First, congratulations to soon-to-be inaugurated Obummer’s new Cabinet choices. Nebraska’s senator for secretary of defense? Pro-Iraq and anti-Israel? What could be better. Let’s all support him. Hail Hagel.
DC’s Hostess with the Mostest Buffy Cafritz has done every DC inaugural ball going back to Honest Abe. That Spielberg didn’t include her party in his Oscar-nominated movie, that O’Reilly didn’t mention her in his “Killing Lincoln” best seller, who knows? Sunday night it’s 300 guests. Bipartisan. Cocktail attire, 9:30 to 12:30. The Vernon Jordans and National Gallery chairman Roger Sant, who has a NY apartment, co-host. And minus an invite, crashing Fort Knox is easier. Buffy’s wearing “a Joanna Mastroianni velvet pantsuit. Black. So I look thinner.”
Besides music in the elevator, the Dolley Madison Ballroom’s got a roast beef table, Italian table, a whoknowswhat table and Madison Hotel catering manager Scott Button’s organized an adjoining Dessert Room with marshmallows, brownies, mini cupcakes, fruit jars, assorted cookies. It’s the only game in town besides Café Milano’s Daily Beast brunch. Second inaugural hoo-hahs are traditionally less jubilant but hotels are empty, RSVPs slow. The feeling is B.O.’s accomplishments may go down in a loose-leaf history book. There’s more excitement seeing a frog’s toes. If Moses were Republican, the tablet he’d be carrying would be aspirin.
LOOK for ABC-TV’s Robin Roberts to take her “Good Morning America” seat soon. A) She’s itching to return. B) She’s doing well, better than anticipated. What won’t happen is co-anchoring. For now, too much strain and stress. She’ll start with small, short on-air bits. Why the network didn’t permanently replace her, you’re told: “Hey, they wouldn’t throw her off when she’s hospitalized.” Also, savvy Robin knew to maintain a constant Twitter presence to be sure fans didn’t forget her.
CAN the inane insane arcane dumb stupid Oscars explain why Ben Affleck blew a Best Director nomination??? . . . Anyone know Miss America’s 53 contestants, telecasting from Vegas’ Planet Hollywood, learned that for every piece of mail received, they must pay Planet Hollywood $5. I don’t know why. They don’t either . . . So, if nobody’s jamming the inaugurals, I know where they are here. Inhaling pastrami, cole slaw, kosher pickles, beef barley soup and gefilte fish at the Second Avenue Deli which, as we all know, is on First Avenue and was mobbed the other day.
ELLEN Burstyn opened last night, American Airlines Theatre, in the Roundabout’s revival of William Inge’s oldie “Picnic.”
“And I’m fighting bronchitis,” she told me. “I go home, and it’s antibiotics, syrup, chicken soup, everything you can take, I take. Miraculously, and who can believe it, I don’t sniff or sneeze onstage. I’m perfect. The footlights act as a doctor. Minute I’m off, I start coughing. It has something to do with adrenaline, I think.
“Matinee days I sleep between shows. I don’t go out afterward. It’s home right after curtain. I’m working 12-hour days. We’ve been rehearsing, tweaking, all through previews, began a month ago. I haven’t had time to do anything. Just rehearse. Even Christmas week we did eight performances.
“It’s a period piece, which takes place 1951-ish. It’s human relationships. Caring, love, romance, loss, things that continue now, so it doesn’t need upgrading. It’s as relevant as when it opened. However, it appears to have a different tone. Darker.”
Being unbright, I asked why? Being patient she replied, “A play isn’t just in the words.”
Oh, OK. Excuse me.
Being it’s awards time and Ellen has more than Kardashian has bras, where’s her Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, Golden Globes?
“Various places around the house. Can’t all be in one place. I have one big statue, the God of Compassion. His back’s to the room. Three major awards are on the table looking at this God since Compassion is the most important action in the theater. Academy Awards usually end up just meaning you must talk to lots of people in the press. It affords lots of attention. Doesn’t do much careerwise since some who’ve won them have faded while others go on to greatness. Listen, I remember when it began for me. I was a model. I was 23. And what I got was the part of a model. It was so exciting to be in a Broadway play.”
Miss Big-time Awardee Burstyn then began coughing and had to hang up.
Congrats to my friend John Catsimatidis, who seems to be running for mayor. In November, at dinner with him and the Jonathan Farkases, his wife, Margo, told me: “He’d love to run. He wants to run. He’d be great at the job. But the doctor tells him he shouldn’t. So he’s not.”
LAST rainy weekend. Arriving at the opera the lady changed from waterproof flats to spike heels. After “Rigoletto,” “Trovatore” or whatever, back in the car. But only one lone flat was found. The other had sloshed into the mud, under the wheels, up the ignition or whatever. Disappeared. Nowhere. Gone. She then waded through puddles on suede platform sandals into a restaurant. A wall painting flopped down right smack on the husband’s head. Next night a dinner party at Daniel. One lady linked arms lovingly with me, missed her footing on the marble steps, flopped smack down and took me with her. Flat out on the ground, my knee was cut, bleeding, black and blue and swollen. The opera lady with the lost shoe, ruined spikes and husband with an egg on his head said: “You should sue.” Yeah, great idea. However, the lady who tumbled onto me is Donna Slotnick. Her husband who was the dinner’s host is that scary dude litigation lawyer Barry Slotnick. So . . . sue whom?
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.