Americana: Bulletproof Chic

One small measure of what’s on the nation’s collective mind is the cause that celebrities choose to back. Last week in New York City, the glitterati got together to help buy bulletproof vests for the city’s police. The vests are needed—in the past twelve months, six officers have been shot to death in the line of duty—but the financially strapped city claims it cannot afford them.

The fund raisers called the affair VIP Night on Broadway, and it was indeed that. Scores of celebrities, including TV Star Robin Williams, Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Falsetto Tiny Tim and Actresses Claudette Colbert, Phyllis Newman, Lauren Bacall and Brooke Shields were on hand for a $24-a-seat variety show at the Shubert theater. Maureen Stapleton sang Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The policeman’s lot is not a happy one.” Angela Lansbury borrowed a song from the musical Sweeney Todd, singing for the cops, No One Will Harm You. Those who paid $96—the price of one bulletproof vest—also got a ticket to a buffet dinner party at the Minskoff theater.

The net was enough to buy 1,200 vests, largely because the sponsor of the show, the Burger King restaurant chain, which is hardly known as a celebrity hangout, kicked in $130,000.