Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Reynolds making “Big Eyes” about 1960s art bigshots Margaret and Walter Keane … Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johannson playing New York romantics in “Can A Song Save Your Life” … Two Oscar nominees are hot hot hot. Viola Davis nailed “Ender’s Game” opposite Harrison Ford plus “Beautiful Creatures,” a movie of a book. And Octavia Spencer landed opposite Tilda Swinton in the sci-fi “Snow Piercer.”
Anne Sebba’s not-yet-published St. Martin’s book “That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor” says it explains the 20th century’s most hated woman. Why? We’ll suddenly love Wallis Warfield Simpson? Sebba: “No, but you will understand her.”
How come this book? The author discovered Wallis’ never-before-seen personal handwritten letters, and she says: “She didn’t want to marry the about-to-be-king. She realized how weak he was. But she was trapped.”
My advance copy states Wallis “may have been born with disorder of sexual development, or intersexuality. DSD signifies ambiguous genitals” and “there is strong circumstantial and psychosexual evidence she fits into this category.” Detailed is, “Another possibility is she was born a pseudo-hermaphrodite.”
Everyone’s suddenly panting over this subject. Madonna’s movie is reportedly not good. This best seller in England is reportedly very good.
ANOTHER memoir’s due. HarperCollins publishes Frank Langella’s “Dropped Names” in March. In it he drops names. Everyone he’s known — and every one of them gone. Tales about Elizabeth, Marilyn, Jackie. Langella’s a good writer. His memory’s just as keen … Not home reading? Out dining? Do Tocqueville the magnificent, elegant restaurant off Union Square. I’ve been three times. It’s special.
BEN Gazzara, a friend I’ve known almost as long as his mother did, just left the stage. “Benny” once told me over lots of beer:
“I used to be ‘difficult.’ More troubled and introverted. I had fusses with people and the press. I’d look dead on-screen because I felt numb inside. You can’t hide it when you’re having it rough. It wasn’t just nasty. I think I was more scared than anything.
“Not to give the impression I’m now a saint, but I once was a wild man. Things are still buried within. You can’t tear everything out of your subconscious in a minute. I’m still not entirely healed of my schisms and isms.
“With psychiatry — I went steadily for 3 1/2 years — I’ve learned how to live with my problems. It forced me to think about myself every day for 50 minutes. You end up learning something.”
Another beer. “Now I’m different. Lovable, charming. Not exactly going dry these days but too much booze back then. Good actors are those who have the ability to admit a lot about themselves. Stiffs are guys unable to admit anything.”
Benny took another drag on a cigarette, another beer. “Today I don’t make trouble. No walking off the set like I used to. Today I’m sweet.”
And today he’s gone.
RONALD Lauder, one-time U.S. ambassador to Austria, is a connoisseur, collector, investor, co-founder of Neue Galerie, which is exhibiting a 10th anniversary of his private art collection — Cezannes, Klimts, Picassos, Matisses, Kandinskys. Longtime wife, Jo Carol, with whom he is no longer together, heads the Foundation of Preservation for Art in Embassies.
Annual property taxes on his billionaire’s Palm Beach mansion are nearly half a mil. It just housed an art event. Five hundred spenders piled in to feed their faces — and eyes. Problem was, the walls were bare. Nothing on them. Zero. Wherever the masterpieces are, whichever of the estranged couple has them, ain’t nothing — not a single canvas — hanging anyplace. And it was an art event. And his home’s considered the palace of the most influential figure in today’s art world.
THE bill to allow gambling casinos in Florida is deader than Rick Perry’s shot at the Oval Office. Horse and dog tracks in Dade and Broward counties lobbied fiercely against the bill since it forbade them rights to the same games as the destination resorts. Seems those resorts would have been OK for craps, poker, blackjack, roulette, slots and maybe even a hot game of jacks. Those existing tracks, not.
AT a singles party. Forget women being equal. Not until they can sashay into a bar when their head’s bald and stomach’s fat and still think they can score.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.