San Francisco Chronicle, CA
Jan 11 2008
Heartfelt San Francisco tribute to a bighearted lady
Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 11, 2008
San Francisco real estate mogul Gerson Bakar was out of town when he
got a call one day from his friend Armen Baliantz, the soulful,
Russian-speaking, Armenian restaurateur and arts patron. She wanted
to use his house for a party.
"When I got home, I found the Canadian Ballet and Rudolph Nureyev
swimming stark naked in the indoor pool," Bakar recalled with a laugh
Wednesday night.
He was sitting on a red leather stool at Tosca, the storied North
Beach bar owned by Baliantz’s daughter, Jeannette Etheredge. A great
jumble of San Franciscans – famed filmmakers and old mustachioed
waiters, dancers, seamen, cops, judges and a nun – had gathered to
swap stories and celebrate the life of Baliantz, who died Aug. 2 and
would have been 87 on Wednesday.
They toasted the lusty, no-nonsense lady who befriended ballet stars
and bums equally with an open heart. She had fed a lot of these
people, mothered and scolded them, introduced some to their spouses,
helped them get apartments and green cards and raise cash for
hospitals and dance companies. They praised her generosity, wit and
the unforgettable food she cooked up at Bali’s, the Pacific Street
restaurant where Madam Bali, as many knew her, entertained until she
closed the place in 1985.
"One of the things I loved about Armen was her lamb, so I’m going to
have a piece," said director Francis Ford Coppola, reaching for the
lamb marinated in pomegranate juice cooked by caterer Mimi Pederson
using Baliantz’s recipe.
Watching the door was San Francisco police officer Mark Alvarez, who
had known Baliantz since the early 1980s, when he worked in his
pre-cop days at Earl’s, the nightclub run by Baliantz’s late son,
Artie.
"Armen always gave me sound advice, like, ‘Get rid of that girl,
she’s not for you,’ " Alvarez said. "She was rock-solid. If you had a
problem, she’d take care of it. When my dad died, I needed a place
for the wake, and she gave me Bali’s and wouldn’t charge me. She was
a gracious, giving person."
Actress Lauren Hutton, a family friend who was sitting outside
smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and sipping a hot whiskey, seconded
that sentiment. She called Baliantz "the great female – protecting,
giving, loving."
Born in Harbin, China, to Armenian parents, Armen Psakian spoke
Russian, Armenian, Mandarin, French and English. At 18, she married
Aram Baliantz, whose family owned a big confectionary business in
Qingdao. The couple lived a life of abundance until they were forced
into an internment camp for four harsh years by the occupying
Japanese. Baliantz often said the happiest moment in her life was
seeing an American OSS officer parachuting in to liberate the camp.
"She told me about the day she was liberated in China, and it was a
pretty heart-wrenching story," said one of Baliantz’s grandsons,
Devon Etheredge. "Everything was always very intense with her. I miss
her stories."
After the communists took control in China, the family spent two
years in a refugee camp in the Philippines before emigrating to the
United States. They’d lost all their material possessions except an
emerald ring, which Armen used to get a bank loan to open the first
Bali’s on Sansome Street in the early 1950s.
It was there in 1959 that Gary Eldemir began working for the woman he
still calls "Mrs. Bali," even though they were good friends for
decades.
"She was my boss," said Eldemir, a waiter who served Bali’s regulars
like labor leader Harry Bridges, sculptor Benny Bufano and writer
William Saroyan, with whom Armen, divorced from her husband in 1959,
had an affair. "I used to feed Bufano and take him back to his
place," Eldemir said. She liked artists and took care of them. It was
always fun with Mrs. Bali around."
After Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union in 1961, Baliantz became
his friend and protector, a role she played with two other star
Russian ballet defectors, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova.
"How many did she help?" Makarova asked rhetorically Wednesday night.
"What generosity," said the retired ballerina, who was introduced to
her husband, Edward Karkar, by Baliantz. "She had a big heart. And no
bull-."
Makarova was one of many familiar faces that cropped up in a slide
show celebrating Baliantz’s rich life. There were sepia-toned Old
World photographs of Baliantz’s family, portraits of her as a lovely
young woman and shots at the restaurant with everyone from Willie
Brown, who was on hand Wednesday, to Frank Sinatra, Saroyan, cellist
Mstislav Rostropovich and actress Jessica Lange. One memorable image
showed Baliantz bookended by Nureyev and Willie McCovey. In another,
Nureyev comically cupped her breasts.
"Armen always promised to tell me all the secrets of the Kama Sutra,"
said film director Philip Kaufman. "Not the sexual parts,
necessarily, but the wisdom. I got hints but never the full story.
Armen knew something about everything."
Speaking to the crowd, Jonathan Moscone, son of slain mayor George
Moscone and the artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater,
said Baliantz "defined everything great about this city. When I think
of her, I think of George and everyone who had style and passion in
San Francisco … And she made the best f- rack of lamb I’ve ever
eaten."
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