Three months after Woodstock, the hippie scene shifted south.

To the boondocks west of West Palm Beach.

On Thanksgiving weekend, 40 years ago.

See anyone you know in the crowd? (Courtesy Ken Davidoff)

And the local ruling class didn’t like it one bit.

Then-Palm Beach County Sheriff Bill Heidtman vowed to make life miserable for the free-loving, pot-smoking, anti-establishment youngsters who gathered at the Palm Beach Pop Festival. He threatened to herd alligators toward the crowd, gathered at the Palm Beach International Raceway. And he swore he’d have his good ole’ boys dig out fire ant colonies and relocate them at the venue.

Yet, 50,000 people showed up for the three-day event, the only one of its kind ever in this area. And they got to calling Heidtman “Sheriff Eichmann,” after Hitler’s henchman, Adolf Eichmann.

Mick Jagger at the 1969 Palm Beach Pop Festival (Courtesy Ken Davidoff)

The lineup of bands was nearly the same as the earlier New York state rendezvous. Except that Jimi Hendrix couldn’t make it. He was replaced by a little band known as The Rolling Stones. Janis Joplin belted out a few tunes, as did The Byrds, Sly and the Family Stone, Johnny Winter, Grand Funk Railroad, Spirit and Jefferson Airplane.

Florida rocker Tom Petty was there, too, after hitch-hiking south from his hometown of Gainesville.

Palm Beach society shutterbug Ken Davidoff remembers the festival well. At 19, he scored a gig as the event’s official photographer.

Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter at the 1969 festival (Courtesy Ken Davidoff)

“It was rainy and freezing cold and people were ankle deep in mud,” Davidoff said. “There were 50,000 at the beginning, but by the time the Stones got on stage on Sunday, there were maybe 3,000 left. The weather and delays just drove people away.”

Among the delays, Davidoff cited the Stones’ arrival after authorities forced the band to wait on their jet on the tarmac for six hours, sorta, kinda, on purpose.

Davidoff recently built this Web site for the anniversary and stuffed it with some of the 600-plus pictures he took that weekend. He’s also interviewing festival-goers, roadies and promoters for a documentary.

“The festival was definitely a historical event that very few residents knew about,” Davidoff said.

For more photos, click here. And for some of the sounds, click here.

Dame Celia Lipton Farris is already a historic figure in Palm Beach … and this has nothing to do with her age.

When it comes to the arts, there isn’t much she hasn’t done. There was Broadway, the London stage, the movies and early television, singing and painting. And when it comes to charity, she’s one of the most visible donors on the do-gooder scene.

It’s fitting, therefore, that the great dame is to be honored by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County on Dec. 9 at its yearly fund-raiser. The pre-party was Saturday, at the palatial digs of Cleveland lumber magnate Patrick Park at the Bears Club in Jupiter. It usually takes a lot to lure Palm Beachers to the northern confines of the county, but more than 200 people came to the Tuscan mansion.

“Dame Celia keeps Palm Beach moving,” Park said. “She’s the driving force behind many charities.”

Check out the pre-party photos, by Lucien Capehart:

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Howard Kessler with Dame Celia Lipton Farris and Michelle Kessler

Solomon Hurwitz and and Gertrude Maxwell (Courtesy Palm Beach Daily News)

The 95-year-old man who eloped with 98-year-old Palm Beach socialite Gertrude Maxwell and married her in July is sane, according to members of a committee charged with recommending whether Solomon Hurwitz should be under a guardian’s care.

A psychologist on the three-member panel — which also includes a medical doctor and someone outside the medical field — found Hurwitz unable to take care of himself and conduct simple tasks like counting money, according to court papers.

And counting is at the heart of the battle for control over the multimillionaire’s money.

On one side are his five children, who are based out of state. In their petition to have Hurwitz found incompetent and in need of a guardian, the siblings’ lawyers accused Maxwell of taking advantage of Hurwitz for his cash. She, according to the court documents, blew through $24 million in the past five years and is going broke. Maxwell, who’s best known for finding good homes for abandoned pets, proposed to Hurwitz, an Alzheimer’s sufferer, after one date.

On the other side is Hurwitz himself, who says he’s in love and should do whatever he pleases with the dough he made in his lifetime as a liquor dealership owner. He’s having a ball, he tells friends, and Maxwell has been helping him paint the town red.

“It’s going to come down to a judge’s decision after a trial in January,” said David Garten, a West Palm Beach lawyer randomly appointed by the court to represent Hurwitz in the court proceedings. “Members of the committee don’t seem all to agree.”

For more, look below or click (Read more…)

It’s that time of year. Millionaires at the helm of mega-yachts pulled into town for their yearly rendez-vous at Rybovich Marina on West Palm Beach’s north side. Three dozen 100-footers will be docked through the weekend, and their owners are paying up to $20,000 to be there. That money is going to the Boys and Girls Club of Broward County. The event includes, among plenty parties, a yacht hop and Saturday’s gala at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, featuring a concert by disco diva Donna Summer. Parts of the event are open to the public. To see who’s there, check out Palm Beach Post lensman Ray Graham’s photos of last night welcome party:

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Romney, tasting the spaghetti sauce

The next presidential election is three years away, but a contender in the race that saw U.S. Sen. John McCain emerge as the Republican’s candidate last year is already working on unseating Pres. Barack Obama. Mitt Romney, a conservative former governor of Massachusetts, was in Boca Raton this weekend for a dinner at the $2 million-home in east Boca of real estate investor Mark Guzzetta. Guzzetta cooked — Italian, of course — and a dozen local swells wrote checks for a total $25,000 to Romney’s political action committee, Free and Strong America. Also in da house: Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater. Check out Page2Live’s gallery:

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Boca businessman Mark Guzzetta with Romney

Jeffrey Donovan arrives at the gala Saturday night (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

Some of the talk on the red carpet at the Boca Raton Resort on Saturday showed that stars, too, don’t mind a second job in this economy.

Among the celebs who answered the call from Chris Evert to help raise cash for childrens’ charities by playing tennis and partying in Boca, Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan said he started a new business recently.

And so did area Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, who walked into fellow famous jock Evert’s ball using a crutch. She recently had knee surgery.

Said L.A. hunk Donovan, whose USA Network spy series is filmed mostly in the Miami area: “I’ve become a lover of Florida. I even went up to Tallahassee last week to ask the legislature for more incentives for film companies to shoot here. And even though I’ve been renting an apartment for the last few years, I’m looking to buy somewhere near Miami. I even started a new business.

“When producers come here to film, they always want to hire local actors. Fact is, local actors sometimes aren’t as good as Hollywood actors. So, I started acting classes.”

Torres, meanwhile, told reporters it’ll take her up to 18 months to recover from arthritis surgery. How does she spend the time? Speaking engagements, of the motivational kind. And according to her booking agency’s Web site, she commands between $35,000 and $45,000. Private planes are her preferred mode of transportation, according to the site.

For more, and Page2Live’s photo gallery, look below or click (Read more…)

Between The Karate Kid, Back to the Future II and III, and Leaving Las Vegas, few Hollywood actresses were as hot as Elisabeth Shue through the ’80s and ’90s. Guess what she looks like now? Look below or click (Read more…)

Chris Evert in a red dress Saturday night at the Boca Raton Resort (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

Just a month after tennis legend Chris Evert said she was “fine” with her split from her husband of 18 months, Aussie golfer Greg Norman, Evert told Page2Live that she misses the Great White Shark.

Looking elegant in a red dress, Evert made the startling admission Saturday night at the Boca Raton Resort, as she walked into the gala of her fund-raising tennis tournament.

She was asked: “Are you a happy woman?”

“I’m happy with this event,” Evert first said. Then, after a brief silence, she added: “Greg is missed. I miss him. He was always a big part of this.”

She didn’t discuss what the future holds for her and Norman, whom she married in June 2008 after both divorced their long-time spouses. They announced in early October that they were splitsville.

A dozen celebrities, meanwhile, put on their best outfits and dancing shoes for the gala, which marked the 20th anniversary of the event. Songbird Natalie Cole sang for the 500-plus who paid $750-a-pop to get in. Among other celebrities: Burn Notice hunk Jeffrey Donovan, tennis great Martina Navratilova, Navratilova’s old doubles partner Pam Shriver, Lindsay Davenport, Monica Seles, Justin Gimelstob and Vince Spadea, TV and the movies’ Elisabeth Shue, comic Jon Lovitz and soap opera star Maeve Quinlan. Most of them will be playing tennis at the Delray Tennis Center on Sunday.

Former astronaut John Glenn, the first American in space, sent these books to The Little Auction That Could (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

The list of those who signed their favorite childhood books and shipped then to Stuart for a charity auction reads like a pop culture Top 100: Poet Maya Angelou; The Apprentice’s Donald Trump; golfer Tiger Woods; former First Lady Barbara Bush; her son, former Gov. Jeb Bush; chimp lover Jane Goodall; former Miami Heat star Shaquille O’Neal; Pres. Barack Obama; Nike’s Phil Knight; Hollywood stars Sean Connery, Steve Martin and Robert Wagner; TV news readers Katie Couric and Brian Williams; Palm Beach musician Jimmy Buffett; and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, among others.

In all, a total 60 A-listers contributed. It took time, nearly two years, said organizer Karla Preissman. The first to respond to her requests was Jeb Bush, who shipped her The Travels of Babar. The last? The prez. Obama rush-mailed a pop up book of the White House two weeks ago.

Dubbed The Little Auction That Could (after the children’s book The Little Engine That Could), the event ends Nov. 20 with the auctioning of the books at the Lyric Theatre. Proceeds go to the Hibiscus Children’s Center, a shelter for abused and neglected children. Until then, the books are exhibited at Stuart’s Elliott Museum.

For more info about the auction and the celebs, and what they liked to read, check out this website.

And see Page2Live’s photos by Michele Sandberg of Thursday night’s preview of what’s for sale:

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Palmer at Wednesday's party, with wife Susan and Spencer (Meghan McCarthy/The Palm Beach Post)

It was surprising to run into baseball Hall-of-Fame pitcher Jim Palmer out in Palm Beach, just minutes before the first pitch of last night’s Game 6 of the World Series.

Jim, shouldn’t you be in your Jockeys and on your couch watching the Yankees duke it out with the Phillies?

“Well, I’ll be home, but what we’re doing here is more important,” he said. He wouldn’t call a winner of the series (the Bronx Bombers whooped the Phillies to win their 27th title). “All I’ll say is that (Philly’s starting pitcher) Pedro Martinez is tough. Doesn’t matter that he’s 38!”

Palmer, the former Baltimore Orioles standout, lent some of his star appeal to draw a crowd to Nick & Johnnie’s for a fund-raiser for the Renaissance Learning Center. The West Palm Beach charter school caters to autistic children, and it so happens that Palmer’s new wife, store owner Susan, is the mom of a 12-year-old student at the school, Spencer.

In the end, the group raised well over $25,000, thanks in part to the autographed baseballs that Palmer, an Orioles TV analyst, collects during the season.

“I brought 12 of the balls and they did well,” he said.

One signed by Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia went for $500.

Gary Carter, the retired New York Mets star catcher and Palmer’s fellow hall-of-famer, Florida Marlins pitcher Chris Volstad and golfer Ernie Els also showed up.