Bill Clinton. Always adored. Always controversial. Always newsworthy. Always brilliant. Always getting away with something no other human can.
We also know he wins attention, loves attention, and is out in the hustings right now getting audiences, getting applause, getting a kick out of campaigning for so many candidates that some of them aren’t even running for office. He’s having a great time looking to save a few of their pitiful Democratic arses.
He was recently in New Mexico, whose governor is also named Bill. Bill Richardson. In the Clinton White House, Richardson was our UN ambassador. In the Clinton White House, Richardson was secretary of energy. In the Clinton White House, Richardson was a favorite. Then comes our last presidential election. Clinton’s former pet supports not Hillary but Obama for office. As you may realize, Bill Richardson is no longer a Clinton buddy.
So William Jefferson was in New Mexico stumping. Richardson shows up. The event didn’t invite him in. Per a very inside insider, Clinton aides, well aware of President Clinton’s feelings, on their own turned Richardson away. The Gov was politely told: “Sorry, governor, this is a ticketed event.”
When they later related this to Clinton, I am informed he “laughed delightedly.”
DESPITE Michael Jordan walking with security at the Yankees/ Rangers game, Yankee brass sensed in advance they wouldn’t win. Their thinking: The team’s not up to it this year . . . Restaurant shopping, I belatedly discovered the glories of A Voce at the Time Warner Center. Ambience great, staff excellent, food wonderful . . . Charles Grodin appearing Nov. 1, 7 p.m., one night only, at Hard Rock Café. Pal Harry Belafonte will be in the audience . . . Vanity Fair doing a tough piece on criminal lawyer Joseph Tacopina . . . Long line of applicants for jobs downtown at Ricky’s Halloween pop-up store . . . After all this anniversary stuff dies down, Yoko Ono to do a new performance with son Sean.
BOB Guccione left us last week. I knew Penthouse magazine’s rogue genius well. A great cook, one Thanksgiving Bob made pecan pie plus veggies like spinach with artichokes and sour cream.
He once lived in baronial splendor. Country estate, 20 rooms, 81 acres, greenhouse, limestone roof finials, 10-foot sundials, carved well covers. Plus East Side double-size townhouse with elevator, garden, pool, museum-quality art, marble inlays, champion Rhodesian Ridgebacks.
Then he went broke, and his custom Cadillac limo with 56,000 miles plus all the de’ Medici-style excess, 350 lots, were auctioned. Cases of Taittinger and special red wines, Venetian mirrors, Victorian pool table, gondola seats, Royal Doulton vases, everyday Pottery Barn dishes, French Renaissance chairs, 16th-century inlaid Flemish chests, 17th-century Italian whatevers, 18th-century Spanish cabinet, Jacobean four-poster beds, Hogarth oils, bronze doors.
Much required something like a castle to house them. Not exactly stuff you’d load up on for a studio apartment. “Unless,” said the auctioneer to me, “you like living in cramped quarters.”
URIEL, West 26th’s Uzbekistan shoe maker who’s done boots for Britney Spears, Patrick Dempsey, Hilfiger models, custom-making the “Boardwalk Empire” cast’s 1920s-style footwear . . . NPR, which now stands for BS, axing Juan Williams? How about just announcing, “These are his personal views, not those of the station.” What happened to America’s freedom of speech? . . . Today Ed Jarvis, a Coney Island at Nathan’s contest food eater weighing 570 pounds, does a chicken wings speed-eating contest at Manny’s on Second . . . Lawyer Norman Liss tried for five years to legally name Ellis Island’s library after Bob Hope. No dice. He asked Nancy Pelosi. The law passed the following week.
KELLI O’Hara. Oklahoma born. Kristin Chenoweth sorority sister (not dur ing the same years, but they did have the same voice teacher). Harry Connick co-star in “The Pajama Game.” Nellie Forbush in Lincoln Center’s interminable “South Pacific” revival. Three Tony nominations. Husband is actor James Naughton‘s son, Greg. And her pianist/musical director, Dan Lipton, who just happens to date my editor, conducts her band.
Kelli, now at Feinstein’s, packed the room. Talented, delightful, tasteful in a short, strapless elegant cocktail dress. No rhinestones all over. No skin hanging out. Just a beautiful voice, A-1 selections, which I’d sing if I could sing and had an hour of pleasure.
And backstage, her 1-year-old son, Owen.
WE’RE getting drowned in showbizzy bios: Andy Williams‘ memoir from Plume, some 448-page something on Tammy Wynette, and hitting columnists’ desks is Natalie Cole‘s “Love Brought Me Back,” which details her own kidney transplant the very day her treasured sister died.
WHO says you can’t get a bargain these days? Costco, which reportedly earns as much per $50 membership fee as from all its sales, is selling 100 44-cent stamps for $43.75. Only in New York, kids, only in New York.