The City: Brightness in the Air

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in Europe at the time and was not consulted, resigned. Buff appointed a committee of top musical figures—among them Cellist Piatigorsky and Violinist Heifetz— which came up with a list of some 20 possible candidates. "I'm a great one for getting all the expert opinion I can," says Buff. "Then, after everybody has registered his view, somebody has got to say 'That's it—let's go.' This is my job." So Mehta it was. In Zubin Mehta's case, it was a job well done. He has made the orchestra one of the best in the country, and his programming last year—mostly modern works—was considered masterly.

Intensely Personal. When Buff is not saying "Let's go," she is getting other people to say it. Well does she know the uses of group appeal: she organized a "Blue Ribbon Committee" of 500 society matrons and housewives to bring in 1,000 people who would contribute $1,000 each (it took them five months, but they made it). "Women work very hard," says Buff, "when you give them a specific goal and a time limit." She has also been successful with a mass pitch, distributing shopping bags called "Buck Bags" to raise $500,000 in contributions, to be matched by another $500,000 by an anonymous donor.

Norman and Buff Chandler have not publicized their own contributions to the Music Center, but it is believed that they have given at least $300,000.

Buff can also swing a benefit. To Hollywood stars and moneymen, it seemed presumptuous to ask $250 a ticket just to go to the movies, but they paid it for Buff's benefit premiere of Cleopatra.

"No," said Producer Harold Mirisch when she sat down in his office and suggested that he take $5,000 worth of tickets. An hour later, the story goes, he had not only bought the tickets but called his broker and ordered him to buy all the Times Mirror stock he could lay his hands on.

Person to Person. But Buff's main fund-raising gimmick is no gimmick at all; it is to be intensely personal with the extremely rich. As one practiced professional put it: "Let's face it. Important money is raised by important people asking other important people for important amounts. Asking 2,000,000 people for a dollar each won't get you $2,000,000; it won't even get you $1,000,000. You need very, very big gifts from very few people." During the Music Center campaign, Buff kept constantly before her a list of ten to 15 prospects. "If I kept looking at the whole list," she explains, "I would never have slept." And it was not just a question of quantity but quality, because "a fund raiser should be at various times a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a marriage counselor, and even a sort of family doctor. You have to know the family situation at all times. Divorce, illness, death—or just a routine change in the family financial situation—can inhibit contribution." Buff even consults astrology on occasion. She is not a blind believer, but she is sufficiently impressed with it to run an astrological chart on every major prospect before she approaches him.

Then there is the question of knowing which motivational buttons to press. "Some people don't care about music at all, but they want to be in a prestige group, which the Music Center basically is. Other