't talk to you now. Call back.' He kept saying, "No, now'.”
So they talked. The call was about WVAE-FM re-naming itself WMJO-FM and switching to oldies, a format similar to 'GRR.
They talked, then he was ready to resume renewing.
At which point the Rev. Ron Averbeck, officiating, muttered, “Only in radio,” while others wondered where he'd be sleeping that night.
“In my own bed,” he reported the next day.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
KNIPPENBERG ARCHIVE
