Thursday, March 28, 2024

Philip Seymour Hoffman: Who Made the Cut for the Private Wake and Funeral

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UPDATE: The funeral guests included Meryl Streep and most of those mentioned below. The tragedy of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death cannot be overstated.  If you ranked every actor working now, he’d come up in the top 5. He might have been number 1. That loss is secondary to what his family is experiencing. He will never be forgotten.

Earlier: The wake for Philip Seymour Hoffman was star studded. But of course it resembled a Hollywood event in many ways. A source tells me certain guests were assigned the wake Thursday night and the funeral Friday morning. Some people didn’t make the cut. They’ve been assigned to a memorial service sometime in March.

Only when Hollywood publicists come to town, kids, does a funeral turn into an event you can be blocked from. All they were missing at Frank E. Campbell was a velvet rope. It was quite different from, say, Marvin Hamlisch’s open viewing  there in 2012.

Among the familiar faces were the most grieving, I think: Cate Blanchett and husband Andrew Upton. They brought Hoffman to Australia a couple of years ago to direct a production of “True West.” Hoffman stayed with them and their families were close. Also Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed Hoffman in “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “Punch Drunk Love,” and “The Master.” For a while, Hoffman used to boast, you couldn’t watch a PTA movie without him it.

Hoffman’s co-stars from “The Master,” Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams also attended, as well as Ben Stiller, Josh Hamilton, and Phil’s “Almost Famous” co-star Billy Crudup. A devastated Mike Nichols — who directed Hoffman in “A Death of a Salesman” on Broadway– came with wife Diane Sawyer. Nichols looks like he’s aged from the news of Hoffman’s death.

I guess there will be stake outs in the morning at St. Ignatius of Loyola for more sightings. And maybe a Hollywood publicist with a head set. I always say, I wish Robert Altman could come back and film all of this.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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