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Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th

Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th

(Bloomberg) -- About 24 hours before President Donald Trump held a rally in Florida kicking off his 2020 re-election campaign, a lookalike waltzed into the Rainbow Room with a slightly different agenda.

Up until then, the 90th birthday party for Larry Leeds of Buckingham Capital Management hosted by his daughters Ashley and Tracy had unfolded predictably enough. That is if the word “predictable” can be applied to the man who as CEO of Manhattan Industries brought Perry Ellis to the fore, lost his job in a hostile takeover, dove into stock-picking before turning 60 and is still putting in full work days.

Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th

A magician circulated among guests including Ron Baron (who, in his teens, caddied for Leeds), Michael Steinhardt, John Loeb, Tommy Hilfiger, Kenneth Cole, Peter Solomon, John Hess and Lally Weymouth.

A wall of photographs showed Leeds as a wrestler at Yale, embracing his wife Dalia, and at the tennis center in the Bronx that honors the memory of his late son Cary, who played professionally. (It will host a Women’s Tennis Association tournament in August ahead of the U.S. Open).

Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th
Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th
Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th
Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th

In a video, Leeds reviewed his career transition. “I figured if I could sell Perry Ellis to Bloomingdale’s, I could sell Polo Ralph Lauren to Fidelity.”

Over the first course of poached Montauk lobster salad Monday night, the grandkids joked about the birthday boy’s style of playing golf -- taking holes as they’re available, not in order -- and JPMorgan Vice Chairman Emeritus E. John Rosenwald delivered a tribute in rhyme (“High tech and foam chips really don’t matter. Leeds has religiously stuck to his shmata.”).

But guests were flabbergasted when impersonator Trump arrived for what he said was a “Never Ending Victory Rally and Fundraiser.” John Di Domenico, who last week appeared as Trump on Australian television, had the patter, gestures, even the hands right.

“The press says I’m obsessed with crowd size. Not true, I’m obsessed with the truth and the truth is Larry is the one obsessed with crowd size,” Di Domenico said. “Larry was heard saying, ‘I want it to be yuuuuge.’"

Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th

Then Di Domenico addressed Leeds directly. “I should have made you secretary of commerce,” he said. Wilbur Ross is a decade younger, “but somehow Larry looks 20 years younger.”

So what is Leeds’s secret to his fountain of youth? Di Domenico credited his “cocktail of vitamins, drugs, HGH, green tea, kale, crushed Viagra, and Nutella."

As for his own reflections on the evening, Leeds said he was blessed by health, longevity and friendships “through great times and through tragedy. They’ve been the icing on my 90-year-old cake.”

Trump Impersonator Lands at Rainbow Room for Hedge Funder's 90th

And then a woman jumped out of a yuuuge cake made of cardboard. She was a Melania lookalike, said party planner Andrea Adelstein of NYLUX Events, though that might have been missed by guests as Leeds egged everyone on to the dance floor. An orchestra was playing “Fly Me to the Moon.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Peter Eichenbaum

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