Memo Pad: Collector's Item... For The Defense... Remember When...

Playboy reported its first-quarter earnings Tuesday and the magazine's revenues were down 14 percent to $20.1 million, due to a decline in circulation and ad sales. The company expects ad pages to be down 5 percent in the second quarter.

— Amy Wicks

REMEMBER WHEN: It has been 19 years since Milton Gendel, the Rome-based arts writer and photographer, last set foot in New York, but at nearly 90, he returned for good reason: the first U.S. exhibition of his photographs. "It's like I never left," he said at a party in his honor Monday evening. "Oh, there are these towers that stick up here and there, but the city is the same. The friends are the same, including all the ghosts."

The photographs are languid yet unaffected, peopled by great names in their natural habitats, and their New York home until May 30 is at the Verdura salon, Gendel having been a friend of the late Duke Fulco di Verdura. "I'm not sure the photos can compete with the jewelry," said Gendel modestly, looking around the Fifth Avenue salon.

Among the Herreras, Paleys, assorted titled folk and Salvador Dali, there is a humbly dressed Queen Elizabeth, circa 1976, feeding her Corgis that is one of Gendel's favorites. Said Travel + Leisure editor in chief Nancy Novogrod, a friend of Gendel's and a co-host that evening, "The photos capture a glamorous and intimate moment that represents a life that few of us live right now but we all dream of. It's all about ease and grace in living, with people who are both recognizable and also somehow iconic even when you don't know who they are."

— Irin Carmon

TV TIME: Magazine vet Martha McCully is switching channels. After six years as executive editor at In Style and nine years as a top editor at Allure, McCully is signing on with Coty Prestige as on-air expert for its HSN Lancaster brand sales. First up: an appearance Thursday hawking antiaging serum 365 Elixir and a range of self-tanners and sun care products. "As a former beauty editor I tried everything," stated McCully. "I'm excited to work with Coty and HSN to make the brand a success in the U.S." In addition to her magazine gigs, McCully served as a judge on HGTV's "Design Star" series for the past three seasons.

 

 

— Julie Naughton