NAILS' Sree Roy and Tim Crowley, Star's Arica Carpenter and Elaine Watson, and NAILS' Michelle Mullen
NAILS' Hannah Lee with OPI Educator Joseph Pham
OPI Spirit of Life Honoree George Schaeffer and his wife Irina Afzal with celebrity chef Hubert Keller (left)
NAILS' Hannah Lee with chef Hubert Keller
NAILS Magazine is owned by Bobit Business Media. Here our president Ty Bobit with Star's Christina Jahn, NAILS publisher Cyndy Drummey, Michael Kirk, Hannah Lee, and Star's Patricia Freund and Elaine Watson
Nadine Bobit, Tony Cuccio and Ty Bobit
Cyndy Drummey, Backscratchers' Michael Megna and Michelle Mullen
Cyndy Drummey, George Schaeffer and Hannah Lee
Ty Bobit, George Schaeffer and Nadine Bobit
Cyndy Drummey, Spilo's Sunny Stinchcomb, and Dashing Diva's Nancy Waspi
Spirit of Life honoree, OPI founder George Schaeffer singing with the band.
Hannah Lee, George Schaeffer. Ed Bobit, Ty Bobit, Nadine Bobit
The Reverend Al Green took the stage for a pre-dinner show.
Al Green handed out roses to the ladies during his 20-minute set.
The NAILS Team. (Back row: Tim Crowley, Sree Roy, Hannah Lee, Cyndy Drummey, Kim Pham. Front row: Michelle Mullen, Ed Bobit, Ty Bobit, Nadine Bobit.)
Nadine and Ty Bobit with Diana and Robbie Schaeffer and Sree Roy
Tim Crowley, Michelle Mullen, AII's Diana Duran, and Hannah Lee
George Schaeffer receiving his Spirit of Life Award from City of Hope president Dr. Michael Friedman.
George's kids Robbie and Nicole Schaeffer drew the prize-winning raffle for the Audi A7.
Former CND president John Heffner was the dinner chair and MC of the night.
George Schaeffer renewed his vows with wife Irina Afzal
George and Irina share a special moment with 1,700 of their closest industry friends.
Mazel tov!
Liz and Tom Bachik
Aretha Franklin
The Queen of Soul
George couldn't help himself but sneak in for a kiss with Aretha Franklin
This year's City of Hope Spirit of Life Award honoree was OPI's George Schaeffer. At a party in his honor this past Saturday night, more than 1,700 guests were treated to the soulful stylings of Reverend Al Green and Aretha Franklin. And true to Schaeffer's gift for surprise, we all also got to see him marry his long-time girlfriend Irina Afzal.
The annual beauty industry Spirit of Life Award is a tradition at the summer Cosmoprof North America Show, and as its honoree this year, Schaeffer committed to breaking all industry records with the amount of money raised. Schaeffer vowed to match dollar for dollar everything raised up to $2.5 million, and, sure enough, through efforts that included a special City of Hope limited lacquer collection, a raffle for an Audi A7, a hard-cover tribute book with hand-drawn illustrations by City of Hope patients, and countless other fund-raising efforts undertaken in Schaeffer’s name, more than $2.7 million was raised.
The evening’s entertainment were two separate concerts, one by Al Green and one by Aretha Franklin. It was a rocking fun evening. Everyone danced and sang along. We had the entire NAILS crew there (including Ed Bobit, our founder, and Ty Bobit, our president) to enjoy and celebrate Schaeffer’s great accomplishment.
But, as many of you who’ve followed Schaeffer’s illustrious career over the years know, he’s always got a little something extra up his sleeve. So after a meal conceived and prepared by Hubert Keller (you might recognize that name from the “Top Chef” series on Bravo), the presentation of the award, a live in-person vocal accompaniment to a tribute video by Five for Fighting’s John Ondrasik, and a $5.2 million donation to the City of Hope for diabetes research, George married his long-time girlfriend Irina Afzal. (Turns out, George actually got married officially last year, on 11/11/11 at 11:11 but this was the public celebration that he wanted to share with industry friends.)
Since most of our readers were not there to enjoy the evening with us, we hope you’ll enjoy the photos of some of the evening's highlights.
You can also click here to watch the tribute video of George we got to see at the party.
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