So bumping into Cynthia Nixon I say, “I hear we’re doing an interview.” She says, “I know nothing about it. For what?” I say, “I don’t know, either. But that’s what I heard.” She says: “OK. I just don’t know why.” We, both being brilliant, just stared at one another.
Turns out tomorrow she’s doing Thornton Wilder’s “The Long Christmas Dinner,” a one-nighter at the Public Theater “because my mother took me to see it, her favorite play, years ago and I just lost her. Also my 17-year-old high school daughter, who did ‘Hamlet’ last year, is in it playing my daughter.”
Once that got all settled, we started on her blond hair, which she’d lopped off, going stone bald for her cancer victim role in last year’s play “Wit.”
“I’m hacking it all off again because I’ll be shooting ‘James White,’ a film about the same disease. There seems lots of that sickness in the world. But this time I’m not shaving it. I’ll do three wigs. Long hair, short, very short.”
And how did she get to be such a vocal de Blasio supporter?
“I’m civic minded. I’m a New Yorker. My three kids attend public school. I have a vested interest. I know Bill 10 years. We met when I went to a protest fighting budget cutbacks. He helped us strategize. He was always by our side.”
NY-1 to improve
Time Warner taking time to appreciate its A-No. 1 local TV, NY-1. Redoing the set, anchor desks, cameras, lighting. Looked to me like its new news operation should operate before Christmas . . . A Bushload — young Bushes, old Bushes, grandkid Bushes, in-law Bushes — will descend on their usual Florida holiday hideaway, Boca Grande’s high-class Gasparilla Inn. They’re friends of the DuPont owners.
Fifth a charm
T. Boone Pickens. Texas oil and gas billionaire. 85. Four wives. The last one lasted, give or take a divorce lawyer, seven years. He then said, “No more.” He obviously has, besides gas, lots of major oil and natural juice because he’s now grabbed a fifth Mrs. Pickens. Congratulations. May she and her prenup live happily ever after . . . Excuuuuse me, but did anyone think if the Yankees really wanted Cano — but really really really wanted Cano — they wouldn’t have gotten him?
Odds & ends
George Pataki, eating like he’s running again, at Les Halles . . . B’way’s Hall of Fame to induct Ellen Burstyn, Cherry Jones, Lorraine Hansberry, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Lynne Meadow, Jerry Zaks . . . Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Center (rfkauction.com) offers “intimate meals” with Sarah Jessica, Lorraine Bracco, Martin Sheen, Catherine Keener, David Arquette, “tete-a-tetes” with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jared Leto, Julianna Margulies, Ken Burns, Jon Stewart, a Kennedy compound visit, a chance to pitch your work to director Joel Schumacher.
Woman hurt by stranger
Reported lately is a horrifying so-called new game now in play. It’s harming innocents. For fun. Just for the sport of it. Vanessa Vreeland. The late Diana Vreeland’s daughter-in-law. Former ambassador to Morocco Frederick Vreeland’s wife. Mom to Alexander Vreeland, who’s doing a book on grandma. Walking near Macy’s late afternoon. An unseen total stranger deliberately stuck his foot out, rammed Vanessa to the sidewalk, and disappeared. She was sped to Columbia Presbyterian with a concussion and has just been released.
Blessings aplenty
Thanks to a kennelful who made my NY Post-sponsored Blessing of the Animals so terrific: NY Post promotions manager Emily Ershowsky, Best Friends development manager Hillary Hutchens and NY rep Jamie Rubin, Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine assistant dean Kevin Mahaney, the Levines from the Yankees, the Wilpons from the Mets, Christ Church’s Roseann DeGennaro, Robert Zimmerman and his crackerjack Donna, who volunteered p.r., shelter animals, farm animals, Ray Kelly for sending police horses and police dogs for blessings, Patrick Connolly and his St. Raymond’s choir, minister Stephen Bauman, Rabbi Peter Rubinstein — and, after a nap and some treats, my Jazzy and Juicy.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.