As with any big event for something as serious at breast cancer, Saturday’s Susan G. Komen for the Cure gala at the Kennedy Center was a mixture of sweetness and sadness.
The sweet? (And there was a lot of it.) Hearing musicians like Olivia Newton-John, Stephanie Mills, Lynda Carter, Elew, Delta Goodrem and the Washington Performing Arts Society’s Children of the Gospel Choir perform uplifting tunes throughout the evening. Seeing “Sex and the City’s” Cynthia Nixon attempt to dance during the final number, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” (She’s as cutely awkward as her character, Miranda Hobbes.) And hearing from former first lady Laura Bush, who was presented with the Susan G. Komen Lifetime Achievement Distinction Award.
But then there was the sad. Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin (looking chic and amazing) discussing her fight with triple negative breast cancer. Emcee Robin Roberts choking up about her own battle with breast cancer and about the loss of ABC News producer Rebecca Lipkin to inflammatory breast cancer in 2009. And Ambassador Nancy Brinker’s reason for starting Susan G. Komen for the cure — her sister Suzi’s death from breast cancer 30 years ago.
“I think Nancy Brinker is a force of nature,” Nixon gushed to Yeas & Nays at the pink-colored Kennedy Center after-party. She also praised the former first lady. “I thought she was beautiful,” Nixon said. “I was not a fan of the Bush administration, but I separate Laura Bush.”
Nixon, attending with her partner Christine Marinoni, also gave Bush props for supporting same-sex marriage. Nixon was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and became an ambassador for Komen in 2008.
Other included in the affair: designer Tory Burch, “Desperate Housewives” star Ricardo Chavira, actress Gabrielle Union, Rep. John Dingell, Michelle Fenty (Mayor Adrian Fenty attended as well), Kenya’s first lady Ida Odinga and NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. We also spotted radio host Laura Ingraham and former Motion Picture Association of America head Dan Glickman in the crowd.
