Alfred Molina opens in the new American play “Red” at the Golden on April 1. He told me about it:
“It’s a two-year period in the ’60s in artist Mark Rothko’s life. He was commissioned to do the paint ings for the walls of the brand-new Seagram Building. Huge panels. But while creating them he went through an enormous crisis of depression.
“He gave the money back. They were never hung. Somehow they found their way around the world. Some are in Japan, some at London’s Tate Modern, some in Washington. His moods grew darker and darker. His dependence on alcohol became pronounced, he went through assistants like you go through underwear, and he ended up committing suicide.
“The entire play deals with the Seagram murals and how conflicted he was. To him this was the flashiest art commission since the Renaissance. The Four Seasons Restaurant. In the newest, sexiest state-of-the-art building in New York. In fact, he was just decorating a room, and in most cases people’s backs would be to those walls.
“Rothko was burly. Out of shape. So my natural tendencies seem perfect for the role.
“I did research on Rothko. I knew a little bit about him, but I read everything I could find. I went down to No. 222 on the Bowery, where his studio had been. And where he made these murals. It’s now been split into apartments.
“I, myself, love art. I’ve been a consumer since a young teenager. I had a teacher early on who took us to galleries.”
And what do you show onstage?
“We represent the paintings onstage, but a lawyer had to be sure nobody was going to try to be selling them later as Rothkos. Or even fake Rothkos. And we presume his two children Kate and Christopher signed off on the play.”
So, has Alfred Molina, who does not live in New York, actually ever been to the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagrams Building?”
“No. Actually, I’ve never been there. I’m being taken there next week.”
WE all feel for Sandra Bullock. She’s a true victim here. But what I’d like to know is, how does a mature woman in her 40s pick a biker, previously wed to a porn star, a creature with the mentality to cheat on her with the lowest filth of the barnyard? This is what you pick for a life partner? A biker? That’s what you pick so you can do it on the handlebars as you cross Madison Avenue.
THURSDAY night, 6:30ish, pre- theater dinner at Joe Allen’s with Judge Judy, her husband, Judge Jerry, and Barbara Walters. In comes Rosie O’Donnell. She tells us how the very next day we’ll read the announcement she’s returning to daytime TV.
The table asked if I knew this. I said I knew she was trying to come back. She’s a creature of the medium. Television is her playpen. It’s where she belongs. I also knew something she’d told me awhile ago. She’d said to me: “I gotta get back on TV. There’s a Chuck E. Cheese near where I live. I’ve been taking the kids there for years. And they know I tip 100 percent because I used to be a waitress. Would you believe the other day, for the first time, they made me wait. On a line. Behind a rope. I gotta get back on TV.”
She then told our table: “And it’ll be Oprah‘s time slot.”
Getting Oprah’s position was big news. We all congratulated her.
The next day . . . no announcement.
The truth: Her original producers are putting together a daytime talk show for her. Shopping it around. They’d like to have Oprah’s position. Yeah, well, lotsa luck. Who wouldn’t. Also, maybe I’m the only one who remembers ABC has bad blood with Rosie from a few years ago???
So, what is going on here . . .?
MICHAEL Bublé just took his whole family to see “Jersey Boys.” That includes his fiancée, who now has a very sweet tiny square cut diamond — listen, all those “Jersey Boys” tickets add up . . . He should also schlep them to the Stage Deli for a true slice of New York. They don’t even have to eat a Cindy Adams sandwich . . . Back aways Matt Damon said he’s working so hard he doesn’t feel like he has a bed of his own anywhere. Jennifer Love Hewitt sent him an AeroBed, and a comforter and sheets with the note: “I want you to travel with it and feel like you have a bed wherever you go.” Never heard from him, she says, “and when I saw him he kind of looked at me a little weird.” . . . Terry Gilliam continuing to attack his former “Monty Python” buds. Calling them “washed up has-beens.” . . . April 4 Robert Downey turns 45 . . . David Lee Roth: “When you can spell ‘subpoena’ without thinking about it, that’s when you know you’ve made it.”
AN accountant I know received a cen sus in the mail with instructions to fill it out and return to them. She wrote on it: “I’m a single, white middle-aged female. I don’t count anymore. So why should I fill this out?!”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.