Gossip Central

Elaine Kaufman Memorial: The Salon and its Resaurateur Remembered

When Elaine Kaufman died last December 3, she left a city of broken hearts. For months, "Elaine’s" lingered on, a nostalgic haven for “regulars,” but many still had to admit, Elaine’s was simply not the same without Elaine. When the doors closed, finally, that simply left a stratum of the entertainment world, eh, homeless. That night, Showbiz411's Roger Friedman filmed a final night with anecdotes galore about the legendary upper East Side joint, providing, along with archival interview footage of Elaine herself, enough material to keep a memorial for her, masterfully planned by Friedman and Fred Rappaport, lively for more than its 3 ½ hour extravaganza of clips and entertainment.

Hamptons Journal: A Day at the Beach Minus the Beach

The Ross School gym was decked out as a lounge with plush sofas as “The Diva of Haiti,” Barbara Guillaume took the stage singing in jazzy Creole. The well-heeled crowd swayed enjoying quail eggs and grilled cheese washed down with fine champagne. Liev Schreiber, Fisher Stevens, and hosts Maria Bello and Mariska Hargitay shook hands and posed for photographs at this elegant fund-raiser brunch hosted by WeAdvance.org, GlobalDirt.org, and Plum Hamptons Magazine. “The Hamptons for Haiti Brunch” was dedicated to filling the enormous gap for medical aid, education, and other humanitarian causes for the people of Haiti. 

Alec Baldwin, Naughty and Nice, Museum of the Moving Image Honoree

Co-host with Anne Hathaway at the Academy Awards show in Los Angeles, James Franco picks up his cell phone, a prop for peering into the dreams of the show's prior beloved M.C., Alec Baldwin. The Inception parody is played for laughs, but those in the know were poised to honor Baldwin's career the next night, in New York, at the annual tribute gala for the Museum of the Moving Image. Could this versatile actor be in two places at once?

Ubiquitous in the Hamptons, for example, and loveably so, Baldwin lends his name and talent to many arts projects on Long Island's east end. Starring in last summer's production of Equus at Guild Hall, Baldwin was the engine for mounting the critically acclaimed production, said Tony Walton. The director, along with Richard Gere, Gay Talese, Michael Lynne, Bob Balaban, and jazz documentarian Bruce Ricker, joined the eclectic crowd at Cipriani 42nd Street for good food, clips and speakers. 

Mercedes Ruehl, Michael Keaton, Tim Curry, Ben Stiller, Jimmy Fallon, Edie Falco, and Tina Fey spoke about working with Alec, commenting on his professionalism and comic timing. Ruehl who worked with him in Married to the Mob (1988), emphasized his political commitment, cautioning on conflicts in campaign financing. He turned out to be right, she said of her fellow activist. Fey revealed, the role of Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock was written for him: “Alec is a writer's dream,” she noted. “He speaks fast.” 
The night-which was also a farewell dinner for Rochelle Slovin, the Museum's director for 30 years-- would not have been complete without a clip of that unforgettable moment from It's Complicated, with Alec's leap, naked, onto the bed, his privates covered by a laptop, and Steve Martin's reaction shot as he sees his rival for Meryl Streep on Skype. Noticeably absent though was the SNL skit, Alec with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, and eh, Sarah Palin.

Alec Baldwin does seem to be everywhere, but as Patricia Clarkson put it, “You want him everywhere.”

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

 

Elaine Kaufman Remembered

Back in the day when writers were king, Elaine's was the place for book parties. That's how I first came there, to celebrate new publications by George Plimpton, Kurt Vonnegut. Bunches of us cabbed over from director Robert Altman's memorial service at Radio City Music Hall, to hang out and reminisce with his widow Kathryn, with actors who all cherished the memory of working with him, Lily Tomlin and Marisa Berenson among them. Everybody loves Elaine's (to echo the title of a book about her legendary restaurant) for these memories of a bygone era, now officially marked by Elaine Kaufman's passing.

More recently, Patrick McMullan had a gathering there with all the tables pushed aside and banquettes set up for lounging. The downtown Warholians came uptown to Elaine's. Bobby Zarem entertained clients there and I remember stopping by the table chatting with James Franco at a time when he was offered the script of On the Road, in a previous incarnation, before the project went to Walter Salles to direct. One night I snapped a shot of Elaine with Michele Lee showing off a ring, a gift from Elaine. The place was as important for industry updates, as it was home to Elaine's friends. 

On a random night, Elaine would be there, a grand pasha.  She loved my pal Roger Friedman who always had his birthday there, and she would send over a special cake, a special bottle of bubbly. Or course she was generous, but most memorable was her rancor. Seeing stragglers work the room, she would caution them against sitting unless dinner was ordered at once. I'm told she could be violent, expelling offenders to Second Avenue, but I never saw her that way.

For me, the bark was worse than the bite. She pegged me with her owl eyes to make sure I knew the score. She cautioned me against toasting with a glass of water. That's bad luck, she instructed. The glass had to contain something intoxicating, some brew. And one night I made the mistake of asking her what was good. The veal chop she said without missing a beat-insisting upon the most expensive item on that night's menu, one that would ensure its place around a person's heart when eaten before bedtime. Insulting her, I ordered “Dani's salad” an antipasto salad I named for a French journalist who used to ask it: fresh arugula, cheese and salami, a meal that I thought would be less heavy for 'round midnight. Winking, the waiter knew exactly what I wanted. I wish I had ordered the veal chop. Even as she scolded me, there was always a friendly edge. While the food could be merely okay, the nourishment was always great.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

 

Roman Polanski's Stew

At the center of Daniele Thompson's delightful comedy of manners, Change of Plans, a hit at the 2009 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, to open theatrically later this summer, is a dinner attended annually on June 21, on World Music Day, by the same --more or less-- collection of characters. On Tuesday, after IFC's special screening, Thompson's longtime friend Diane von Furstenberg and husband Barry Diller hosted a dinner at DVF's studio in the Meatpacking district. “I am so happy she offered. Diane makes these wonderful dinners,” said Thompson interviewed earlier that day. Fortunately, the menu did not include the “bigos,” of the film, an old time Polish recipe credited to Roman Polanski.

     

“Every people has this kind of stew,” said Thompson. “The kind of dish where you throw everything in: leftovers, meat, cabbage, and so on. Roman Polanski, who is a friend, made it for me.” In Change of Plans, the husband who is Polish, busily prepares this signature dish.  Thompson's son Christopher who acts in this ensemble piece and also co-wrote the script with his mother said that Polanski's wife, the actress Emmanuelle Seigner who plays Sarah, kept complaining on the set: “Roman's tastes so much better.”

     

And how is he doing? People think it is so easy to be confined in a Swiss ski house, but really, he cannot go out to have a cup of coffee. He is suffering, said Christopher. In the meantime, in New York, Stephen Sondheim, Fran Lebowitz, Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein, Ann Dexter-Jones, Frederic Tuten, and many others supped on two kinds of pasta, two kinds of salad, and desserts by the sublime Sant Ambroeus.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Hung at Sardi's: Daryl Roth

To be enshrined at Sardi's, the famed West 44 Street restaurant in the heart of the theater district with its trademark caricatures of thespians and drama queens is such an honor, one actress I know sups proudly at the table beneath her portrait in the first floor dining room. Last Wednesday, a new face was added, that of Daryl Roth, producer of so many hits, Proof, Wit, The Year of Magical Thinking, and Curtains among them, the theater world congregated for this tribute could not believe it took so long.

But Daryl Roth took another view: This is the right time, she said, in between photo ops with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, the current cast of Love, Loss and What I Wore: Michele Lee, Debra Monk, Katie Finneran Tracee Ellis Ross, Casey Wilson while Carol Kane, Bob Balaban, Karen Ziemba, Michael Lynne, Tovah Feldshuh, and many others looked on. I was feeling old, she laughed.

Charles Busch and David Hyde Pierce attested to Roth's vital contribution to theater and her nurturing role in their careers. Jordan Roth, president of Jujamcyn Theaters was pleased for his mom, “the person and the picture,” he quipped, noting, “She works as only a mother can, creating a family of each production.

Meanwhile, a new Roth “family” was auditioning a few blocks away. “The Pride,” a recent hit in London by Alexi Kaye Campbell will have its U. S. premiere at the MCC Theater. Directed by Joe Mantello, the play about sexual identity and politics in parallel periods, 1958 and 2008, features a triangle: British actress Andrea Riseborough, Ben Whishaw of Jane Campion's Bright Star and Hugh Dancy, who performed in the Broadway production of Journey's End, and was so dashing as the Earl of Essex on HBO to Helen Mirren's Elizabeth the First

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Eric Schlosser's Naked Lunch: Food, Inc.

You are what you eat, is the simple way to say it. The writer William S. Burroughs called his iconic examination of literally what is at the end of your fork “the naked lunch.” As a student of anthropology, Burroughs was referring to addiction as an aspect of science, as in the human organism's need for air. Try to live without it. You can extend the metaphor to the food we eat. “Food, Inc.” a new documentary directed by Robert Kenner opening this Friday, explores the food industry, how our current situation with something so vital to the human organism, our food, is now a nightmare of corporate control with the dire results of increased e-coli contamination leading to disease and death, genetically altered meat and poultry sources.  Produce like the tomato, now available year-round, is practically a virtual entity. Food, Inc. tells the truth about a business that conceals its methods of mechanizing the production and sale of food, and to become really paranoid, has endangered the human species by fostering a brutal spiral from seed to supermarket. Here is why so many Americans are obese and one out of three children has early diabetes. While we have the illusion of inexpensive food, says journalist Eric Schlosser, who is executive producer and is interviewed in the film extending his ideas developed in “Fast Food Nation,” what about the costs later on, putting all those people on dialysis. Schlosser was on hand for a special screening at Soho House hosted by Coralie Charriol Paul inaugurating her new series React to Film. Daughter of the famous watchmaker, she is a jewelry designer and more importantly a mom highly concerned with how we feed our families. After attending an early screening of this provocative film, she created her series to show documentaries, to focus on issue-based films and moderate discussion between audiences and filmmakers. Said Schlosser in the Q&A attended by actor Samantha Mathis, documentary filmmakers Robert Richter and Robin Leacock, we have the opportunity to make a change: every time we shop, we vote. Buy organic. Lobby for greater food safety measures in government. Implement Kevin's Law, named for a two-year old who died in less than two weeks after eating a contaminated hamburger. Demand proper labeling in food packaging as in the tobacco industry model. If you had the warnings that appear on cigarette cartons, that use of this product could endanger your health, would you buy it?

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

The Hunger at the Waverly Inn

Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter with his ski slope sculpted white hair and Ecco Press's Daviel Halperrn in a halo of white frizz hosted a party for chef John De Lucie's “The Hunger,” at The Waverly Inn on Monday night. This book records his rise from low management head hunter, to cooking school, working through the kitchens and women of New York-with a detour to Nick & Toni's and Oceans in the Hamptons-- to become co-owner of the hottest restaurant in the city. Adding to its allure, The Waverly Inn operates through a secret system of reservations. Packed every night, the restaurant has no phone, a fact that astonishes De Lucie even as he tries to explain this phenomenon. His rake's progress takes the reader into the behind the scenes grit of resto life as he finds his passion, with De Lucie's surprising self effacing humor, his bewilderment at diners like “Jenny from the block” and the “taxi driver” lauding his signature dishes like the mac and cheese with truffles and chicken pot pie. On Monday night, the diverse crowd chomping on hors d'oeuvres of filet mignon, jumbo shrimp cocktail, tuna tartare, and truffled pizza included Marty Richards, Harvey Weinstein, Jill Hennessey, and John Scotto of Fresco in a moment of one happy restaurateur celebrating another. A number of leggy celebrity models made it past the invisible velvet ropes. The real secret of The Waverly Inn is like the appeal of “The Hunger.” What it offers, you cannot put down. 

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura