Minuet in 250 Gs

A Ford will take you any place--except into society.

--Henry Ford (1863-1947)

Old Henry Ford did not hold with the high society of his time. His idea of a nice social evening centered on a group of folks in wholesome recreation in minuets, reels, hornpipes, quadrilles and other assorted folk dances, and for him there was no livelier tune than Pop Goes the Weasel. His granddaughter-in-law, Anne Ford, wife of Henry Ford II, is altogether a different model. Daughter of the late James F. McDonnell, a wealthy Long Island stockbroker, Anne McDonnell Ford, 41, is well schooled and widely traveled, the very essence of the glamorous urbanity and sophistication that Detroit's motor kingdom still tends to avoid.

Long impatient with talk about Detroit's being "a shirtsleeve city," Anne Ford was determined to jack it up with some culture. Last spring she got the Metropolitan Opera to town for a fourperformance sellout. "Anybody who lives in a city, whether he is poor or rich," she said, "likes to think his city has polish."

As another example of the kind of polish she had in mind, Anne Ford last week gave a big, elegant coming-out party for her Daughter Charlotte at suburban Grosse Pointe Farms' upper-crust Country Club of Detroit, which was fitted out for the occasion with an 18th century French motif by Paris Designer Jacques Frank. It cost something over $250,000 to entertain the 1,270 guests who ate up, among other things, 5,000 finger sandwiches, 2,160 scrambled eggs, 100 Ibs. of corned beef hash, drank 480 bottles of Cuvee Dom Perignon (1949) and 720 bottles of hard liquor, and danced through the night to Meyer Davis' society orchestra, flown in from New York. By Detroit standards, Charlotte Ford's coming-out party was a dazzling spectacle; by any other standards, it was as Hearst Society Columnist Cholly Knickerbocker cooed, "THE 'Party of the Century.' "

Whiffenpoof & Hair Spray. The guests began arriving at 10 p.m.: Lord Charles Spencer-Churchill (son of the Duke of Marlborough) of England, the Winston Guests of New York, the Gary Coopers of California, the Nicholas du Fonts of Delaware, General Motors' President John F. Gordon, Chrysler Corp.'s President Lester ("Tex") Colbert, as well as the bejeweled cream of Boston, Philadelphia and Palm Beach society. They promenaded--past 35 car parkers, 16 security men and a formally attired plumber and electrician--through the heavily screened men's locker room into the reception room, where 18-year-old Charlotte, blooming in her Yves St. Laurent (white strapless) exclusive, waited with her parents, her Sister Anne, 16, and her kid Brother Edsel. 11. "Daddy," nagged Edsel, "Will they play When the Saints go Marching In?" Henry Ford II hardly cared, kept calling "Mack the Knife" to nobody in particular, and laughed heartily.

Blonde, shapely Debutante Charlotte danced the first number (The Most Beautiful Girl in the World} with her father, with her escort, Long Island's Peter Sullivan, and with one or another of dozens of stags. Around her jumping collegians and their elders elbowed each other in the blare of the music. Toward morning Henry Ford II climbed on the bandstand and yelled out Hey-Ba-Ba-Re-Bop! (an early-day rock-'n'-roll tune that would have made his grandfather wince), got Meyer Davis to play that as well as his other favorites (It's Only a Paper Moon, Pennies from Heaven}, joined in the singing of the Whiffenpoof Song. Surprise Guest Nat "King" Cole sang a few numbers. A hairdresser flitted around spraying hairdressing on falling female locks. General Motors' retired Board Chairman Albert Bradley gazed at the sumptuous decor (2,000,000 real magnolia leaves, real 18th century tapestries), said with a grin: "Maybe I'll take all these decorations and ship them to our next Moto-rama." An elderly lady observed with a sniff that old Henry Ford "wouldn't have liked all this smoking."

By 6 a.m. Henry Ford II was putting on a high-kicking jitterbug exhibition with his wife. At last Anne Ford said: "Henry, I think it's about time." Meyer Davis' boys blasted out When the Saints Go Marching In (but young Edsel refused to dance), Auld Lang Syne and Goodnight, Ladies. Charlotte and some friends drove off to the Ford place for a sunrise breakfast, and her father, whose other Daughter Anne will make her debut next year, declared jovially: "It's a good thing I don't have five daughters. I'd go broke." Then he headed for home in his Continental Mark V with his wife, a Ford that can take you into society--and proved that she intends to take Detroit as well.

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