Robert De Niro and Chazz Palminteri will be Tribeca Film Festival’s new Abbott and Costello. A first-time thing. It’s the 20th anniversary of what De Niro directed and Palminteri wrote — “A Bronx Tale.”
Chazz: “This is a classic. I’ve done a Broadway show on it and still do one-man shows about it. We’ll run the movie for a paying audience plus invitees. Just Bob and me onstage for a Q&A.
“He rarely does something like this. But the idea was his. He called and asked would I do it. It’s good for the festival.
“Back when I wrote this my life was tough. Killings around me. My relationship with a black lady. My father, a bus driver. Me, I was nothing.
“Bob read my script. He left the screenplay alone but he made it sing. He wanted new faces off the street, not actors. Real guys. Casting took a long time.
“Some of my dialogue has found its way into our everyday lexicon. On a flight recently, when we landed the stewardess joked: ‘Now youse can leave the plane.’ Like a line right out of my movie.”
Youse can catch this act the 24th at the Village East Cinema.
Top dog here
Westminster’s Best of Show: Handlers said because of the White House, there’s been a rush on Portuguese Water Dogs, which now command an extra few dollars. Also early early on, a breeder stated flatly wirehaired fox terrier Sky, who won, would win. “Been winning points all across the country. Judges know. That dog’s a hot champion.”
Pay attention
Rumor is a “Wolf of Wall Street” Jordan Belfort ex-employee was once a prison guest. Pocketing extra change by peddling a kilo of fake cocaine from his car . . . MAY not come up in conversation but Christina Ricci has a gerbils phobia. At age 3, one attacked her . . . TOM Brokaw’s health battle — which I reported long back without mentioning the condition — just surfaced. Our national treasure, he’s on top of it and beating it.
Surely you’ll want to see Shirley
This column started with something old becoming new again. It finishes the same way. Shirley Jones, 80, opens the Carlyle March 4 for two weeks.
“One show a night. Lots of talk. Piano, bass, drums. I wear decorative pants. Stuff from my ‘Oklahoma,’ ‘Music Man,’ ‘Carousel’ shows. My Rodgers and Hart ‘Where or When,’ ‘This Can’t Be Love’ songs. Eight minutes of film clips — love scenes with Jimmy Stewart, Fonda, Brando, Glenn Ford, Richard Widmark, Burt Lancaster. Every man I ever knew . . . Lancaster was the best.
“Always on the road, I’ve done this act for years. I just never worked the Carlyle, and it’s an unfamiliar pianist who’s accompanied Lucie Arnaz.
“Hey, listen, the maintenance is heavy. I do the gym four times a week, don’t diet but don’t eat lots of sweets. Do have a martini or two.
“And still married to Marty Ingels, who can be difficult. Wants attention 24 hours a day — but, listen, it’s 36 years. I’ve never not been married.”
Marty then grabbed the phone with: “Only time I ever fell asleep on her was during ‘Schindler’s List.’ She punished me by locking me in Anne Frank’s room.”
Lest we forget, Marty Ingels is a comic.
AT ex-Gov. Pataki’s child Allison’s “The Traitor’s Wife” book party. Quiet, genteel, unassuming, mild-mannered, softspoken Fox-TV chief
Roger Ailes
on the new unaided, unwanted, unauthorized, unappreciated book on himself: “It’s s - - t.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.