我第一次见到艾娃·周(Eva Chow)――“邂逅”可能是更好的词儿――是在2013年洛杉矶郡艺术馆的院子里。那是博物馆的第三次艺术与电影盛典(Art & Film Gala)。周女士在屋子里走来走去，就像食人鱼在金鱼缸里游泳。她和莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥(Leonardo DiCaprio)一起担任活动的主持。她向弗朗索瓦-昂利·皮诺(Fran漀椀猀-Henri Pinault)抛去飞吻，与简·方达(Jane Fonda)闲聊，兴奋地向埃德·拉斯查(Ed Ruscha)挥手。

　　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.

　　她穿着古驰定制的黑色直身长裙，我碰了碰她刺绣着墨玉的衣襟，向她伸出手，做了自我介绍。这位文化女王并没握住我的手，只是递给我一只香槟杯。“你能帮我拿一下吗？”不等我开口，她就说。这时摄影师们涌上来了。

　　Flash! Pop! And then she was gone.

　　闪光灯！快门！然后她就走了。

　　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.

　　在过去的23年里，周女士一直都因为同餐饮大亨周英华(Michael Chow)的婚姻而为人所知，1994年，她为了生育，放弃了自己成功的时装品牌Eva Chun。是的，周英华的连锁餐厅能够兴旺发达，她也功不可没。但当她的丈夫沐浴在聚光灯下之时，她还是更多扮演他身边的配角。

　　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.

　　这种局面现在似乎有了变化。戴眼镜的周先生已经年届77岁，目前专注于艺术，周女士还不到60岁，开始更加专注于操持他们有增无减的生意。2012年，他们在加利福尼亚州马里布海滩开了第六家店。接下来是拉斯维加斯和墨西哥城的分店。上个月，她监督指导了一款周先生独家品牌红酒的推广。

　　“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，”两星期前，周女士在自家宅邸中边喝茶边说。“迈克尔（周英华）没日没夜的画画，真的是没日没夜着迷的画。”

　　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.

　　周女士或许是洛杉矶郡艺术馆的董事会中最有名的成员。这是不小的壮举，这个53人组成的委员会包括了伊莲·韦恩(Elaine Wynn)、凯西·瓦瑟曼(Casey Wasserman)和琳达·莱斯尼克(Lynda Resnick)等人。2011年起，周女士为了给和电影有关的项目筹款，开始了一场新运动，其成果就是电影与艺术盛典，由古驰赞助，下一次活动将在11月7日举行，它被视为安娜·温图尔(Anna Wintour)大都艺术博物馆慈善舞会的西海岸翻版。

　　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.

　　有些著名的洛杉矶人抨击周女士这种巧妙露骨的风格（一篇文章说她是“喷着咄咄逼人的香水，犹如蒸汽轧路机的女人”），但是，就连不喜欢她的人也同意，她或许是这个城市最顶尖的女主人。去年，她在家中装点着孟加锡黑檀的图书室里招待了奥巴马总统和坎耶·韦斯特(Kanye West)——而且是同时。“她主办全洛杉矶最豪华的派对，”时尚摄影师伊内·范·兰姆斯维尔德(Inez van Lamsweerde)和维诺德·马塔丁(Vinoodh Matadin)在电子邮件中写道。

　　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.

　　随着她的形象日益醒目，而下一届电影与艺术盛典又近在眼前，我就更想了解这位女神的更多事情。于是洛杉矶郡艺术馆就帮我在10月中旬的一个下午安排了采访。“你会爱上她的，”馆长迈克尔·戈文(Michael Govan)对我说，“别去得太早，她晚睡晚起。”地点是在她位于荷尔贝山占地11600平方英尺的家中，它是按照马德里的索菲亚王后博物馆为模板修建的。

　　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.

　　我到达的时候，白色的大门开着，一个身穿商务西装的助理指挥我,把我时髦的雪佛兰马里布车子开进曲里拐弯的车道。还没等我下车，周女士——拉斯查先生在电子邮件中说她是“可爱的，一直向前冲的机器”——就猛地打开了宅邸的前门，脸上带着大大的微笑迎接我，还请我喝香槟。此时是下午两点半。

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

　　“我喜欢下午来一两杯香槟，”她说。

　　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“周宝宝”，精神十足，围绕在她身边。她带我们走过前厅，这里挂着朱利安·施纳贝尔(Julian Schnabel)和达米安·赫斯特(Damien Hirst)的油画。接下来我们穿过那个漂亮的图书室。“我们就是在这儿接待总统的，”她随意挥着手说。然后我们又走进她所谓的“金屋”，墙壁上镶着金质面板，有一扇金屏风，还有让·杜南(Jean Dunand)的金质饰物。

　　“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.”

　　“我觉得洛杉矶正在经历好时光，”我们坐下来的时候，她说（令她失望的是，我不喝香槟；于是一位侍者端上了绿茶）。“这里总是有一种很酷的能量，但现在我们正经历艺术蓬勃发展的阶段，非常令人兴奋。各种层次的创意人才愈来愈集中。”

　　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.

　　她的口气温和镇定，手拿茶杯，凝视着我的双眼，看上去和慈善舞会上哪个传奇人物一点都不一样。她穿着简单的两件套羊毛衫，黑色长裙和平底鞋，只化淡妆，没有涂指甲油。她的笑声略带嘶哑——哈，哈，哈——却很有感染力。

　　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?

　　我问的问题对她来说似乎有点突兀：20多年来,过着奢华的日子，身边密友都是影星艾尔·帕西诺(Al Pacino)、浪凡(Lanvin)创意总监阿尔伯·艾尔巴茨(Alber Elbaz)，以及艺术交易商拉里·高古轩(Larry Gagosian)这样的人，那么还有什么东西能够真正打动她吗？

　　“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.”

　　“不是说我被打动过一次以后就再也不喜欢它了，然后就去找点什么新的东西，”她说。“我喜欢这个茶杯，它就能打动我。每当我喜欢上什么东西，不管是人还是东西，我都爱的很深。”

　　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.

　　她是周英华的第三任妻子（甚至有可能是第四任，多年来，有些杂志声称周英华在20世纪60年代曾经有过一段短暂的婚姻。被要求澄清时，他答道：“我不是家庭律师，也不是会计，我觉得这无关紧要。”）她的前任包括1992年去世的名模周天娜(Tina Chow)，以及目前担任《Vogue》创意总监的格蕾丝·柯丁顿(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年从韩国移居洛杉矶，银行家父亲去世后，她在詹尼·范思哲(Gianni Versace)的派对上遇到了周英华。“我以前见过他，也非常喜欢他的餐厅，”周女士回忆，“但那次派对上，他要了我的电话号码。”

　　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.”

　　当时差不多是1991年（周英华和周天娜是1990年离婚的），艾娃那时候已经是时装界崛起的新星。刚到加利福尼亚时，她几乎不会说英语，在洛杉矶市立学院学英语，一时兴起去报名参演迪诺·德·劳伦蒂斯(Dino De Laurentiis)的电影。她没有得到那个角色，但却退学成了德·劳伦蒂斯的助手。1981年，未来的周太太与宝黛丽(Bo Derek)交上了朋友，她邀请周女士在《人猿泰山》(Tarzan,the Ape Man)中担任制片助理。

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

　　“一旦被扔下水，你就得学游泳了，”周女士说。

　　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.)

　　后来周女士觉得自己对时装比对电影更感兴趣，于是来到奥蒂斯艺术与设计学院学习，当她还是学生，还在自家公寓办公的时候，就开始给尼曼(Neiman Marcus)的买手寄自己的小批时装系列了。她的品牌Eva Chun主要是丝绸绉纱和雪纺的女装晚礼服，很快年零售额就达到了250万美元（约合如今的420万美元）。

　　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.”

　　“谁知道啊，”施纳贝尔先生说，他从两人刚开始交往时就认识他们了，还给周英华画过一幅肖像。“他们都很有激情，或许是因为他们都保持着自己的个性，同时又能分享同一种情感。”

　　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.”

　　周先生对此表示同意，但他也提到了妻子的“艺术底蕴”，他说她小时候曾经跟着两位著名韩国艺术家学画画。“艺术家做有魔力的事，她是个艺术家，”他说。他还说共同的亚洲背景也非常重要。“我们都是从我们的国家与文化当中被连根拔起的，所以一下子就有了很多共同之处。”

　　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.”

　　纪梵希的创意总监里卡多·提西(Riccardo Tisci)认识周女士已经七年了，他形容她的风格是“非常时髦，非常强烈，性感而不粗俗。”他补充说：“在她这种身份的女人里面，很少有人像她这样的灵活。她可以和你认真地讨论时尚，然后你还能和她一起做很疯狂的事情。我在洛杉矶的时候，和她一起去买家具，车里放着吵闹的音乐到处逛。”

　　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.”

　　施纳贝尔先生在巴黎接受了电话采访，他说周女士在诸多收藏家中显得卓尔不群，她总能表达“简洁、宏大、坚定的意见：她为什么喜欢这个，不喜欢那个。”他说，“她和艺术的关系并不平淡。她对艺术充满感情，谈起艺术来，就像真正的艺术家。”

　　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.”

　　我发现这是真的。在访谈中，我们谈起时尚，她喜欢提西为纪梵希设计的时装（“很酷，很女性化，但又稍微有点前卫”），她还说阿瑟丁·阿莱亚(Azzedine Ala愀 )始终是她的最爱。音乐方面，她喜欢贝多芬(Beethoven)和勃拉姆斯(Brahms)，也喜欢“平克·弗洛伊德”(Pink Floyd)和艾米·怀恩豪斯(Amy Winehouse)。她最喜欢的电影包括《落水狗》(Reservoir Dogs)和卢奇诺·维斯康蒂(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.

　　但聊起艺术的时候她显得特别开心，就算谈起她并不收藏的作品类型时也是如此——比如视频艺术。

　　“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，也欣赏这种艺术，不过我在这方面还是个老派人士，”她说。“我们喜欢家具、雕塑和绘画。我收藏瓷器和珠宝。但是在美术方面我们都非常具体明确。”

　　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.”

　　她继续说道：“艺术就像是朋友。你有很多好朋友，却没有足够的时间和他们相处。那么你还想去寻找更多朋友吗？在某种程度上，我们可能有点懒。在某种程度上，我们又非常忠实，而且真的热爱我们已经拥有的朋友们。”

　　Her iPhone started to ring.

　　这时她的iPhone手机响了起来。

　　“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.

　　“可能是我女儿，她上学太忙，根本没时间和妈妈相处，”她说着，眼珠好像转了转，迅速把电话转到了语音信箱。她的女儿，21岁的Asia Chow是哥伦比亚大学的大四学生。周女士有四个兄弟姊妹（她是居中的一个），她抱怨说，最近她在纽约呆了三天，只见了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.

　　周家还包括周英华与周天娜生的子女，周佳纳(China Chow)和马克西米兰(Maximillian)，他们全家都将出席艺术与电影盛典，下一次活动的主题是詹姆士·特勒尔(James Turrell )与《鸟人》(Birdman)的导演亚历桑德罗·G·伊纳里多(Alejandro G.Iárritu)。迪卡普里奥没有接受采访，此次他还将担任主持。晚宴一桌的价钱是10万美元，整晚个人门票是一万美元。

　　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.

　　有些和洛杉矶郡艺术馆竞争的博物馆机构光是猜想周女士在这项活动上的花费，就已经吓呆了——预算并未公开，但她似乎花钱如流水（在Mr.Chow餐厅确实要花钱如流水，在贝弗利山庄店，一份清蒸鲈鱼都要45美元）。过去四年里，活动筹到了1500万美元，这对于洛杉矶郡艺术馆来说意义重大，它正使用这笔款项来重建自己的电影计划。

　　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.

　　博物馆馆长戈文先生说，盛典的成功主要归功于参加者来自不同领域，特别是洛杉矶创意人士的社交方式的碎片化程度令人吃惊。

　　“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.”

　　“在董事会中，艾娃是那种可以轻松横跨电影界、艺术界、时尚界与音乐界的人，”戈文说。“除了她，我不知道其他人谁能做到这点。如果我们要搞一个成功的电影项目，充分把电影视为艺术，就要让整个创意群体都参与进来。她做到了。”