If someone important fainted at a big political event on “House of Cards,” you’d suppose that Frank Underwood wouldn’t rush to his aid. Or, if he did, he might suffocate him before EMS could get there.
Luckily, that’s not what happened last night at the annual gala for the Museum of the Moving Image. Before the evening got too far underway, museum chair and former NBC and RCA chief Herb Schlosser, age 88, dropped like a stone during cocktails. And before paramedics could even be called, Kevin Spacey, the night’s honoree, ran to his rescue.
Unlike Underwood, Spacey was genuinely concerned. Schlosser, I can report, went to the ER and was later released. Still, during his keynote speech, the first thing Spacey did was ask how he was to the crowd. It turns out he’s just playing a psychopath on TV!
Spacey’s really a nice guy, as we learned not just from that episode but from several friends and co-workers who came to toast him. Among them: Samuel L. Jackson, Chaz Palminteri and wife Gia, Peggy Siegal, Ron Delsener, Denis Leary, Kate Bosworth (who came with husband Michael Polish), Penn Badgley, Dana Brunetti, and Beau Willimon. At the dinner but not speaking: legendary Tony Bennett with daughter Joanna, newly mortal Mike Bloomberg, Sony Pictures Classics head Michael Barker, and Netflix chief Ted Sarandos.
All the celebs were seated for dinner and stayed through til the end, except for Leary, who appeared on stage on cue and then left the building. He missed hobnobbing with Spacey, Jackson and Palminteri at the head table. Leary also missed Spacey’s spaced out talk at the end of the night, which contained so many “f words”– as in “f—ing this, f—ing that” that a drinking game upon hearing the word would have left everyone under the table. “F—ing hey, Kevin, it’s a black tie event.”
Maybe that’s how they talk at the Old Vic.
