I wondered why Steven Spielberg was in New York last night for the premiere of the new Broadway hit “All the Way.” I’m told the famed director of “Schindler’s List” is “hands on” casting his new TNT pilot with Ed Burns called “Public Morals.”
Spielberg and Burns have cast the great Tony winner Ruben Santiago Hudson in a lead role and are now combing New York for actors for the series. Spielberg is checking all the theaters in New York for the best and brightest. They will have no lack of choices. There may be more Spielberg sightings on the Rialto soon. (No one uses “Rialto” anymore– my nod to Leonard Lyons, Walter Winchell.)
“Public Morals” is set in New York in 1967, when things were a lot grimier than they are now. Burns’s dad was an NYPD cop in the 60s. The show will have personal tie ins for him and certainly a lot of verisimilitude. Starting with “Mad Men,” it seems like a lot of people want to go back to the 60s in New York. Crime was so much more interesting then, wasn’t it?
