Forbes Fete: Birthday Fit for a Sultan

The invitations, printed on Forbes stationery, began: “Our father is not in heaven yet, and as he also still signs our paychecks we are anxious to make his seventieth birthday a memorable one . . . “

Indeed, the five children of Malcolm Stevenson Forbes have made sure that when their father, the chairman and editor in chief of Forbes magazine, turns the big seven-O on Saturday he won’t feel too ancient.

Early this morning, limousines began pulling up to Hangar 14 at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where some 600 friends and business associates, including California Gov. George Deukmejian and his wife Gloria, boarded three chartered planes. Destination: Tangier, Morocco, for a 48-hour-long birthday celebration fit for a sultan. The weekend will be capped with a black-tie bash at Forbes’ private Tangier palace, Palais Mendoub, on Saturday night.

Titans of big business and even the most jaded social types are ga-ga.

“It’s inconceivable,” said Barry Kaye, president of Barry Kaye Associates, a life insurance agency in Century City, who is a guest along with his wife, Carole.

“This is Malcolm’s style,” allowed advice columnist Abigail Van Buren, who is attending with her husband Mort Phillips.

Granted, the guest list alone reads something like, well, the Forbes 400. Included are the chairmen and chief executive officers of dozens of major corporations, including Citicorp, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chrysler Corporation, Compaq Computer Corp. and Computerland Corp.--and those are just some of the Cs.

Famous Faces

There are famous faces, including Elizabeth Taylor (Forbes’ date), Henry Kissinger, Walter Cronkite, William F. Buckley, Barbara Walters and her husband Merv Adelson. There are headline makers, such as Wall Street star Henry Kravis and his wife, designer Carolyne Roehm. There are media tycoons, such as John Kluge, Rupert Murdoch, Katherine Graham and Mort Zuckerman. There are fashion designers Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein and Arnold Scaasi. There are the governors of New Jersey and Rhode Island. Even Robin Leach, the host of television’s “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” made the list.

The small Southern California contingent includes Betsy Bloomingdale, Leonard and Caroline Firestone, and Daniel Tellep, chairman and chief executive officer of Lockheed Corp.

Another 200 or so Moroccan guests will join the party, including King Hassan II, who is hosting a luncheon for the entire group Sunday before their departure.

The guest list illustrates how Forbes has refined the art of mixing business with pleasure. Barry Kaye says that once he began advertising in the magazine last October, “all of a sudden we were invited for a couple lunches and a ride on the yacht. This is the way he develops his business. He’s written about it. He just develops a wonderful relationship with you.”

Deukmejian on List

Apparently, Gov. Deukmejian made the list not for his advertising budget but because he appeared on the magazine’s cover February 27, 1984, and subsequently met twice with the Forbes editorial staff.

Has he ever previously attended a Forbes party? “Not to my knowledge,” says a spokesman in Sacramento. “This would be the first one.”

For early calendar entry, invitations were first mailed out in March and signed by Forbes’ children Malcolm Jr. (Steve), Robert (Bob), Christopher (Kip), Timothy (Tim) and Moira Forbes Mumma. Since then “Ali-Dada” (as his children call Forbes in the invitation) updates began arriving, including the latest, sent by Federal Express to the California contingent at least, which arrived Monday and included a map to Hangar 14 at JFK and an airport pass.

A few feathers flew when it was learned that three planes would be flying: a DC8, a 747 and Concorde. Those not earmarked for the faster-flying Concorde feared that a caste system was in operation. But Don Garson, director of corporate communications at Forbes, says that the decision was purely democratic. “Anybody who came a distance to get to New York will be on the Concorde,” he said. Van Buren (and presumably the rest of the West Coast contingent) is assigned to Concorde.

Tangier Itinerary

The itinerary in Tangier begins with dinner upon arrival tonight at the Solazur Hotel, and the opportunity to shop or sightsee Saturday. The birthday bash unfolds Saturday night at Forbes’ dazzling Palais Mendoub with dinner, dancing and fireworks. Dress code: Black tie, ball gowns, turbans and tiaras are all in order. “Scheherazade,” as the invitation pointed out, “took 1,001 nights to keep her old man happy--we’re counting on one night in a thousand in a Moroccan palace to keep The Chairman smiling.”

Forbes purchased Palais Mendoub to serve as headquarters for the magazine in 1970, around the time of the international oil crisis, so that he could publish an Arabic Forbes, beginning in 1972. The Arabic edition disbanded five or six years later.

In his new book, “More Than I Dreamed,” to be published in October by Simon & Schuster, Forbes describes his first reaction to seeing the palace perched on a cliff. “The physical setting was breathtaking. To your right you can see Gibraltar. Straight ahead is Algeciras, the southernmost tip of Europe, only 20 minutes away. And to your left, the site of the battle of Trafalgar, and at the same time you can see every ship that enters or leaves the Mediterranean.” No one will say how much the party is costing, or who is footing the bill, or for that matter, whether the whole thing will be written off on Forbes’ taxes. A previously published estimate of a $2-million cost for the party was neither confirmed nor denied by Forbes’ press office. “We don’t know where that number comes from,” said a spokesperson. “We never release numbers.”