TIME SETS TABLE FOR 100
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IT started more as a one-time marketing gimmick, but now the Time 100 list of “most influential people in the world” has become an annual event, one that gave some welcome bulk to the weekly that hit on Friday and gravitas last night to a glitzy, black-tie dinner overlooking Central Park.
Of the 100 honorees, 36 showed up at Time Warner Center’s Jazz at Lincoln Center and listened to music by Senegalese signer Youssou N’Dour and blues singer and honoree John Mayer.
The list is eclectic and includes everyone from subway hero Wesley Autrey Jr. (Table 17), who dove onto a track to save another man, to hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Partners.
The Top 100 list stretches across five categories: leaders & revolutionaries; builders and titans; scientists & thinkers; heroes & pioneers; and artists & entertainers. Among those who made the list but were not expected at the banquet: terrorist Osama bin Laden, Pope Benedict XVI and Queen Elizabeth II.
Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert was a no-show – reportedly due to a daughter’s broken arm.
The list is not ranked, and Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel – who was assigned to Table 10 with former vice presidential candidate John Edwards, his wife Elizabeth, an honoree, and another honoree, “Ugly Betty” star America Ferrera – insists it is not a “hot list” but rather something that measures the intangible quality of “influence.”
Still, media watchers for the sheer sport of it have come to scrutinize the seating chart of the attendees to see who snags the best tables and liveliest seating companions.
Sure, New England Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick might have won a few Super Bowls but he didn’t snag anything better than Table 16. Hollywood producer and honoree Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment and a producer of the film “The Da Vinci Code” was seated at Table 18.
Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons placed at Table 9 with Virgin founder Richard Branson, TV host Charlie Rose and Oprah Winfrey pal Gayle King.
“NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams was at Table 4 with model and presidential niece Lauren Bush.
At Table 11, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said to be mulling a run for governor in a few years, broke bread with another billionaire, Blackstone Group’s Stephen Schwarzman. Also assigned to that table were Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore and Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard University’s first female president.
Henry Kissinger was at Table 15 with Sony BMG Chairman Andy Lack and Muslim televangelist Amr Khaled.
Table 19 included Simon Fuller, creator of “American Idol,” Gay and Nan Talese, and Page Six Editor Richard Johnson and his wife Sessa von Richthofen. Table 3 had honorees Michael J. Fox and Douglas Melton, the Harvard stem-cell research pioneer.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, his wife Veronica and Time Inc. Managing Editor Jim Kelly had a mini-Kelly Gang reunion with yours truly and shared a table with Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer, and Martha Nelson, the People Group editor.
We didn’t know what to make of Table 14, where “The Abs Diet” author and Men’s Health Editor David Zinczenko was seated with MSNBC chief Dan Abrams and scholar and author Elie Wiesel.