The list of celebrities at the Oct. 4 charity bash for amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, was so bright and shiny it took a while to notice Teri Hatcher, former star of Desperate Housewives, would be hosting. A performance by Diana Ross! An award for Landman powerhouse Taylor Sheridan! My eyes kept drifting to Nicole Kidman. The Nicole Kidman? In Dallas? Less than a week after filing for divorce from Keith Urban? I’ll believe it when I see it.
“I think Nicole is gonna cancel,” I told my editor, and the photographer, and then random people when I dropped her name, because such pull-outs are common. But if anyone could drag the Aussie queen to a charity event in North Texas only days after her split hit the tabloids, it would be amfAR.
Co-founded 40 years ago by Elizabeth Taylor, amfAR has been throwing star-studded fundraisers in Dallas for a quarter century. The foundation joined forces with the Dallas Museum of Art to create Two x Two, held at a modernist gem off Northwest Highway called the Rachofsky House, transformed each fall for an epic party. Two x Two closed up shop last year, so this was the first time amfAR was hosting the gala elsewhere, in this case the Preston Hollow estate of Kathleen and Scott Kirby.
That’s just their back house
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I took a shuttle from Ursuline Academy to a stately red-brick house whose sidewalk was flanked by Texas Rangers in cowboy hats, a very Taylor Sheridan touch. I headed down a pathway lined with magnolias that opened onto an outdoor set that looked forklifted from Sunset Boulevard. A red carpet behind a velvet rope, and to my right, a glitzy elevated stage, also red, with chic white couches and a centerpiece bar, all courtesy Todd Fiscus of Todd Events, whose years with Two x Two established him as the best party-thrower in town.
North Texas is a bit tipsy for Hollywood, and who could blame us? They’re so glamorous; we’re so sports-and-khakis. But Dallas does have a fair number of bold-faced names. Host Scott Kirby is the CEO of United Airlines, a kid from Rowlett who’s done well for himself. The two-story structure I mistook for the Kirbys’ home is actually a back house; they live on Strait Lane. This two-acre property, normally used for basketball and soccer, is technically their backyard.
Guests mingle during the amfAR Foundation for AIDS research gala at the home of Kathleen and Scott Kirby in Dallas, Texas, on Oct. 4, 2025.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
‘Who shot J.R.?’
The red carpet started at 6:30 p.m., and it was a long parade of people I’d never seen, people who might have been social media influencers, or might have been rich, or might have been none of these, just well-heeled attendees.
Teri Hatcher was our first celebrity, wearing a snug navy gown with crystals dripping down the shoulders. She smiled, she smoldered, as the cameras clicked. Then came Charlotte Jones, whose family was receiving a philanthropy leadership award, though her famous father, Cowboys owner Jerry, was nowhere in sight.
Charlotte Jones (second from right) navigates the red carpet along with members of her family at an amfAR event in Preston Hollow on Oct. 4, 2025.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
Red carpet interviews might be the most awkward celebrity interactions possible; I’d have better luck ambushing these folks in line at Trader Joe’s. My stunt was to pull them aside and ask two questions: What’s your favorite Taylor Sheridan show, and (an oldie but a goodie) who shot J.R.?
“Oh my gosh, do I have to list one?” said Charlotte, when I asked about Sheridan. She was poised in a way her husband, AT&T senior vice president Amir Rozwadowski, seemed to enjoy watching from afar. “Maybe Landman, because I know someone who did a cameo on that, and he was pretty good.” Indeed, her father Jerry’s monologue last season was so gripping I had to wonder if he’d missed his calling as an actor.
People from Weatherford didn’t used to look like this: “Landman” auteur Taylor Sheridan and his wife, Nicole Muirbrook, at an amfAR event in Dallas, Texas, on Oct. 4, 2025.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
Taylor Sheridan came next, scowling like a prizefighter as he posed with his wife, though he whisked off before I could ask his favorite Taylor Sheridan show, and I was bummed, since he was probably the only one who might know who shot J.R.
“You gotta go with the original, Yellowstone,” said Jason Kidd, Dallas Mavericks coach, as he stood with his wife, Porschla, who looked every inch a former model in her sleek chin-length bob and silvery gray gown. “He’s as good as they come,” he said of Sheridan.
Kidd wasn’t sure who shot J.R., though he took the question seriously. “Had to be someone in the family,” he said, as though solving a riddle that hadn’t been revealed 45 years ago. When I told him it was Kristin, J.R.’s mistress, his eyes went wide. “Is that considered family?” We agreed it was close enough.
Dirk Nowitzki’s quickest interview ever
From left: Dirk Nowitzki, his wife, Jessica Olsson, Jason Kidd, his wife, Porschla.
Ryan Emberley / courtesy amFAR
Night had fallen by the time Dirk Nowitzki appeared, and camera flashes crackled like a lightning storm. When I tugged him aside, I felt like a child staring up at a giant oak. I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed anyone so tall.
“I gotta pass,” he said on the question about Sheridan’s best show, which did not bode well for my second question.
“You’re gonna nail this,” I told him, and he nodded, game face on. “Who shot J.R.?”
It’s worth pointing out that the man who transformed the Dallas Mavericks was born in 1978, the year Dallas hit the airwaves. He grew up in Würzburg, Germany, so yeah, DraftKings would not be taking this bet.
“Pass twice,” he said, and his face cracked open into a big goofy grin. “That was the quickest interview I’ve ever done!”
Open your hearts, then your wallets
The bar was busy for the cocktail hour. Bartenders slung skinny margaritas and martinis, as servers wandered the elevated stage with tiny bites of salmon and smoky blue cheese with fig. DJ RomiQ looked like a glam alien, rocking out to her beats with a sparkly mesh net over her face.
DJ RomiQ keeps the music going during cocktail hour at an amfAR event in Dallas, Texas, on Oct. 4, 2025.
Jason Janik / Special Contributor
It was 8 p.m. when the crowd of 400 got corralled toward a big tent for dinner, though “tent” feels like an undersell, since it was enormous and lit by red neon with a stage framed by silver disco panels. The Bee Gees’ “More Than a Woman” was playing as I took my seat beside a woman from Aspen who had to read the menu to me, because the font was so tiny and the lights were so low.
“Roasted baby cauliflower salad with butternut squash and pomegranate and dates,” she summarized. It was good!
A crowd of approximately 400 people at dinner at an outdoor tent decked out by Todd Fiscus’ company, Todd Events.
Ryan Emberley / courtesy amFAR
The seated portion of a gala is nothing to write home about, though I’ll mention a few data points. Dallas has raised $65 million for amfAR, which has awarded grants to 3,800 teams of researchers. There are 20,000 people in North Texas living with HIV, a number that will grow by a thousand in a year, so while AIDS is no longer the death sentence it seemed 40 years ago, it’s a serious challenge.
“You have opened your hearts,” Teri Hatcher told us, launching the show from the podium, “and now it will be time to open your wallets.”
Teri Hatcher, host.
Ryan Emberley / courtesy amFAR
Let me fast-forward: Dirk took the stage, leaning low to reach the microphone. He gave an award to the Jones family, whose philanthropy includes the Gene and Jerry Jones Family Hope Lodge at Baylor hospital, providing housing for people getting cancer treatment.
“We love you, Dirk!” yelled someone in the audience, as a video launched. A third-generation string of young women accepted the award, looking like a sorority. Jessica Donnell, daughter of Jerry’s eldest, Stephen, gave a speech as her uncle Jerry Jr. and aunt Charlotte looked on from their table near the front of the stage.
Next came the auction, run by a dashing Brit named Michael Macaulay, formerly of Sotheby’s. Three nights in a private villa on the Mexican Caribbean, sold for $40K. A contemporary painting by Karen Gunderson, sold for $35K. A cowboy on horseback chasing a plane by fine-art photographer David Yarrow, sold for $65K.
The gala paused for the main course, as well-choreographed servers in chef’s whites ferried plates to 400 guests. It was sea bass with plump shrimp, calamari and mussels in a lemon-ginger broth. “Bold!” said the woman from Aspen, because she planned galas on occasion, and shellfish was a gamble.
It’s 9 p.m. Do you know where Nicole Kidman is?
My phone said 9:44 p.m., and Nicole Kidman had yet to show. Maybe she’d do one of those video presentations, where they project her on the big screen and act like ooh, she made an appearance. I’d seen worse.
I got bored enough to start wandering the property outside, which was fun to examine with nobody around. The DJ booth was like a glittering disco ball, shimmering under a gibbous moon, and I was recording this on my phone when I heard an announcer say a familiar name. Oh, no. She’s actually here?
I scrambled toward the tent with the other stragglers, as the Aussie’s smooth voice drifted over the sound speaker. I burst into the tent to find half the audience recording on their phones, as Kidman stood, elegant and seeming a bit shy, at the podium in a simple black gown.
Taylor Sheridan, left, with Nicole Kidman
Ryan Emberley / courtesy amFAR
“I think what Taylor recognizes, as we all do, is that we are all more alike than we are different,” she said, reading from a piece of paper in her hand, “and that we’re better when we look out for each other.”
Kidman is one of the biggest names in Special Ops: Lioness, a Sheridan show about female undercover CIA agents. The show also stars Zoe Saldana and Morgan Freeman, so whatever you think of Sheridan, he gets A-list talent. Harrison Ford, Billy Bob Thornton, Helen Mirren, Sylvester Stallone.
Sheridan was getting an award for inspiration, and he took the stage, leaning casually against the podium as he spoke without a script. “I never intentionally sought out to make a difference,” he said, in a gravelly voice that sounded like it’s seen a million cigars. “I’m a storyteller at the end of the day. I’m pretty shocked I’m not in jail,” he said, to laughter.
Sheridan went to Fort Worth’s Paschal High School and ditched college before heading to the coastal cities to make it big. He came back, though, and lives with his wife in Weatherford. He’s built an unlikely TV empire in North Texas, a place that hasn’t seen this much razzle dazzle since the days of Dallas, a soap opera written by LA scribes who probably should have set the series in Houston, but Sheridan is of this place. When wildfires tore through the Panhandle last year, he raised $1.5 million for relief.
He wrapped up like the optimistic cowboy he is. “Hopefully one day HIV will be eradicated, and amfAR has to change its name and find another disease to go attack.”
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The kid from Cowtown gets the mic again
Sheridan took his seat to a standing ovation, but he wasn’t done. The second part of the auction got cranking, and the British auctioneer roped Sheridan into helping sell an item not listed in the program: a visit to the set of Landman.
“You’re giving the kid from Cowtown the microphone again?” Sheridan joked, standing up at the head of his long table. “After the speech, I started drinking.”
He looked more at home in the crowd than onstage, playfully imitating the dibbety-dabbety rodeo auctioneer’s voice, and I was reminded this kid from Cowtown wanted to be an actor. It was only through frustration that he started writing scripts, including Hell or High Water, one of the great modern Westerns. Hollywood is littered with sad stories, but his is inspirational: not finding your place, so creating your own.
The bid for the Landman visit was creeping up, from $300,000 to $350,000. Pretty young adults with red lasers raised their light with each new bid. Sheridan kept sweetening the pot. How about dinner at Cattlemen’s, his Fort Worth steak house, with Billy Bob and the cast? OK, what if he threw in a dinner with the cast of Lioness?
Two parties were bidding against each other when Sheridan made a final offer: $500K from each, and he’d give it to them both. Sold! Another standing ovation, and by the end of the night, amfAR raised $3.1 million.
‘Stop in the Name of Love’
The evening’s finale was a live set by Diana Ross, who took the stage to her disco anthem “I’m Coming Out.” Ross is 81, and this might have been the shortest performance I’ve ever seen, but who could blame her?
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The diva sauntered on stage in drapey silver lame with chandelier earrings, dark curls in a wind-blown spray. Was she lip-syncing? Did anyone care? The audience was on its feet and singing along to (somewhat condensed) Supremes classics like “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Come See About Me.”
I had to push through the throng to film on my iPhone, ducking around cowboy hats and tall men, so by the time I was close enough to get a view, I was unexpectedly standing next to Sheridan’s wife, the model and actress Nicole Muirbrook.
His arm was resting across her shoulders, and then her waist. “Stop in the Name of Love” came near the end, and when Ross hit that familiar chorus — “Stop!” — hands went up all around me, like we’d joined her backing band. Sheridan’s hand stayed on his wife. This guy was too cool to pantomime a pop song, I suppose, though he was not too cool to sway back and forth with her, the two of them looking, for a moment, like another happy couple in the crowd.
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