Monte Won't Be A Guest

An invite to the Public Storage Blues Party in Manhattan lands on our desk and after perusing the guest list we note another Sydney-sider has been invited to the same event.

Frank Monte & Anthony Hayden Guest in New York

 It's the noted private eye and sometime LA & New York resident Frank Monte. The invitation is to a fund raiser for the British, New York based writer Anthony Hayden Guest

Readers may re-call that Hayden Guest was the inspiration for Peter Fallow, the hard-drinking hack in The Bonfire of the Vanities by author Tom Wolfe. Others claimed that the late writer Christopher Hitchens was Fallow but Hitchens said Hayden Guest fit the bill far better then he.

 It appears Hayden Guest has a dilemma : his personal art collection valued at $650,000 has gone astray from a storage firm. Anthony had forgotten to pay a bill of $1350 and the firm sold the collection for a paltry $650.

Now Hayden Guest is suing Public Storage and friends have rallied around to raise money to hire a top notch New York brief.

Jamie Lee Curtis & Christopher Guest

Hayden Guest says he keeps in touch with Monte on a regular basis :"I'm very fond of Frank and we exchange Christmas cards every year. We shared digs for a few months on the Upper West Side "

Monte says he won't be able to make the party in New York but will send a donation : "Anthony is a great pal and we went to dozens of parties in New York together. He can't stay home and is quite exhausting at times. He also looked after me once when I was very ill so I owe him a favour".

Guest wrote a book  The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night about his New York exploits. He contributes to a number of US publications like Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.

His older brother (Baron) Christopher Guest is a Hollywood script writer and is married to the movie star Jamie Lee Curtis and both will be at the Public Storage Blues Party next month.