We’ve seen television favorites yanked off shows despite contractual obligations. Katie Couric’s ABC daytimer debuts September. So when will TV hotshots determine her new effort’s hot or not? Two years? Three seasons? Six episodes? Care to hear precisely exactly how long their eyes take to decide? You won’t believe it. But believe it.
Three days.
Day 1, everybody tunes in. Day 2, it’s those watching a second time plus whoever missed the first program. By Day 3, the tinkering begins, but to suits in those offices if the ratings aren’t solid gold, it’s already all over.
Three days to tell if Katie’s A-OK. And please don’t insult me by saying I don’t know what I’m talking about. I know what I’m talking about because I know what they are talking about.
AT Paris’ fashion shows, kute kouple Kanye and Kim. She, frozen Ipana smile. Should kameras katch them, his arm encircled her. After the obligatory shot fotogs centered on France’s socialites . . . More Europe: Laura Montana, from NYC’s wonderful Monkey Bar, is running London’s new restaurant. Next door to the American Embassy, “34” so far fed B. Clinton, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Jon Hamm, Penelope and Javier. Just letting you know.
OVER two years, PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi’s building from scratch her 30,000-square-foot Greenwich Connecticut mansion on Lake Avenue. Costs so much and she earns so much that better we should all switch to Sprite . . . Barbara Cook finally home. Getting rehabilitation . . . Reply to Brooklyn’s Dorchester Road residents: The hoo-ha is Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Michael Sheen, Lily Tomlin filming “Admission”. . . On Bill Boggs’ PBS show “My Generation,” Diane von Furstenberg: “My first e-mail daily is to help someone else.”
I FIRST interviewed Andy Griffith a lifetime ago. For TV Guide. Asked was he homey or hammy, I learned he’d let his hair down only when the South again marched on the North: “If ah’d say ah don’t act lak a big man, it’s admitting ah am one, which sounds stupid as hell. Saying, ‘ah never have t’guard against it’ ah’m setting up to be a very fine person. Either way, that’s trouble.
“Ah’ve some ego. Arrogant sometimes. Sure do have a purty violent temper. Once I actually tore a door down in a blindin’ rage. But ah try not t’do that anymower. It disrupts work.”
Despite my dazzling professional footwork, not on your Mason-Dixon did he tell any stories. When next Gen. Lee invades Pittsburgh would be when Griffith buddyied to an interviewer. But he was charming, a perfect Southern gent.
OPINION on Chief Justice John Roberts. After twisting some legal pretzel, a pox on his tax. Events in their Court memorialized previous supreme Supremes. Like William Rehnquist and Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, Earl Warren and JFK’s assassination committee. This being the prime topic to ever curl John Roberts’ perfect hair, was it his idea of his legacy? Egotistic rather than legalistic?
OPINION on Operation Tom Cruise. Katie knew what she was doing. OK, he was dazzling. OK, she wanted a megastar, megaeverything, floodlights, flashbulbs, a shot at superstardom herself, which didn’t happen. Broadway proved her capable, not magical. But she’s smart. Even her smile was controlled. Rarely teeth in a fall-down grin. So did she know what he was? Sure. We all do. So did they not discuss raising a maybe child? Sure. But she bought it, now she’s paying for it.
THE Hamptons are alive with the sound of music. Anyone rich enough to have a houseguest had a party. For her annual holiday gala, Lally Weymouth — whose parents owned the Washington Post, and whose daughter runs it — only Mr. Higgs and his boson didn’t RSVP. The War of Independence had fewer people. Between Ed Cox, NY’s Republican party maestro, and David Koch, its heavy-duty cash register, Democrat Chuck Schumer said: “New York is the center of the world’s greatest concentration of wealth.” I asked, “How about Dubai, Riyadh, Shanghai or Vladimir Putin’s wallet?” but by then, he’d found somone more interesting to talk to.
Hollywood Reporter owner James Finkelstein, talent agent Sandy Gallin, Ron Perelman, had parties. Ron Perelman always has a party. In sub-zero winter, in the middle of a drought, Ron Perelman has a party.
Entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman — whose latest client is Mike Tyson — and Realtor wife Deborah had 30 for dinner with 10 in help. Leonard Blavatnik, Warner Music Group’s owner plus enough oil to make him a Russian billionaire, sat between Barbara Walters and Martha Stewart. Crowding Edie Falco at the buffet table, Bavatnik said: “Listen, rich people eat, too.”
TODAY’s Nora Ephron memorial, Alice Tully Hall, has 800 people. Champagne afterward. Despite speakers like Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, her writer husband, Nick Pileggi, told me: “Nora planned the service to last only 47 minutes. She wanted it under an hour. It was in her computer headlined Exit.
“She had six years to orchestrate this. That’s when this Dr. Mengele type said she had only three to six months. He even sent this in a letter and signed it ‘Sincerely.’ ”
Nick, with Nora’s two sons by Carl Bernstein, weekended in the Hamptons.