We’ve long stood in awe of Fairmont Hotel public relations director Betty Holloway’s uncanny knack for prying good reviews out of the daily newspapers for the Fairmont’s Venetian Room shows, but what happened the night of the Diahann Carroll opening takes the cake.
This opening night, like all others in the Venetian Room, is on the house for press and friends. There they were, our upstanding “critics,” gulping free Scotch-and-waters and wolfing slightly dry Chicken Kiev (also free). Meanwhile, Ms. Holloway was trotting around attending to whims and fancies like a housewife staging her first dinner for the boss.
Ms. Carroll arrived 25 minutes late and put on a passable show. Since the show was only fair-to-middlin’ and the crowd was comprised of The Working Press, we never could have suspected what would happen when Ms. Carroll took her final bow.
Our “critics” not only applauded generously, but stood and gave Ms. Carroll a rousing ovation. Now we’re used to standing ovations in Dallas by now. It is said that Dallas audiences would give a standing ovation to a falling leaf. But The Working Press handing out a round of standing applause just before leaving to go write presumably objective critiques on the show, seems to be kind of bad form. One wonders whether they were applauding Ms. Carroll, Ms. Holloway, the free booze or the free meal.
To lay some icing on the cake, our forthright journalists then lined up and each gave Ms. Holloway a peck on the cheek and a heart-felt thanks for a wonderful evening. She got even more thanks the next day when both papers gave the Diahann Carroll show rave reviews.
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