Patti LuPone. Born in New York, home in Connecticut, living in South Carolina. Eva Perón of “Evita” in nowheresville? Why? What’s she doing there?
“Living. Breathing. I love Barrier Island. My husband had enough of 14 hours nonstop wintertime straight snow shoveling. We found this beach property right on the ocean.”
About nearby homes washed away in tornadoes, she said: “Yes, we know about that. We call this place Lake Atlantic. But we still have our Connecticut house. My son’s in college in Ithaca. My husband and two dogs are here. There’s no pressure. I can sleep down here. And work on whatever I’m doing.
“My husband’s from Indiana. He’s always been landlocked so he loves this. No distractions. Nothing’s here. There’s one Piggly Wiggly and a pizza place.”
Desperately containing my envy, I asked about her November opening at the Barrymore with Mandy Patinkin.
“A presenter had an idea to team us. He got Mandy then came to me. It’s ‘An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.’ He solos and I solo. Then a scene where a universal couple comes together then breaks up. We’re both onstage all the time. Important is that we know one another. Loving each other offstage we can trust each other onstage.
“We’re now doing a week in Kansas City. We’ve played it on and off around the world for years then dropped it for years when we had other commitments. No difference in out-of-town appreciation. Audiences love it. If it’s good, it’s good.”
But why only a two-month engagement? Might it stay longer?
“Listen, I’m not the producer. I don’t make the rules. Nothing’s set in stone.”
And then this big-time award-winning stage star went off for a big-time award-winning five-star dinner at Piggly Wiggly.
JUSTIN Timberlake plays Neil Bogart (who produced Donna Summer and Kiss albums) in “Spinning Gold.” Bogart left us at 39. Son Tim’s the scriptwriter … Letting you know Sel et Poivre, 64/65 and Lex, elegant but homey French food, owned by mama Noma, daughter Pam and husband Christian is my favorite neighborhood restaurant. Even if you could spot Laurence Luckinbill in a subway rush hour, you can’t now. He’s in a biblical size beard to play Abraham in “My Week in Bibleland.”
BOOKS. Nobody can afford to buy a book, bookstores are closing yet everyone’s writing a memoir.
Like: “This Is a Call: The Life and Times of Dave Grohl.” Nirvana’s drummer and Foo Fighters frontman tells of feuds, dark days and Kurt Cobain’s “putrifying detritus.” Kitchen “filthy, covered in mould, littered with half-eaten corn dogs, beer cans and take-away food. Bedroom painted black. Living room foul-smelling.” Plus a “Turtle aquarium.” Not something Vogue might excerpt.
Plus “Bright Young Royals: Your Guide to the Next Generation of Blue Bloods.” Besides Kate, Wills, Harry and Monaco’s Serene Importantness Albert, there’s stuff on such as Her Royal Highness Princess Florence Von Preussen, whose daddy, descended from Queen Victoria and the German kaiser, is Prince Nicholas of Russia. For Christmas, I’m buying this for my super.
Plus coffee-table-size “House of Cash: The Life, Legacy, and Archives of the Man in Black.” Johnny Cash’s son John relates daddy’s hardscrabble Arkansas beginnings, how FDR’s New Deal granted his family farm land. The usual drug and alcohol addiction, Betty Ford rehab, first marriage falling apart, idiosyncrasies like creative frying techniques. For $39.95 you also get 10 removable facsimile documents.
Plus Knopf’s “Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York, and Points Beyond.” Next month Town and Country Ed-in-Chief Jay Fielden is partying Michael Lindsay-Hogg. When he was 16 this three-named author’s mom, movie star Geraldine Fitzgerald, mentioned little Michael’s daddy might have been Orson Welles. It’s descriptive tasty bits of life among the glitz.
GEORGE Hamilton: “Woody Allen’s sort of like an alien. Scary is you don’t know if you might be fired right off the set. I was in one of his films, and he’s almost like a mobster I met who put his gun down and said: ‘Know why I’m so powerful? I have six bullets. If I fire one, I’m no longer so powerful.’ ”
TWO ladies. One: “Enough already with new foods you can eat, can’t eat, bad for you, good for you. I don’t care what. I love carbs and fattening stuff. I’m looking for someone to cross a potato with a sponge.” Second one: “That’ll taste terrible.” First one: “Yeah, but it’ll hold gravy.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.