We speak now of Saturday’s annual White House Correspondents Association black-tie hot-shot hoo-hah dinner in Washington, DC. We speak now that Place Settings One and Two were not Him and Her Obama on the dais. Nor Robert Pattinson’s nor emcee Jimmy Kimmel’s.
Triple-A four-star seating was John Coale’s. His was last year’s biggest table because he brought Sarah Palin. His was this year’s biggest table because he brought Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan, who, trust me, upped sitting next to Anna Paquin or the riveting Bobby Jindal.
So what’s a John Coale? Retired lawyer who made heavy money on those tobacco cases and was with his longtime wife, Fox-TV’s Greta Van Susteren, and writer/restaurateur friend Elaine Lafferty, who blew her Old Mill Inn opening in the Hamptons to attend.
Kardashian and mummy Kris Jenner did red wine. Lindsay, whose plus-one was her lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley, drank water. KK and LL, friends, stuck to each other. Did the red carpet together. Kardashian, cool, serious, business-like. Lindsay, fragile; almost claustrophobic, anxiety with the crowd. Jessica Alba canceled when hearing she’d be seated with Miss Lohan.
Lindsay disappeared a few times into the john. For a cigarette. Said she doesn’t usually smoke but is boning up on it to prep for her Elizabeth Taylor role. In the ladies room an elderly Hispanic named Bianca was cleaning the stalls. Tearing up, the front-paged blond actress felon said: “You’re too old to be doing this.”
She reached into her purse, crumpled a $100 bill in her hand and gave it to the attendant, who, backing away, said, “No, no, no.” Lindsay Lohan pushed the money at her with: “You’re too old to be doing this kind of work.” Bianca finally took it.
After the evening Kardashian and Lohan returned to their hotels. Neither hit any of those many multi-after-parties that, even now, are probably still going on.
RYAN O’Neal is among us. Tonight, 7, Barnes & Noble, 82nd and B’way; tomorrow, 7 p.m., Book Revue in Huntington, LI. Personal appearances, signings, chats, autographs, smiles, Q’s and A’s on his juicy gossipy memoir “Both of Us: My Life With Farrah.”
HAVING written, rewritten, revived and starred in shows that became movies, Harvey Fierstein’s wooly voice isn’t singing: “If I Were a Rich Man.” His latest B’way production is at the Nederlander. He explained how “Newsies” came about:
“At Alan Menken’s house he said, ‘Let’s do something together.’ I suggested ‘Newsies,’ which came to my head years ago. Its old movie and video was so good that the energy of those boys found an audience. It’s a requested title for camps and schools. My nephew loved it.
“Menken said, ‘It’ll never work.’ I said, ‘Doesn’t cost anything. Stop telling me it won’t work. Let me make it work.’ Set in 1899, kids living in factories before child welfare laws. I thought of all angles. Their struggles. A new century. About the very bright self-made Pulitzer. I saw a message here. I researched the period.
“We tested it in New Jersey. Audiences loved it. The movie had five songs. We have 12. Kenny Ortega, who did Michael Jackson’s dance numbers, was our choreographer. And six months later we had a show.”
Harvey speaks two languages. He says things like: “Writing a play you put down everything you know. Hard to stay in the emotional moment. You get ‘fadrait’ (which is Yiddish for ‘crazy in the head’).
“I came into theater in ’71. I’m now writing four shows. Like ‘Kinky Boots,’ which has a transvestite who turns out to be a boxer and Cyndi Lauper’s written a rich score. Like ‘Newsies,’ I’m not in either one. I can’t write and act at the same time. Plus ‘A Girl’s Night Out,’ a play I’m making into a musical.
“My Connecticut house was born a hayloft. I sit at the computer and retype all from top to bottom on a third or fourth draft, Retyping from scratch forces you to rethink everything. As a kid I wanted to be a playwright but I couldn’t spell. Now I learned people get $2 an hour to fix my spelling.”
Harvey, let’s discuss your voice.
“I do warm-ups. Exercises. Steam with hot water. Cyndi gave me a Chinese recipe of white flower and oil. I try to get rest. And, listen, it is what it is.”
THE opera. High-class big-time social couple dressed to the eyeballs. The man can’t stand without help. Explaining to the nearby patron, his wife says: “He just had a hip operation.” Patron: “Don’t apologize. I just had knee and hip replacement.” Sighs the wife: “Times have changed. We used to talk about t – – s and ass.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.