Celebrity News

Hyde in a sort of Jekyll role

In the new movie “The Perfect Host,” David Hyde Pierce plays a lunatic who lives with imaginary friends and kills strangers. Not exactly a musical. Explains DHP:

“My character’s Warwick Wilson. He’s having a dinner party, which an escaped armed bank robber interrupts by talking his way into my house.

“Y’know, I love acting. I love this business. For the money I made on ‘Frasier,’ I’ll always be grateful. But my eagerness to work is not for gratitude. I was happy as a starving actor.”

Did Kelsey Grammer‘s “Frasier” make him well-off?

“Our 11-year TV run makes you rich. We were last of the big money deals. With today’s cable channels, nobody will see that again. And we filmed two blocks from my house in LA, so I walked to work. But there’s not that huge amount of residuals. The producers get that. So does it mean I’ll never have to work again? Kelsey was a producer of the show. So Kelsey says about himself: ‘It means I’ll never have to work again.’

“Listen, picking a different medium is because you need to be creative. Challenge yourself. I’d done theater but not musicals, which is why I then did Broadway’s ‘Curtains’ and ‘Spamalot.’ Next I’m going to direct.

“I started out as a paralegal in a temporary agency and was involved many years on one case. In the middle of it came an audition for my first job, ‘Beyond Therapy.’ I still have my legal yellow pad I took along to write down the audition material. Afterwards I went right back to that law firm.

“The fall of ’81 I was temporary December help in the Bloomingdale’s tie department. People are desperate at Christmas. A tie is their last-resort gift, and I’m terrible at selling. I didn’t want to tell them to buy that tie.”

And why his three names?

“I did not come out of the womb with the name ‘Hyde.’ It was my middle name from my dad’s side of the family. His mom’s maiden name. So when our film union said there was already a David Pierce, I added the name Hyde.”

“The Perfect Host” is out July 1.

COMING up is our nation’s birthday. Anyone know Washington’s mother told him: “Kid, throw more money across the Potomac, and you blow your allowance.” And Lincoln’s mom: “Enough with that stupid stovepipe hat. Wear a baseball cap like everybody else.” From Paul Revere’s ma, Shirley: “If not for me, you’d have taken up ballet instead of horseback riding.”

KELLAN Lutz doing a clothing line . . . NYU’s Dep’t of Radiology billing comes from Boston . . . Last week brought an announcement for an evening with Carrie Fisher. In November! . . . July 11 premieres Syfy Channel guy’s new sci-fi comic play “Mad Mel and the Marradians.” And what’s it about, you ask? About ancient aliens returning to Earth. In pearls. OK?

WARD Morehouse III of Black Tie Magazine finishing a book on his father, the late New York Sun’s late drama critic. Daddy’s pals were Cohan, Winchell, Cagney, Hepburn, Noel Coward and a live bear housed in his Plaza hotel suite . . . Don’t knock Burger King prices. Their ad budget is $300 mil . . . HRH the Earl of Wessex (a k a Queen Elizabeth‘s kid Edward), who once ran Ardent Productions and seems to be out of whatever work he’s out of, is gearing up to produce TV documentaries.

MANY complaints coming dealing with Zsa Zsa Gabor‘s life. Her hos pital telephone was ordered shut by her caretaker husband. Friends called the floor nurse to temporarily turn it on. Before her fall there were reports about an IRS lien. But sisters Eva and Magda’s wills left her millions. Plus there’s the deed to her Bel Air mansion. Some have discussed the possibility of elder abuse with LA authorities.

SOMEONE sent me a Year 2159 “head line.” It says: “Postal service raises first-class stamps to $17.89 and re duces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.” . . . Jennifer Lawrence, mostly naked and painted blue in “X-Men: First Class,” worries she’ll come off “looking like a teenage boy.” . . . Kim Kardashian‘s solitaire taking family pressure off Kourtney, who now says things will be easier with her own boyfriend. Their marketing-conscious mom was hustling Kourtney to announce her own engagement to Scott Disick.

ELTON John talking tough love to Billy Joel. Saying how many Billy concerts got canceled due to alcohol. Saying Elton’s gone through rehab. He’s washed toilets. He’s gotten his life together. His rehab was hard. Not homestyle like Lindsay Lohan, who went shopping wearing her ankle bracelet nor Billy Joel’s, where he had TV. He’s saying Billy must come face to face with the demons.

BRUCE Littlefield saw this T-shirt on Mad Ave., which read: “It Isn’t Illegal Unless You Get Caught.”

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.