Entertainment attorney Arnold Peter was booked on a flight to Mumbai and a room at the Taj Mahal Palace last week in order to put some deals together between Hollywood and Bollywood. But after the coordinated terrorist attacks that took the lives of nearly 200 people in India’s financial and entertainment capital, India-born Peter decided to delay his trip for a week.
The 100-year-old Taj was the main hotel attacked by Muslim extremists.
Peter, 51, a principal at Century City-based Raskin Peter Rubin & Simon LLP, said that he delayed his trip not because he was concerned for his safety, but because he believed that beefed-up security would make car travel virtually impossible.
“As a result of the attacks, Mumbai is probably one of the safest cities in all of India right now,” said Peter. “But getting around the city, which is always challenging at best, would have been just too difficult. I would have just ended up sitting in my room.”
Crafty Move
Businessman-turned-philanthropist Max Palevsky has long been a supporter of the arts. So for him, it was a no-brainer to give many of his most cherished works, from names such as Frank Lloyd Wright, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
“I’ve been collecting stuff for a long time 23 years,” he said. “And over the years I’ve given pieces but I decided I ought to really give the whole collection so that this museum would have one of the great collections of arts and crafts.”
With the pieces, LACMA this Friday will open the exhibition “The Arts and Crafts Movement: Masterworks From the Max Palevsky and Jodie Evans Collection.”
Palevsky had used the pieces in four apartments, but the 84-year-old said Father Time had convinced him it was time to part with them.
“Well,” he said, when asked why he was giving the collection now, “I’m getting old.”
Accent on Music
Diane Holland now is an executive, but she used to follow, literally, Brit pop bands.
She fell in love with the music while attending college in San Diego. After graduating, she moved to London and eventually began touring in Europe with acts in the Brit pop movement. They were lean times, with Holland putting band members and herself on a strict per diem financial regimen.
But the financial rigors served her well. She became an auditor for music giant EMI, and she is now chief financial officer at online marketing agency Schematic.
As for the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, “I don’t miss it,” she said. “The late nights in clubs are exhausting after a while.”
Holland, 37, returned to her roots over the Thanksgiving weekend, when she went back to San Diego and attended a concert albeit folk music instead of Brit pop. She explained the genre switch by saying “as I get older, my musical tastes get more expansive.”
Staff reporters Brett Sporich, Richard Clough and Joel Russell contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
