艾娃周 洛杉磯的文化女王與社交名媛

I first met Eva Chow — encountered would actually be a better term — in 2013 in the courtyard of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was the museum’s third Art & Film Gala, and Mrs. Chow, a host with Leonardo DiCaprio, was working the room like a piranha in a goldfish bowl. Air kisses with Fran-Henri Pinault. Chitchat with Jane Fonda. An excited wave to Ed Ruscha.

我第一次見到艾娃·周(Eva Chow)――“邂逅”可能是更好的詞兒――是在2013年洛杉磯郡藝術館的院子裏。那是博物館的第三次藝術與電影盛典(Art & Film Gala)。周女士在屋子裏走來走去，就像食人魚在金魚缸裏游泳。她和萊昂納多·迪卡普里奧(Leonardo DiCaprio)一起擔任活動的主持。她向弗朗索瓦-昂利·皮諾(Fran-Henri Pinault)拋去飛吻，與簡·方達(Jane Fonda)閒聊，興奮地向埃德·拉斯查(Ed Ruscha)揮手。

After elbowing to her jet-embroidered side (she was wearing a black column gown, custom made by Gucci), I reached out to shake her hand and introduce myself. Instead of grasping it, the cultural queen handed me a Champagne flute. “Could you hold this for a minute?” she said, before I got a word out. Photographers descended.

她穿着古馳定製的黑色直身長裙，我碰了碰她刺繡着墨玉的衣襟，向她伸出手，做了自我介紹。這位文化女王並沒握住我的手，只是遞給我一隻香檳杯。“你能幫我拿一下嗎？”不等我開口，她就說。這時攝影師們涌上來了。

Flash! Pop! And then she was gone.

閃光燈！快門！然後她就走了。

For the last 23 years, Mrs. Chow — first name pronounced Aay-vah, obviously — has been largely defined by her marriage to Michael Chow, the celebrity restaurateur. She gave up a successful fashion line, Eva Chun, in 1994 to be a mother. Yes, she has played a crucial role in keeping the Mr. Chow chain humming. But mostly her husband has basked in the spotlight while she has played the supporting part.

在過去的23年裏，周女士一直都因爲同餐飲大亨周英華(Michael Chow)的婚姻而爲人所知，1994年，她爲了生育，放棄了自己成功的時裝品牌Eva Chun。是的，周英華的連鎖餐廳能夠興旺發達，她也功不可沒。但當她的丈夫沐浴在聚光燈下之時，她還是更多扮演他身邊的配角。

That seems to be changing. With the bespectacled Mr. Chow approaching 77 and concentrating on making art, Mrs. Chow, who is in her late 50s, has increased her focus on their business, particularly when it comes to growth. A sixth location opened in Malibu, Calif., in 2012. Las Vegas and Mexico City are next. Last month, she oversaw the introduction of an exclusive Mr. Chow-branded wine.

這種局面現在似乎有了變化。戴眼鏡的周先生已經年屆77歲，目前專注於藝術，周女士還不到60歲，開始更加專注於操持他們有增無減的生意。2012年，他們在加利福尼亞州馬里布海灘開了第六家店。接下來是拉斯維加斯和墨西哥城的分店。上個月，她監督指導了一款周先生獨家品牌紅酒的推廣。

“I have to do more,” Mrs. Chow said over tea at her mansion here two weeks ago. “Michael paints day and night, and I mean day and night obsessively.”

“我得做更多事情，”兩星期前，周女士在自家宅邸中邊喝茶邊說。“邁克爾（周英華）沒日沒夜的畫畫，真的是沒日沒夜着迷的畫。”

Mrs. Chow has also become perhaps the most high-profile member of the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, no small feat considering that the 53-member board includes the likes of Elaine Wynn, Casey Wasserman and Lynda Resnick. Starting in 2011, Mrs. Chow began a new effort to raise money for film-related programming. Her resulting Art & Film Gala, sponsored by Gucci and held next on Nov. 7, has since been deemed a West Coast version of Anna Wintour’s Met Gala.

周女士或許是洛杉磯郡藝術館的董事會中最有名的成員。這是不小的壯舉，這個53人組成的委員會包括了伊蓮·韋恩(Elaine Wynn)、凱西·瓦瑟曼(Casey Wasserman)和琳達·萊斯尼克(Lynda Resnick)等人。2011年起，周女士爲了給和電影有關的項目籌款，開始了一場新運動，其成果就是電影與藝術盛典，由古馳贊助，下一次活動將在11月7日舉行，它被視爲安娜·溫圖爾(Anna Wintour)大都藝術博物館慈善舞會的西海岸翻版。

While some prominent Angelenos grit their teeth over Mrs. Chow’s subtly unsubtle style (one cited an article that called her “a formidable perfumed steamroller of a woman”), even the unconverted concede that she probably reigns as the city’s top hostess. Last year, she regaled President Obama and Kanye West — at the same time — in the family’s Macassar-ebony-lined library. “She throws the most glamorous parties in all of L.A.,” Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, the fashion photographers, wrote in an email.

有些著名的洛杉磯人抨擊周女士這種巧妙露骨的風格（一篇文章說她是“噴着咄咄逼人的香水，猶如蒸汽軋路機的女人”），但是，就連不喜歡她的人也同意，她或許是這個城市最頂尖的女主人。去年，她在家中裝點着孟加錫黑檀的圖書室裏招待了奧巴馬總統和坎耶·韋斯特(Kanye West)——而且是同時。“她主辦全洛杉磯最豪華的派對，”時尚攝影師伊內·範·蘭姆斯維爾德(Inez van Lamsweerde)和維諾德·馬塔丁(Vinoodh Matadin)在電子郵件中寫道。

With her stature rising and the next Art & Film Gala on the horizon, I wanted to know more about this apparent goddess. So the Los Angeles County Museum of Art helped arrange an afternoon interview for mid-October. (“You’ll love her,” Michael Govan, the museum’s director, told me. “Just don’t go too early. She likes to sleep late.”) The venue would be her 11,600-square-foot Holmby Hills estate, the one modeled after the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid.

隨着她的形象日益醒目，而下一屆電影與藝術盛典又近在眼前，我就更想了解這位女神的更多事情。於是洛杉磯郡藝術館就幫我在10月中旬的一個下午安排了採訪。“你會愛上她的，”館長邁克爾·戈文(Michael Govan)對我說，“別去得太早，她晚睡晚起。”地點是在她位於荷爾貝山佔地11600平方英尺的家中，它是按照馬德里的索菲亞王后博物館爲模板修建的。

When I arrived, the white gates swung open and an attendant in a business suit directed my oh-so-chic Chevy Malibu into the curved driveway. Before I was barely out of the car, Mrs. Chow — whom Mr. Ruscha described in an email as “a lovely, forward-motion machine” — flung open her front door and greeted me with a big smile and an offer of Champagne. It was 2:30 p.m.

我到達的時候，白色的大門開着，一個身穿商務西裝的助理指揮我,把我時髦的雪佛蘭馬里布車子開進曲裏拐彎的車道。還沒等我下車，周女士——拉斯查先生在電子郵件中說她是“可愛的，一直向前衝的機器”——就猛地打開了宅邸的前門，臉上帶着大大的微笑迎接我，還請我喝香檳。此時是下午兩點半。

“I love to have a glass or two of Champagne in the afternoon,” she said.

“我喜歡下午來一兩杯香檳，”她說。

With her spunky Pomeranian, Baby Chow, capering about her feet, Mrs. Chow walked us through the entry hall, where paintings by Julian Schnabel and Damien Hirst are hung. We passed that fancy library. (“This is where we entertained the president,” she said, with a casual wave.) And we emerged in what she called “gold room” — gold-paneled walls, a gold folding screen, gold Jean Dunand baubles.

她的博美犬名叫“周寶寶”，精神十足，圍繞在她身邊。她帶我們走過前廳，這裏掛着朱利安·施納貝爾(Julian Schnabel)和達米安·赫斯特(Damien Hirst)的油畫。接下來我們穿過那個漂亮的圖書室。“我們就是在這兒接待總統的，”她隨意揮着手說。然後我們又走進她所謂的“金屋”，牆壁上鑲着金質面板，有一扇金屏風，還有讓·杜南(Jean Dunand)的金質飾物。

“I really think that Los Angeles is having a moment,” she said as we sat down. (To her seeming disappointment, I declined the Champagne; green tea was summoned from a servant instead.) “There has always been a cool energy here, but right now we’re in a period of exciting artistic growth. More and more, all spectrum of creative people are coming together.”

“我覺得洛杉磯正在經歷好時光，”我們坐下來的時候，她說（令她失望的是，我不喝香檳；於是一位侍者端上了綠茶）。“這裏總是有一種很酷的能量，但現在我們正經歷藝術蓬勃發展的階段，非常令人興奮。各種層次的創意人才愈來愈集中。”

As she spoke in a calm, even tone, looking me squarely in the eye and her teacup held just so, she seemed nothing like the larger-than-life creature at the gala. She was wearing a simple twin set with a full black skirt and flats. She had on very little makeup and no nail polish. Her husky laugh — huh, huh, huh — was infectious.

她的口氣溫和鎮定，手拿茶杯，凝視着我的雙眼，看上去和慈善舞會上哪個傳奇人物一點都不一樣。她穿着簡單的兩件套羊毛衫，黑色長裙和平底鞋，只化淡妝，沒有塗指甲油。她的笑聲略帶嘶啞——哈，哈，哈——卻很有感染力。

I asked a question that seemed to startle her: After living an opulent life for more than two decades, with friends like Al Pacino and Alber Elbaz, the Lanvin creative director, and the art dealer Larry Gagosian on speed dial, did anything truly impress her anymore?

我問的問題對她來說似乎有點突兀：20多年來,過着奢華的日子，身邊密友都是影星艾爾·帕西諾(Al Pacino)、浪凡(Lanvin)創意總監阿爾伯·艾爾巴茨(Alber Elbaz)，以及藝術交易商拉里·高古軒(Larry Gagosian)這樣的人，那麼還有什麼東西能夠真正打動她嗎？

“It’s not like I get impressed once, and I’m over it, and I need something new,” she said. “I love this teacup. It impresses me. When I love something, whether things or people, I love them very deeply.”

“不是說我被打動過一次以後就再也不喜歡它了，然後就去找點什麼新的東西，”她說。“我喜歡這個茶杯，它就能打動我。每當我喜歡上什麼東西，不管是人還是東西，我都愛的很深。”

She is the third Mrs. Chow. (Or maybe even the fourth; some magazine profiles over the years have indicated that Mr. Chow was briefly married in the 1960s. Asked to clarify, he responded: “I’m not a family lawyer, nor an accountant. I don’t think it’s relevant.”) She was preceded by the model Tina Chow, who died in 1992; and, before that, Grace Coddington, who is now the creative director at Vogue.

她是周英華的第三任妻子（甚至有可能是第四任，多年來，有些雜誌聲稱周英華在20世紀60年代曾經有過一段短暫的婚姻。被要求澄清時，他答道：“我不是家庭律師，也不是會計，我覺得這無關緊要。”）她的前任包括1992年去世的名模周天娜(Tina Chow)，以及目前擔任《Vogue》創意總監的格蕾絲·柯丁頓(Grace Coddington)。

Eva Chun, who moved to Los Angeles from Korea in 1974, after the death of her father, a banker, met her husband at a party for Gianni Versace. “I had seen him before and was very much a fan of the restaurant,” Mrs. Chow recalled. “But it was then that he asked for my phone number.”

周女士原名Eva Chun，1974年從韓國移居洛杉磯，銀行家父親去世後，她在詹尼·範思哲(Gianni Versace)的派對上遇到了周英華。“我以前見過他，也非常喜歡他的餐廳，”周女士回憶，“但那次派對上，他要了我的電話號碼。”

By that time, roughly 1991 (Michael and Tina divorced in 1990), Eva was an emerging fashion star. After arriving in California unable to speak English, she took language classes at Los Angeles City College and, on a whim, auditioned for a Dino De Laurentiis movie. She didn’t get the part, but began working for De Laurentiis as an assistant, dropping out of school. By 1981, the future Mrs. Chow had become friendly with Bo Derek, who hired her as a production manager on “Tarzan, the Ape Man.”

當時差不多是1991年（周英華和周天娜是1990年離婚的），艾娃那時候已經是時裝界崛起的新星。剛到加利福尼亞時，她幾乎不會說英語，在洛杉磯市立學院學英語，一時興起去報名參演迪諾·德·勞倫蒂斯(Dino De Laurentiis)的電影。她沒有得到那個角色，但卻退學成了德·勞倫蒂斯的助手。1981年，未來的周太太與寶黛麗(Bo Derek)交上了朋友，她邀請周女士在《人猿泰山》(Tarzan,the Ape Man)中擔任製片助理。

“When you are thrown in the water, you learn to swim,” Mrs. Chow said.

“一旦被扔下水，你就得學游泳了，”周女士說。

Deciding that she was more interested in fashion than film, Mrs. Chow enrolled in Otis College of Art and Design and, while still a student and working from her apartment, sent a little collection of clothes to a buyer for Neiman Marcus. Her Eva Chun line, mostly women’s evening wear heavy on silk crepe and chiffon, was soon generating annual retail sales of $2.5 million. ($4.2 million in today’s currency.)

後來周女士覺得自己對時裝比對電影更感興趣，於是來到奧蒂斯藝術與設計學院學習，當她還是學生，還在自家公寓辦公的時候，就開始給尼曼(Neiman Marcus)的買手寄自己的小批時裝系列了。她的品牌Eva Chun主要是絲綢縐紗和雪紡的女裝晚禮服，很快年零售額就達到了250萬美元（約合如今的420萬美元）。

What has made her such a lasting match for Mr. Chow?

她和周先生的婚姻何以如此持久呢？

“Who the hell knows,” said Mr. Schnabel, who has known the couple since the beginning and has painted Mrs. Chow’s portrait. “They’re both very intense. Maybe it’s because they maintain their own identities but share a sensibility.”

“誰知道啊，”施納貝爾先生說，他從兩人剛開始交往時就認識他們了，還給周英華畫過一幅肖像。“他們都很有激情，或許是因爲他們都保持着自己的個性，同時又能分享同一種情感。”

Mr. Chow agreed. But he also pointed to what he called his wife’s “artistic foundation,” noting that she was an apprentice painter to two major Korean artists as a young girl. “Artists do magical things, and she is an artist,” he said, adding that their Asian heritage is also important. “We were both uprooted from our countries and culture, and that meant that we immediately had a lot in common.”

周先生對此表示同意，但他也提到了妻子的“藝術底蘊”，他說她小時候曾經跟着兩位著名韓國藝術家學畫畫。“藝術家做有魔力的事，她是個藝術家，”他說。他還說共同的亞洲背景也非常重要。“我們都是從我們的國家與文化當中被連根拔起的，所以一下子就有了很多共同之處。”

Givenchy’s creative director, Riccardo Tisci, who said he has known Mrs. Chow for seven years, described her style as “very chic, very strong, sexy without being vulgar.” He added: “Not many women of that level have her flexibility. She can have serious conversations about fashion. And then you can do crazy stuff with her. When I’m in L.A., we go furniture shopping and drive around in the car with very loud music.”

紀梵希的創意總監裏卡多·提西(Riccardo Tisci)認識周女士已經七年了，他形容她的風格是“非常時髦，非常強烈，性感而不粗俗。”他補充說：“在她這種身份的女人裏面，很少有人像她這樣的靈活。她可以和你認真地討論時尚，然後你還能和她一起做很瘋狂的事情。我在洛杉磯的時候，和她一起去買傢俱，車裏放着吵鬧的音樂到處逛。”

Mr. Schnabel, speaking by phone from Paris, said that Mrs. Chow stands out among collectors for her “succinct, big, committed opinions: why she likes something and why she doesn’t.” He added, “Her relationship with art is not a docile one. She’s very emotional about it and talks about it like an artist.”

施納貝爾先生在巴黎接受了電話採訪，他說周女士在諸多收藏家中顯得卓爾不羣，她總能表達“簡潔、宏大、堅定的意見：她爲什麼喜歡這個，不喜歡那個。”他說，“她和藝術的關係並不平淡。她對藝術充滿感情，談起藝術來，就像真正的藝術家。”

I found that to be true. In our interview, she spoke about fashion, noting that she loves Mr. Tisci’s designs for Givenchy (“cool and feminine but slightly edgy”), for instance, and citing Azzedine Ala愀 as an all-time favorite. Her music tastes include Beethoven and Brahms as well as Pink Floyd and Amy Winehouse, she said. Favorite films include “Reservoir Dogs” and Luchino Visconti’s “Rocco and His Brothers.”

我發現這是真的。在訪談中，我們談起時尚，她喜歡提西爲紀梵希設計的時裝（“很酷，很女性化，但又稍微有點前衛”），她還說阿瑟丁·阿萊亞(Azzedine Ala愀 )始終是她的最愛。音樂方面，她喜歡貝多芬(Beethoven)和勃拉姆斯(Brahms)，也喜歡“平克·弗洛伊德”(Pink Floyd)和艾米·懷恩豪斯(Amy Winehouse)。她最喜歡的電影包括《落水狗》(Reservoir Dogs)和盧奇諾·維斯康蒂(Luchino Visconti)的《洛可兄弟》(Rocco and His Brothers)。

But she seemed especially happy to talk about art, even when the conversation turned to works — say, video — that she does not collect.

但聊起藝術的時候她顯得特別開心，就算談起她並不收藏的作品類型時也是如此——比如視頻藝術。

“While I understand and appreciate it very much, I’m an old-fashioned kind of person in that way,” she said. “We like furnitures, we like sculptures, we like paintings. I collect china and jewelry. But as far as fine art is concerned we are very specific.”

“我非常理解，也欣賞這種藝術，不過我在這方面還是個老派人士，”她說。“我們喜歡傢俱、雕塑和繪畫。我收藏瓷器和珠寶。但是在美術方面我們都非常具體明確。”

She continued: “Art is almost like friends. You have such great friends and you don’t have enough time to spend with them. Do you really want to go and look for more friends? In some ways it’s maybe a little bit lazy of us. In some ways we are loyal and really appreciate and love the friends we have.”

她繼續說道：“藝術就像是朋友。你有很多好朋友，卻沒有足夠的時間和他們相處。那麼你還想去尋找更多朋友嗎？在某種程度上，我們可能有點懶。在某種程度上，我們又非常忠實，而且真的熱愛我們已經擁有的朋友們。”

Her iPhone started to ring.

這時她的iPhone手機響了起來。

“That’s probably my daughter who doesn’t have time for her mother because she’s sooo busy with school,” she said, with what looked like a roll of her eyes. She swiftly sent whomever it was to voice mail. Asia Chow, 21, is a senior at Columbia University. Mrs. Chow, who has four siblings (she’s in the middle), complained that she had managed to see Asia only once during a recent three-day trip to New York.

“可能是我女兒，她上學太忙，根本沒時間和媽媽相處，”她說着，眼珠好像轉了轉，迅速把電話轉到了語音信箱。她的女兒，21歲的Asia Chow是哥倫比亞大學的大四學生。周女士有四個兄弟姊妹（她是居中的一個），她抱怨說，最近她在紐約呆了三天，只見了Asia一面。

The entire Chow family, including China and Maximillian, Mr. Chow’s children from his marriage to Tina Chow, typically turns up for the Art & Film Gala, the next installment of which will honor James Turrell and the “Birdman” director Alejandro G. Iárritu. Mr. DiCaprio, who did not respond to an interview request, will again be a host. Tables sell for up to $100,000; full-event individual tickets are $10,000.

周家還包括周英華與周天娜生的子女，周佳納(China Chow)和馬克西米蘭(Maximillian)，他們全家都將出席藝術與電影盛典，下一次活動的主題是詹姆士·特勒爾(James Turrell )與《鳥人》(Birdman)的導演亞歷桑德羅·G·伊納裏多(Alejandro G.Iárritu)。迪卡普里奧沒有接受採訪，此次他還將擔任主持。晚宴一桌的價錢是10萬美元，整晚個人門票是一萬美元。

Some officials at rival Los Angeles museums blanch at what they suspect Mrs. Chow spends to put on the event — the budget is not public, but money seems to flow freely around her. (It certainly does at Mr. Chow, where steamed sea bass costs $45 at the Beverly Hills location.) Over the last four years, the event has raised more than $15 million, a meaningful total for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has primarily used the funds to rebuild its film program.

有些和洛杉磯郡藝術館競爭的博物館機構光是猜想周女士在這項活動上的花費，就已經嚇呆了——預算並未公開，但她似乎花錢如流水（在餐廳確實要花錢如流水，在貝弗利山莊店，一份清蒸鱸魚都要45美元）。過去四年裏，活動籌到了1500萬美元，這對於洛杉磯郡藝術館來說意義重大，它正使用這筆款項來重建自己的電影計劃。

Mr. Govan, the museum’s director, said the gala’s success is largely attributable to its cross section of attendees, especially given the surprisingly fragmented way in which the Los Angeles creative class tends to socialize.

博物館館長戈文先生說，盛典的成功主要歸功於參加者來自不同領域，特別是洛杉磯創意人士的社交方式的碎片化程度令人吃驚。

“Eva was the one person on the board who seemed to walk easily between the film world and the art world and the fashion world and the music world,” Mr. Govan said. “I didn’t know anyone else who could do that. If we were going to have a successful film initiative, to fully recognize film as art, we had to bring the entire creative community together. And she’s done it.”

“在董事會中，艾娃是那種可以輕鬆橫跨電影界、藝術界、時尚界與音樂界的人，”戈文說。“除了她，我不知道其他人誰能做到這點。如果我們要搞一個成功的電影項目，充分把電影視爲藝術，就要讓整個創意羣體都參與進來。她做到了。”