January, a year ago, George Clooney told me he’s making “The Monuments Men,” a true tale of rescuing and returning to owners the priceless art Nazis stole in WWII.
Tuesday at its opening, George told me: “Curators, historians, museum directors know that masterpieces, thousands of years of culture, lots of stuff tracked in this world’s greatest treasure hunt, is in the United States. It’s still being searched out. There’s an ongoing race to uncover it. Be nice to get it back.
“I became fascinated after reading a book about it. To become familiar with the subject, experts covered walls in maps and art for a comprehensive one-week course in World War II history. We shot last year until July. After New York, there are premieres in LA, Berlin, Paris and London.”
John Goodman: “My role’s that of a sculptor. But I personally know nothing about art. I own a clown you’d see in a bodega and some Hopalong Cassidy stuff.”
Matt Damon: “I was to play a researcher at the Met. But George changed it so now I’m a Monuments Man curator who dropped his career to rescue art. I’m a little familiar with that because my brother’s an artist and drags me to collections. I own some pieces. Not exactly Rembrandt . . . my brother’s stuff.”
Pointed out to me was “The French guy.” Oscar winner for “The Artist” Jean Dujardin: “My part is of a Marseilles art dealer recruited by the US Army and proud to be a Monuments Man as his only way to participate in this war. My character is a nice French guy, and that’s pretty nice for us nice French guys.”
Public-relations missile Peggy Siegal, whirling Dervishlike, pulled me to “Harry Ettlinger, an original Monuments Man,” who said: “Only three of us are left. I’m 90. A German Jew. Then 19, I worked in the mines locating boxes that held buried art to load onto trucks.” He later came to New York, “but then I moved West to Newark.”
“Downton Abbey’s” Hugh Bonneville (a k a Lord Grantham), so how’d he get time off to play a Brit who spirits away a Michelangelo statue? “Mine is a very understanding boss. Sir Julian Fellowes specifically restructured scenes he was shooting to make certain he’d write me out of the dialogue for two weeks.”
Co-producer Grant Heslov: “I originally found Robert Edsel’s book in an airport. Loved it. We met for days. He lives in Dallas . . . did you know 1,400 pieces were found in Munich which the German government knew of and kept hidden for years?”
Here’s what I’m hearing
Pay attention: March 22nd’s Inner Circle — City Hall political reporters’ annual spoof — will be “Stuck With de Bill,” as in de Blasio . . . Many WWI’s 100th-anniversary books are being published. Also 57th Street’s Galerie St. Etienne is exhibiting “Modern Furies: The Lessons and Legacy of World War I” . . . Renée Fleming’s everywhere. One everywhere will be July’s Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Head it here 1st
Newsday reported Patricia Norris-McDonald, Malverne’s mayor, to run to replace retiring Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. Both husbands were crime victims. NYPD’s McDonald is now a quadriplegic following a 1986 shooting. McCarthy was the victim of an LIRR massacre in ’93. I announced it long back. Newsday — and thanks for no attribution — just printed it.
You should know
Anyone know fur-bearing Joe Namath once ordered himself a mink bedspread? . . . And would you like to know Bill Murray’s starting a movie to be filmed in Morocco to be directed by Barry Levinson?
Tonight: It’s Dionne Warwick, Mary Wilson, Danny Aiello and another dozen names who have snow shovels. The Apollo. Celebrating The Beatles’ 50th anniversary plus the historic landmark theater’s own 80th birthday. The show’s titled “NYC Fab.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.