Our Sovereign, His Supremeness Caesar Augustus Bloomberg, opened Gracie Palace to let everyone — including fat soda-drinkers — know last year’s film and TV in NYC generated $7.1 bil, employs 130,000 and we’re weathering the recession.
At his cocktail bacchanal, which honored the industry’s hoiest polloi, Meryl Streep said her stud earrings “were my mother’s gift when I graduated Vassar, and she told me, ‘Be careful. They’re real.’ I rarely take them off.”
Jerry Stiller: “My son (Ben Stiller) is shooting a movie here now. It’s great. I love it. I’ve been on the set several times.” Then, to his wife, Anne Meara: “What’s Ben’s movie’s name?”
Joan Rivers talked to anyone — even those who weren’t listening — about her new book, “I Hate Everyone . . . Starting With Me” and: “I wrote every word myself. On planes.” Maybe it was even me she said that to.
De Niro did stand-up. Lines like: “So happy I got this Made in NY award before Streep!” Replied Streep: “That’s because supporting actors usually get announced before leading actors.”
Whoopi Goldberg, distrusting the mayor’s caterer, snacked from her own plastic bag of asparagus. I ate one. Not asparagus. Some green sticky licorice job. Between noshes she said she’s writing a Broadway show about Moms Mabley. Also, when Bloomy banned smoking, she sent him an ashtray.
NYC’s Movie & Entertainment Commissioner Katherine Oliver to Harvey Keitel: “New York’s the creative capital of the world.” Kelly Ripa to somebody: “My son is now taller than I am.”
Our municipal liege Mike Bloomberg: “I’m putting hundreds of millions of my own money into the world’s fight against obesity. Since my administration, a New Yorker’s life has extended three years.” Whatever else he told me I missed because at that moment he was inhaling an hors d’oeuvre.
Not a bad little party.
SOCIAL LIFE magazine party. Beth Ostrosky, who’s on the cover, was with her husband, H. Stern, who’s on that talent show. So how’s those Howies, Howard Stern with Howie Mandel, really get on? “They’re lovey-dovey,” she said. “A real love-in,” he said. “It’s love and respect for one another,” they said. “What you see is what you get,” one or the other said. OK. OK.
A POLITE lady requested an addendum. Knowing I’ve reported on the Garofalos, whose now and again doings wind up beside headlines and inside courtrooms, Eddie and Alberta Garofalo’s daughter Laura says:
“My mother’s a New York City Board of Education worker. Over 20 years she’s worked with special needs children. Beautiful, Norwegian, blond, with a lovely demeanor, mother is no mob wife.”
About Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, she writes yes, our family knew him, but “only as victims of circumstance when his sister married my cousin Eddie. We did not have him in our home.”
PLEASE, I am seriously respectful of Her Majesty. Queen Elizabeth is admirable. To be held reverentially in perpetuity. But, whatthehell, can’t those puddings back there jazz her up just a little? To honor their optometric science, lenses instead of those drugstore eyeglasses? Maybe a slight-very-slight slightly modern haircut? Ditching that schloompy briefcase-sized black handbag dangling from the wrist? Shoes that match the outfit? A word I wouldn’t even mention about undergarments but, hey, I mean . . .
WE discuss now the Middleton mobility. Despite sloshing around the Thames, there is more movement amidst the Brits. Since marrying Prince William, Kate the mate’s parents, Michael and Carole, are inching up in the world. Buying a larger house outside London. Who knows, possibly looking to possibly nail a rich husband for their other Pippa of a daughter.
I TRIED Sfoglia restaurant on 92nd and Lex. Very popular, very friendly, very busy and very good. Just letting you know . . . Michelle Williams: “Home watching TV, I like ‘Animal Planet’ and the Discovery Channel. Also medical shows with real operations. I watched a whole face-lift.”. . . Rod McKuen on a chronic depression that once disabled him: “I was in a bit of a funk. A funk that lasted 10 years.”. . . Colin Farrell: “This fame thing. I’m on a supermarket queue with people looking, and one bloke says on his mobile: ‘And he’s got toilet paper.’ What do they think I do?!”
ROB Lowe: “In the White House, Bill Clinton once let my kids play with the special briefcase that held the coordinates for America’s nuclear bombs. They bobbled it across the South Lawn. Any doubts about maybe too much access by ‘The West Wing’ people, Exhibit A was that my two had our nuclear launch codes.”
REALTOR taking the lady around the East Side. This prospective buyer then asks the broker, “On what floor is the penthouse?”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.