Old-school Hollywood icons to be honored at annual Oscars pre-show

January 29, 2020


Oscartime’s having a senior moment. Remember stunners Terry Moore? Mamie Van Doren? Whose Social Security numbers begin with the number 2? Both still work. Both had intimate relationships with Howard Hughes. He married Terry; discovered Mamie.

Both are getting whatever’s the fifth annual Roger Neal Oscar Viewing’s Gala Icon Award. Venue? The Hollywood Museum across the street from the Dolby Theatre’s Academy Award hoo-hah. Presenter? Quincy Jones.

Burt Ward, “Batman’s” Robin, is giving another statuette to Lee Meriwether. Wink Martindale presents something to Grammy-nominated producer Joel Diamond. Nancy O’Dell and Obba Babatundé get something else for television. Its p.r. Edward Lozzi says California candidate for Congress George Papadopoulos will be an attendee. Donations go to the José Iturbi Foundation. Caterer is Hoy’s Wok on Sunset. The media gets health bars.

Attendees like Dita Von Teese, Lou Ferrigno, Lorenzo Lamas and Lainie Kazan walk the red carpet starting noon on Feb. 9.

We’re getting mixed up

USA. Backward politically. And theatrically. March 20 the MAC Lifetime Achievement Award for cabarets goes to Anita Gillette for Broadway shows from “Gypsy” to “Brighton Beach Memoirs” … Monday the Glam Awards honors NYC nightlife hosted by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Bob the Drag Queen … Aerosmith, who probably worked Martha Washington’s Sweet 16, got named MusiCares 2020 Person of the Year at the Grammys.

And movies? Coming is another sequel to “The Mummy.” So’s more “Maverick,” James Bond, “Wonder Woman,” “Top Gun” 5 or 7 or 12, another “Fantasy Island,” a son of “Sonic the Hedgehog,” a grandson of “Sponge Bob,” plus “A Quiet Place: Part II,” and a “Godzilla” ancestor. So, listen, what’s next — “Son of Tom Cruise”?

Bits & pieces

Jennifer Lawrence eating at West Taghkanic Diner in Ancram, NY. Sunday. Dressed down. No one recognized her. The waitress said, “I have no idea who she was, but I can tell you everything she ate” … Last season’s newly rejuiced version of “Oklahoma!” reopens this fall. Where? Oklahoma City … A private customer just paid $50,000 for a rarely seen Kobe basketball card.

Royal art

Domingo Zapata. A household name if your house does artistry or realty. He claims friendship with everyone from Lindsay Lohan, Leonardo DiCaprio to — he says — His Holiness, whose papal charities his canvasses have enriched.

Last year I reported he and 25 assistants, teetering on a rig, painted a 30,000-square-foot, 15-story-high mural outside — along a whole side — of One Times Square, the building which drops the New Year’s Eve ball. Why? Who knows? Anyway, it made him more famous.

No more swaying in the wind. Now just sitting in the Chefs Club inside the as yet undecorated red-brick Puck Building. He’s illustrated a new children’s book, “The Lonely Princess,” about a sad HRH with riches, jewels and whatevers — but missing love, friendship, a family, etc., etc.

The publisher’s Lightswitch Learning. The book’s $14.95. Look at it this way, one copy is a lot cheaper than a Zapata canvas.

Dinner talk

Connoisseurs Isabelle Bscher and chef Daniel Boulud are co-doing a “What’s for Dinner?” food and art exhibit. Picasso, Braque, Anh Duong, Lichtenstein, are on her Galerie Gmurzynska (if you can pronounce it) walls. Boulud (him you can pronounce) says: “I couldn’t afford art, but even in my early days, I could always afford to feed lunch to Andy Warhol, Frank Stella and James Rosenquist.”


At a very small banquetlite: “A wonderful speaker was expected but, last-minute, got booked for a much more worthy cause — “the Andrew Yang for governor dinner.”

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.

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