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Leno Bombs, Obama Kills, Katie Couric Coos

Roger Friedman
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Leno Bombs, Obama Kills, Katie Couric Coos

Jay Leno‘s comedy routine at last night White House Correspondents dinner was indeed a bomb. You can see it all over the internet, but there was nothing like hearing the silence in the ballroom at the Washington Hilton. Leno was just really off his usual rhythm.  

Meantime, President Obama had all the right stuff. He even went after Leno. And that was the problem. Obama’s material–largely written and shaped by Jon Favreau (the speechwriter not the actor/director) and David Axelrod-– was so good and comprehensive that it left Leno with no place to go. You could sense that he sort of it knew it, too. He was not happy when he reached the podium.  

Anyway,  Leno will be forgiven. (Except for Conan, but that’s another story.)  

Meanwhile, the WHCA dinner was notable for its flood of celebs. As one insider said, during the Bush administration you had to beg people to come. Last night, and all weekend, we were tripping over bold face names.  

The big “get” at Jason Binn‘s after party for Niche Media and Microsoft Bing, I thought, was actor Ewan MacGregor. Very cool. The party was at the Mayflower Hotel, where disco music pounded from one end. The place was filled with attractive young people who read Jason’s “Capitol File” magazine. He also managed to land both Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews, plus Ashley Judd, Kim Kardashian, Tory Burch and Lyor Cohen, Ben Silverman, Chris Tucker, and so on. Mike Zimet did a bang up job with security, considering so many official Washington types showed up–many bedecked in military awards…This was the the heavy DC crowd…  

Meantime, Vanity Fair set up shop at the French Embassy on spectacular Kalorama Road, a sort of astounding mansion built in the early 1900s and set on a little hill. It was quite magnificent. There was no sign of Leno or Obama, but plenty of A listers to keep the night rolling well past 2am.  

Just in the grand marble foyer, we saw Katie Couric sitting on a cushioned bench, her shoeless legs extended and being massage by…Morgan Freeman.  

Jimmy Fallon, hanging out a few feet (get it?) away, with producer wife Nancy Juvonen, exclaimed, “That’s Morgan Freeman!” He was filling in for the President. “I don’t think he has any idea who I am,” Jimmy said sheepishly.  

Freeman did, in fact. And he overheard us discussing a recent brilliant Fallon show–which will go out for Emmy consideration–in which Jimmy did charades with Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, and Tina Fey. It was a sublime, Jack Paar-like effort. Fallon’s show is outstanding.  

But back to Morgan Freeman: Katie cooed and wiggled her toes. It had been a long night of standing.  

And then, as we left the Fallons and Katie and Morgan and headed inside, they all came whirling around:  

Michael Douglas, Jon and Dorothea Bon Jovi, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, likely Tony Award nominee Scarlett Johansson, Dee Dee Myers and Todd Purdum, the Oscar gang from ’10–Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, Jeremy Renner, Gaby Sidibe from “Precious,” — as well as Mariska Hargitay–who had Tim Daly and Steven Weber–the Wings brothers–fighting for her attention (husband Peter Hermann was home in New York); George Stephanopolous and Ali Wentworth (she is very funny even in person), my buddy Joy Behar and her great producer Todd Polkes,  plus Julianna Margulies, Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba and Cash Warren, Brad Cooper and Zach Galifianakis, Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni, Kristen Davis, Jeremy Renner, the Jonas Brothers, Jessica Simpson and manager dad Joe; Chelsea Handler, Senator Chris Dodd, and so on…  

I mean, it was very hard to get through this gang quickly. Everyone had a good story. Of course, it was also well after midnight…  

Later the Vanity Fair publicist asked me, “So what did you think? Was it all right?”  

I ean, like, yeah. And in typical VF style, they featured micro mini hamburgers and tater tots among the gourmet food. You gotta love it…  

Wait, more! Christiane Amanpour, John and Elaine Mellencamp (John using a gold knobbed walking stick to very classy effect), T Bone Burnett and Callie Khouri (“Thelma and Louise”), Paris Match’s Dany Jucaud with New York florist to the stars Olivier Guigni, and of course the hosts–French Ambassador Pierre Vimont and his wife, our old friend from the French Embassy in New York, the elegant Catherine Verret.  

Keep reading this week as I will sprinkle in a few bon mots from this eclectic, electric crowd…Also thanks to WireImage. They took my picture with the Ambassador. I think this was just as I was threatening to move in! 

And PS: everyone loves Vanity Fair publisher Ed Menicheschi. Not that Graydon Carter isn’t a standout at all events, but Mr. Mensicheschi was getting a lot of attention on one of the grand outside staircases from admiring guests…He’s kept VF awash in ads during the worst period in magazine publishing history.. 

Roger Friedman and The Ambassador of

Broadway Mailbag: Sarah Jessica Parker DID Succeed In Business

Roger Friedman
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Broadway Mailbag: Sarah Jessica Parker DID Succeed In Business

Thanks to everyone who wrote in on a couple of Broadway subjects.

There was talk of Sarah Jessica Parker. She was indeed the final Rosemary of the last production of “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying” on Broadway. She succeeded Megan Mullaly, and starred opposite Matthew Broderick. Following the show’s run, SJP did really succeed in business, with “Sex and the City” and fashion and perfume and lots of endorsements….

But readers were correct about Michele Lee not originating the role of Rosemary on Broadway in the 60s. The original actress was Bonnie Scott. She was replaced by Michele, who of course then went on to star in the film version of “Succeed” with Robert Morse, did loads of other movies, starred in “Seesaw” on Broadway, and had a 14 year run in “Knots Landing” on CBS. Bonnie Scott did no more Broadway, but made a few appearances on 60s TV shows like “That Girl” and then must have retired…

Maybe Bonnie Scott will turn up in Marlo Thomas‘s much anticipated autobiography coming soon to stores. You never know…

Roman Polanski Speaks Out On His Terrible Situation

Roger Friedman
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Roman Polanski Speaks Out On His Terrible Situation

Roman Polanski wrote today on a friend’s blog:

I can remain silent no longer!

Roman-Polanski_digne3-150x93Throughout my seven months since September 26, 2009, the date of my arrest at Zurich Airport, where I had landed with a view to receiving a lifetime award for my work from the representative of the Swiss Minister of Culture, I have refrained from making any public statements and have requested my lawyers to confine their comments to a bare minimum. I wanted the legal authorities of Switzerland and the United States, as well as my lawyers, to do their work without any polemics on my part.
I have decided to break my silence in order to address myself directly to you without any intermediaries and in my own words.
I have had my share of dramas and joys, as we all have, and I am not going to try to ask you to pity my lot in life. I ask only to be treated fairly like anyone else.
It is true: 33 years ago I pleaded guilty, and I served time at the prison for common law crimes at Chino, not in a VIP prison. That period was to have covered the totality of my sentence. By the time I left prison, the judge had changed his mind and claimed that the time served at Chino did not fulfil the entire sentence, and it is this reversal that justified my leaving the United States.
This affair was roused from its slumbers of over three decades by a documentary film-maker who gathered evidence from persons involved at the time. I took no part in that project, either directly or indirectly. The resulting documentary not only highlighted the fact that I left the United States because I had been treated unjustly; it also drew the ire of the Los Angeles authorities, who felt that they had been attacked and decided to request my extradition from Switzerland, a country I have been visiting regularly for over 30 years without let or hindrance.
I can now remain silent no longer!
I can remain silent no longer because the American authorities have just decided, in defiance of all the arguments and depositions submitted by third parties, not to agree to sentence me in absentia even though the same Court of Appeal recommended the contrary.
I can remain silent no longer because the California court has dismissed the victim’s numerous requests that proceedings against me be dropped, once and for all, to spare her from further harassment every time this affair is raised once more.
I can remain silent no longer because there has just been a new development of immense significance.

On February 26 last, Roger Gunson, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case in 1977, now retired, testified under oath before Judge Mary Lou Villar in the presence of David Walgren, the present deputy district attorney in charge of the case, who was at liberty to contradict and question him, that on September 16, 1977, Judge Rittenband stated to all the parties concerned that my term of imprisonment in Chino constituted the totality of the sentence I would have to serve.
I can remain silent no longer because the request for my extradition addressed to the Swiss authorities is founded on a lie. In the same statement, retired deputy district attorney Roger Gunson added that it was false to claim, as the present district attorney’s office does in their request for my extradition, that the time I spent in Chino was for the purpose of a diagnostic study.
The said request asserts that I fled in order to escape sentencing by the U.S. judicial authorities, but under the plea-bargaining process I had acknowledged the facts and returned to the United States in order to serve my sentence. All that remained was for the court to confirm this agreement, but the judge decided to repudiate it in order to gain himself some publicity at my expense.
I can remain silent no longer because for over 30 years my lawyers have never ceased to insist that I was betrayed by the judge, that the judge perjured himself, and that I served my sentence. Today it is the deputy district attorney who handled the case in the 1970s, a man of irreproachable reputation, who has confirmed all my statements under oath, and this has shed a whole new light on the matter.
I can remain silent no longer because the same causes are now producing the same effects. The new District Attorney, who is handling this case and has requested my extradition, is himself campaigning for election and needs media publicity!
I can no longer remain silent because the United States continues to demand my extradition more to serve me on a platter to the media of the world than to pronounce a judgment concerning which an agreement was reached 33 years ago.
I can remain silent no longer because I have been placed under house arrest in Gstaad and bailed in very large sum of money which I have managed to raise only by mortgaging the apartment that has been my home for over 30 years, and because I am far from my family and unable to work.
Such are the facts I wished to put before you in the hope that Switzerland will recognize that there are no grounds for extradition, and that I shall be able to find peace, be reunited with my family, and live in freedom in my native land.
Roman Polanski

taken from the website of Bernard Henri-Levi

Patricia Arquette Has a Capitol Idea for Haiti

Roger Friedman
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Patricia Arquette Has a Capitol Idea for Haiti

Emmy winning actress Patricia Arquette, star of CBS’s “Medium,” is one of many well known personalities who’ve come to Washington, DC this weekend for the White House Correspondents Dinner.  But unlike some, Arquette has a cause: Haiti.

She’s very involved in water filtration was waste management projects. She’s not working with either Paul Haggis or Sean Penn. Arquette is on the job with a separate group, and they’re about to test 500 “green” tents that were donated to homeless earthquake victims.

Arquette started the Give Love Foundation in March at www.givelove.org by donating $100,000 of her own. She told me at Friday night’s elegant cocktail party given jointly by Time and People magazines–at the St. Regis Hotel near the White House– that once she wrote the check for aid, she had to get involved personally.

“I had to be hands on,” she told me. Arquette will be returning to Haiti soon to see her donations implemented. “The first time, we didn’t have enough tents to go around, and I had to explain it to each family. It was terrible.” Arquette is concerned, as are many, that Haiti is prone to another earthquake soon.

Arquette was joined af the Time-People party by the mag’s respective editors in chief, Rick Stengel and Larry Hackett, as well as Dana Delany, Tim Daly, Steven Weber, Elisabeth Shue and husband director Davis Guggenheim, Gayle King, Gabby Sidibe, Richard Schiff, i.e. the Hollywood contingent.

But I was happy also to see Andrea Mitchell, Ann Compton, Savannah Guthrie, and some other Washington media. After all this is their Oscars, so to speak! My new favorite person: Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. She’s a gem.

PS Gossip hounds: Arquette says she is still married to Thomas Jane, and it would seem like they’re happy. Just sayin’…

Rielle Hunter: “24” And There’s So Much More

Roger Friedman
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Rielle Hunter: “24” And There’s So Much More

Tonight is the wrap party for the Fox series “24.”

Who won’t be there: Rielle Hunter, John Edwards’s mistress and babymama.

As I told you a couple of weeks ago, before she met Edwards, Hunter was very busy in Hollywood. She was a regular behind the scenes at “24,” where was incredibly close to one of the gang (not Kiefer). I’m told there were substantial benefits to this friendship.

My sources also say that Hunter certainly was also a close friend of actor Jeff Goldblum.

Oprah Winfrey didn’t ask Hunter about any of this yesterday on her show. She did sit in Hunter’s living room in a house paid for by John Edwards and look like she was smelling something very bad. It was classic Oprah. I thought she was going to spray the room with Oust.

Hunter expressed no remorse for breaking up a home with two children and a dying wife. She did seem to act like it was her blessed assignment to do so, and that collateral damage was to be expected.

This much I know: Elizabeth Edwards is tough, and she was no pushover when she was fighting to save her family. Hunter did not flinch at pushing back. Maybe this is because, as I wrote several times between 2008 and 2009, sources told me that John Edwards was constantly leading Hunter on. It was conveyed to me over and over that Edwards was telling Hunter just to hang in there. He told her his wife was micromanaging him, but eventually they’d get what they wanted.

Does John Edwards know that his career in politics is over? We’ll see. Rielle Hunter would not be in GQ or on Oprah without his assent. It’s almost like a plot line from “24.” Almost.t

Is Madonna’s New Spiritual Leader Named Muki?

Roger Friedman
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Is Madonna’s New Spiritual Leader Named Muki?

Madonna’s new spiritual leader may be a man named Muki.

According to sources, Israeli Moshe “Muki” Oppenheimer–who does not speak English– has left his home in Efrat, a settlement in the West Bank, to globe-trot with Kabbalah Center leader Karen Berg in glitzier places like New York, Los Angeles, and even Brazil.

Five years ago, the 67 year old Berg was described in a British newspaper profile as seeming “lonely.” http://tinyurl.com/3953n9c Her much older husband, Philip (they call him “the Rav”) had had a devastating stroke. Karen had taken the reins of the worldwide, money hungry “religion” that sells red strings for $26 and books for learning at $500. She was operating the business– with millions in real estate holdings– with her two sons, Michael and Yehuda. She was spending her time buying expensive jewelry and getting plastic surgery.

But now I’m told that Karen may be lonely no more. According to several people I’ve spoken to who are quite conversant in the ways of the Kabbalah Center, Karen has become incredibly close to the mysterious “Muki.” He has come to occupy a powerful new place in the Kabbalah world.

But Muki, an Israeli, is so under the radar it’s unclear if even the group’s celebs—like Madonna, Demi Moore, and Ashton Kutcher—know what’s going on. When I asked for him at the Los Angeles office, I was told he had no phone extension. In New York, the receptionist said she didn’t know who he was even though I’d been told he’d recently taught some kind of class there.

Oppenheimer, said to be in his late 40s, has gotten so powerful at Kabbalah that there are reports of him sitting in Rav Philip Berg’s chair during religious readings. This is considered blasphemy by Kabbalah insiders.

The word in Kabbalah is that Karen Berg travels with Oppenheimer (first class, ‘natch, as the Bergs may be worth north of $25 mil corporately) and that they are attached at the hip. Meanwhile, Philip Berg has basically been unseen since at least 2006 or earlier. “He’s kept in the basement,” says one former Kabbalah member facetiously. Oppenheimer, a source says, has a wife and “many children” back in Efrat.

Not much is known about Oppenheimer. According to a source who knew him in Israel, Muki was brought in to help run the centers in Israel, and then after meeting Karen Berg migrated to the United States. What is known is that he runs a motivational website called Ethika at www.ethika.co.il, which requires visitors to answer questions as they enter.

Some of the questions are: Do you think you know yourself?  Do you think people around you know you? Is it important for you that the community around you recognize you?

When they’re answered, Muki Oppenheimer writes back: Yes, I’d love to meet you, you’re good, but still drop me a line.

More to come shortly on Kabbalah, which apparently has developed an inner upper echelon society somewhat akin to Scientology’s Sea Org. People who are drafted into it are called “Hevre,” and they see themselves as elite and chosen. They are also duty bound to Kabbalah and unable to leave at will without threat of reprisal. “You give your life to the Center,” explained one former member unwilling to have her name published. “They control your life, and your money.”

Lisa Kessler, spokesperson for Kabbalah, did not return a call or email for comment.

Chris Noth Gets Tantric for Rainforests; Carly Simon Judges

Roger Friedman
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Chris Noth Gets Tantric for Rainforests; Carly Simon Judges

Chris Noth raised a lot of money last night for the Rainforest Action Network. He had some help, too, from Trudie Styler, who spoke on behalf of the Rainforest Foundation. RAN, as it’s known, celebrated its 25th anniversary at the old Village Gate, now known ridiculously as Le Poisson Rouge, on Bleecker St. (Bleecker St. is overrun now by huge ugly neon-lit banks. Where are all the clubs and cool shops? NYU has really done a job on the Village.)

Anyway, with Styler’s help, and Noth’s prodding, a few of the more well heeled banker types at the cocktail party ponied up. Four tickets to see Sting perform at the Met this July went for a total of $25,000. A weekend at the Plaza Athenee plus tickets to “Sex and the City 2” were bid at $36,000. It didn’t hurt that Noth promised a lot of tantric sex to the winners–a  little inside koke for Styler and Sting!

The evening’s surprise guest was Ecuadorian activist and lawyer Pablo Fajardo. He was the subject of Joe Berlinger‘s highly praised documentary, “Crude,” about Chevron‘s poisoning of that country’s water supply. This morning Berlinger has to answer a subpoena from Chevron to say why he shouldn’t produce outtakes from “Crude.” Chevron will do anything it can not to pay what a court has decreed and clean up Ecuador. It’s unbelievable…

…Meanwhile, over at 1Oak, legendary singer Carly Simon selected a first prize winner from the 10 finalists who made videos for her 1972 hit, “You’re So Vain.” The AKA Hotels sponsored the event for the Tribeca Film Festival. Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff dashed over from the Festival’s awards ceremony to help Carly announce the winner and watch her sing songs with her son, Ben, friends John Forte and David Saw, and even an oldie with sister Lucy, composer of “The Secret Garden” and the upcoming “Dr. Zhivago.”

Here’s the winning video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHWrudgCc3Q by Brett Bisogno. There are plenty of good ones, too. In fact over 150 were submitted!

Addams Family Could Bring TV Land to Broadway

Roger Friedman
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Addams Family Could Bring TV Land to Broadway

“The Addams Family” got some of the worst reviews ever seen for a new Broadway musical when it opened two weeks ago.

Guess what? It doesn’t matter.

The Nathan Lane-Bebe Neuwirth extravaganza topped “Wicked” last week and landed at number 1 with the highest capacity sell through of any show on the Great White Way. For the week of April 18-25, it was at 100.7%.

In real box office numbers, “Addams” took in $1.4 million and finished third after “Wicked” and “The Lion King,” and ahead of “Jersey Boys.” Mind you, it was hot on the paws of “The Lion King.”

All this for a reviled show, even by its producers and insiders. Privately, they all acknowledge the show’s flaws. But who cares? From the minute the audience starts snapping its fingers to the late Vic Mizzy‘s theme music, the show is a hit. It doesn’t matter that the rest of the songs are terrible and that the plot is simply recycled from a half dozen other movies and plays. “The Addams Family” offers a live re-creation of beloved TV characters. Nostalgia kicks in. And so does Nathan Lane.

What I’m hearing now is that a bunch of other TV shows are being considered for Broadway treatment. My guess would be “Green Acres,” which also had a famous Vic Mizzy theme song with which the audience can sing along. But there’s been talk of “The Munsters.” (Imagine Jim Carrey has Herman, Reese Witherspoon as Marilyn.) Why not “The Beverly Hillbillies”? Or “I Dream of Jeannie”? First it was Disney on Broadway. Now it’ll be TV Land on the Rialto.

Matt Damon’s Adjustment Bureau Will Need Adjustments

Roger Friedman
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Matt Damon’s Adjustment Bureau Will Need Adjustments

Matt Damon‘s next film, “The Adjustment Bureau,” just got moved from July to September. The reason given: Universal Pictures thought it would make a better fall film, with some possible award potential.

But I’ve heard the overriding reason is re-shoots. The semi sci-fi film, based on a 1954 short story by Philip K. Dick, needs adjustments before it can be unleashed on to the world.

No need to panic; this happens all the time. But the cast of “The Adjustment Bureau”–Damon, Emily Blunt, Daniel Dae Kim, Anthony Mackie–could not be reassembled until the last week of June. First time director George Nolfi, who’s written for Damon before and is currently penning a new Jason Bourne thriller, might have made the July 30th release date. But the new date gives him breathing room. Maybe, possibly, “The Adjustment Bureau” will be shown in Toronto.

Candy Spelling May Be the Next David Merrick

Roger Friedman
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Candy Spelling May Be the Next David Merrick

Candy Spelling is in New York and taking it by storm. And just like they sing in the Mel Brooks musical, she “wants to be  producer…”

On Tuesday Candy hit Michael’s, where Barry Diller was reaching the tipping point with Malcolm Gladwell, and uber literary agent Lynn Nesbitt was listening to Shirley Lord Rosenthal. On Wednesday, it was the Four Seasons. In the Grill Room: no less than Henry Kissinger (dining with uber literary agent Lynn Nesbitt), Mort Zuckerman, Michael Ovitz and the Pace Gallery’s Arne Glimcher. Liz Smith broke bread with two editors from Good Housekeeping. Carly Simon wandered in, looking for musician John Forte. It turned out he was at the Four Seasons Hotel. Who knew they had lunch there?

Candy is turning into a Broadway angel. She has money in “Promises, Promises.” Next year, she’s invested in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” also directed by Rob Ashford. For opening night of “P,P” she sent the cast a life size solid dancer’s leg made of chocolate. She’s getting involved in the whole process. Since the opening, she’s gone to the box office, dressed down in jeans and diamond earrings the size of small comets, to see what’s happening. “I like to see who the audience is, and what they’re saying.” She knows that the show is good, but that it’s Kristen Chenoweth and Sean Hayes who are selling tickets. She’s thrilled with the notices for Katie Finneran, a cinch Tony nominee for Featured Actress.

Yes, she’s in touch with scripted reality show star daughter Tori. Her son, Randy, is living in Portland, Oregon, working as a Life Coach, and is getting married to a psychic. It’s just Candy and her dog, Madison, rambling around her infamous 80-plus room manse in Beverly Hills.

This is what I liked the best about Candy Spelling: her dog has a website: www.madisonspelling.com.

Far from being what she even calls a “trophy wife,” Candy is no fool. “I handled all the books and finances at home,” she says of her long marriage to late TV legend Aaron Spelling. She ran their mega mansion in Beverly Hills, which is now for sale. Eventually she will move to a lavish townhouse condo in Century City. This is called “downsizing.”

Why the interest in Broadway? “Aaron didn’t fly and didn’t like to travel. I never left L.A.,” she said. Now she’s finally able to do some things that interested her. Musicals will be a priority. Don’t be surprised if she winds up taking a place in New York. Candy Spelling is going to be a force on Broadway, and quickly.

PS Just a few tidbits from her past. Candy does not get along with Aaron Spelling’s old partner, Leonard Goldberg, or his wife Wendy. (“She doesn’t like me,” Candy said.) Mrs. Spelling sort of concedes to being the model for Linda Evans‘ character on “Dynasty.” She admires Evans, she says, and also has a great relationship with Joan Collins. She talked about how she and Aaron met John Forsythe, and how he became Charlie to the Angels. Candy Spelling is a veritable encyclopedia of TV history. Frankly, she should write a book!

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