If you’re the president of the United States and want to give your fellow world leaders a dose of American culture, who do you turn to? Why, Harry Thomason, of course, Hollywood producer, Travelgate impresario, and husband of Arkansan Linda Bloodworth-. And what a show he gave them in Denver, on a big Saturday night during the economic summit: Kool & the Gang, the Sounds of Blackness, Eartha Kitt, Lyle Lovett, Michael Bolton, pow-wow dancers, and — straight from the 1960s — the girl group Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes. It was, you might say, a spectacular that looked like America. Only it almost didn’t: Thomason had neglected to book a Hispanic group, which error he remedied before all the G-7 (or -8) partying began.
How did the boys like it? They didn’t, needless to say. German chancellor Helmut Kohl looked particularly distraught. A news photo of him suffering through the entertainment is the very picture of misery. Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto was out like a light, out-sleeping Reagan on his most tired day. And Boris Yeltsin? He again proved himself smarter than his image, retiring to his hotel room before the show began. The next day, French president Jacques Chirac assured Yeltsin that he had done the right thing. Yeltsin allowed as to how he had caught some of the performance on television, then feigned snoring to show what he had thought of it. Maybe next time he should send the rest of the heads of state some of his favorite vodka.
