Eric Motley, Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, and MapHook president and CEO Dr. Paul Carter. Photograph by James R. Brantley.

In show business, the work ethic is simple: The show must go on. But what happens if a solo performer falls ill, and there’s a party planned for her after the show? Businesswoman and philanthropist Bonnie McElveen-Hunter answered that question Saturday as she welcomed guests to her Georgetown home. “On O Street, the show always goes on!” she said.

The party was to be in honor of mezzo-soprano Susan Graham after a midday performance at the Kennedy Center. But the evening before, soon after she arrived in Washington, the singer’s throat began to bother her, and by Saturday morning it was worse. The show was canceled, disappointing a few hundred fans holding tickets. Graham boarded a train home to New York to recuperate.

Her pianist, Malcolm Martineau, who did make it to the McElveen-Hunter party, said the performance would have been the last stop in a month-long tour that took them across the country and up to Canada. “In the evening, Susan felt something wasn’t right,” he said. “We went out in search of a humidifier and found one at CVS. But when she was warming up at rehearsal, it was not good. She’s the last person to cancel. It’s always a tough decision, but for the voice, when it’s not right, it’s not right.”

Simon Doonan in his carnation throne built for a queen. Photograph by Jeff Martin.

The late Gianni Versace once told Elton John that when he died he wanted to go to heaven and not only be gay, but be “super gay.” Simon Doonan can relate. He’s made being gay into a side profession, in addition to his already successful careers as creative ambassador at large for Barneys New York and as a writer. His new book, Gay Men Don’t Get Fat, was celebrated in Washington on Wednesday evening with a très gay soiree on the rooftop of the W Hotel, featuring pink patent wing chairs, loads of pink flowers, pale pink skinny “boy” margaritas, “power gays,” drag queen Heidi Gloom—and Doonan, of course, in his trademark flowered shirt, trilling. The deejay was Shea Van Horn, who sometimes performs in drag, though not on this night; he went preppy instead.

Bromance in action: After awards and remarks, Clint Eastwood and Senator Patrick Leahy take a seat to watch some film highlights. “We have a lot in common,” said Eastwood. Photograph by Jeff Martin.

Even though they are ten years apart in age, director/movie star/icon Clint Eastwood and Vermont senator Patrick Leahy could be brothers—or at least bros. Not only are they somewhat similar in height and appearance, but they both speak in that creamy rasp that’s instantly familiar to Eastwood fans. And they were practically inseparable Wednesday night when Eastwood was honored at a gala at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Leahy, a member of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, presented the Oscar winner with the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal for distinguished contributions in film.

Eastwood arrived in town Tuesday, and he and Leahy had dinner that night. What the senator came away with was that “the trait Eastwood most detests when he encounters it is racism,” a theme that threaded through Eastwood’s 2008 film Gran Torino. Praising it, Leahy said, “That movie alone would be enough for any moviemaker.” Okay, Senator, we asked, but do you think you could be his stand-in? Or at least loop his voice? Leahy became the diplomatic man of the Senate that he is: “Oh, he’s fine on his own. I don’t want to go there.”

Most of DC’s largest and most powerful law firms are named after lawyers who are retired or long dead. But in a few cases, real people with those names are still working in the buildings.

Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. is a K Street legend. His law and lobbying firm, Patton Boggs, has the biggest lobbying presence in the District. Boggs—who joined the firm then called Barco, Cook, Patton & Blow in 1966—was one of the first lawyers to start a lobbying practice at a traditional law firm. “Boggs” was added to the name in 1967. He is still chairman. Founding partner James Patton Jr. retired in 2000.

Robert Strauss founded the firm that would become Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld—one of Washington’s largest law and lobbying firms—in 1945. At 93, he remains a partner at the firm, where he splits his time between the Washington and Dallas offices. Of Akin Gump’s other name partners, only Alan Feld, who joined in 1960, remains at the firm, though he’s based full-time in Dallas.

Douglas Henderson is the only remaining founding partner of the intellectual-property behemoth Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner. Ford Farabow, Arthur Garrett, and Donald Dunner also still practice at the firm. Henderson started the firm in 1965 with Marcus Finnegan out of an office overlooking Farragut Square. Henderson, 76, still oversees some client relationships.

Dickstein Shapiro was founded in New York in 1953, but by 1956 Sidney Dickstein and David Shapiro had moved to Washington, which became the headquarters. Today, Dickstein Shapiro has 235 lawyers. Sidney Dickstein still has an office at the firm and is involved with one client, though he’s mostly retired. Shapiro died in 2009. Dickstein’s favorite memories are of defending clients against McCarthy-era loyalty-security reviews in the 1950s.

Of Washington’s major law firms, Wiley Rein is one of the newest. It began in 1983 when Richard Wiley and Bert Rein, along with 37 other lawyers, broke from Kirkland & Ellis because Richard Wiley’s communications practice conflicted with a Kirkland client. Wiley Rein now has about 300 attorneys, 80 of whom focus on communications law. Both Wiley and Rein have active practices.

This article appears in the February 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.

From left, Ilana Drimmer and Betsy Fischer of NBC's "Meet the Press," "Washingtonian" publisher Cathy Merrill Williams, CNN's Jessica Yellin, and Paige Ralston Fromer, former Hill staffer and head of Ralston handbags, pose with Rob Lowe.

What does Hollywood heartthrob Rob Lowe do when he comes to Washington? He dines with a group of women, of course, and in this instance the venue was Georgetown’s glam Bourbon Steak.

The dinner Saturday night, organized by Meet the Press executive producer Betsy Fischer, and included CNN’s Jessica Yellin, NBC’s Ilana Drimmer, Paige Ralston Fromer, Susanna Quinn, and Washingtonian publisher Cathy Merrill Williams. Lowe talked with his dinner partners about politics as well as life in Hollywood. 

Drew Barrymore with her new fiancé, Will Kopelman, at the premiere of Big Miracle. Photograph by Jeff Martin.

The so-called “whale movie” came to town last night with a splashy screening and a Potomac waterfront after-party for some 1,400 people. Big Miracle is the film’s official name, and it has an interesting, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting local angle. First, you need to know the name Bonnie Mersinger Carroll.

It was 1988, and Carroll—then Bonnie Mersinger—was working at the White House as the executive assistant for Cabinet affairs. President Reagan stopped by her West Wing office to inquire about an incident that was unfolding in Alaska, where three whales (two adults and a baby) had become trapped in the Arctic Circle by rapidly forming ice. The drama was receiving national media attention. “He saw that the National Guard was involved,” says Carroll, “and he wondered what the White House could do to help. And that’s how I met Tom Carroll.”

It’s interesting to watch Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive at a party. She slips in quietly. There’s no bombast. But suddenly the gravitational pull of the room shifts subtly in her direction. There’s a frisson, a buzz; you see the top of her head, the flip in her long blond hair; you see people move toward her but also make way. She has a wide, warm smile for friends, and it was mostly friends Tuesday evening at an A-list book party at the Georgetown home of Gahl Burt. Clinton dropped by on her way to the Capitol for the State of the Union.

The party was for Derek Chollet and Samantha Power’s new book, The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World—but it was, most of all, a gathering of his nearest and dearest, which means diverse Washington power players, many of them as complicated and beguiling as Holbrooke himself. Clinton, of course, but also Power, who co-edited the book. Power is now a special assistant to President Barack Obama, though during the last election she resigned from her adviser position after calling candidate Hillary Clinton a “monster,” a comment she thought was off the record.