Is amFAR’s Cannes gala declining in popularity? Or is just that fewer people are ponying up for tickets?

According to the charity’s most recently available Form 990, dated 2015 but for the year 2014, things took quite a tumble that year.

The Form 990 indicates gross receipts of $15.9 million at the 2014 gala. But the 2014 Form claims a whopping $24.8 million in gross receipts.

What’s interesting is that amFAR announced it had made $35 million at the 2014 Cannes event. So that means around $20 million from millionaires and movie stars who bought expensive items or made pledges at the live auction.

That’s fine for the high rollers who are brought in for this purpose. But with overall paid tickets down by so much, you do wonder is this all worth it? And why aren’t people paying for their tickets?

Compare and contrast: amFAR’s two other events in 2014 did better than they had in 2013. Each of the two events they list on the Form 990– one in Dallas and one called “16” in 2013 and “17” in 2014– were up slightly gross receipts from year to year.

The annual amFAR Cannes extravaganza comes on the second Thursday of the film festival. Its status has declined precipitously over the years as major movie premieres are scheduled against it, and many of the big stars have already come and gone from the festival. A nearly $9 million drop in gross receipts suggests that more and more guests are being shipped in gratis — a lot like the Met Ball at the Metropolitan Museum or the Night Before fundraiser during Oscar week.

Last night in Phoenix: Celebrity Fight Night went on for the 23rd year without the late Muhammad Ali, but always in his honor and memory with lots of celebrities and no fights! Harrison Ford, Sharon Stone, “Soul Man” Sam Moore, Reba McEntire and more helped Lonnie Ali, the Champ’s widow, and Jimmie Walker raise millions for Parkinson’s research.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Moore roused the crowd with “Take Me to the River,” “God Bless America,” and “Soul Man” led by David Foster and the orchestra.

Other performers included Reba, Dennis Quaid, Brooks and Dunn, Colbie Caillat. Mike Love of the Beach Boys closed the night with a medley of the group’s Brian Wilson-penned hits.

Harrison Ford and Italian fashion designer Stefano Ricci were honored with the 2017 Muhammad Ali Celebrity Fight Night Awards.

Other celebs who attended the weekend events included Sharon Stone, Laila Ali, John Paul DeJoria, Bo Derek, Larry Fitzgerald, Kirk Gibson, Cale Hulse, Robert Kennedy Jr., Larry King, Nancy Lieberman, Gena Lee Nolin, Bob & Renee Parsons (he started GoDaddy, now runs a big foundation wth that co-sponsored), the very funny Melissa Peterman, and uber Olympian Michael Phelps.

It’s almost fitting that no one can get Jimmy Breslin’s age right today. A reporter who lived on precision and fact, Breslin is pegged by the New York Times as 88, Wikipedia as 86, the Daily News (his longtime employer) at 87.

Jimmy Breslin was ageless. We flew on the same plane to the Democratic convention in Denver in 2008. Let’s say he was almost 78 years old. We arrived at the Denver Sheraton around 9pm and they’d sent all the porters home. It was two nights before the convention was going to begin, so they didn’t think they’d need any. (Denver– another story altogether.) I helped Jimmy carry in his and his wife’s bags. He was as raring to go as any young reporter. After all, I don’t think he’d missed a convention in 50 years. This one was probably his last.

I knew Jimmy a little from Elaine’s, and from various events I covered. He was larger than life, from all his reporting, and from Son of Sam in 1977. And from fighting with Norman Mailer but running with him for mayor against John Lindsay in 1969. Pretty much from the 60s into the 90s and almost up to 2008, Jimmy Breslin was the voice of New York. No one ever eclipsed him.

One of Robert DeNiro’s first movie roles was in “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” adapted from Breslin’s 1969 novel about mobsters who couldn’t get anything right. The book was a hit, the movie was so-so, but the title outlasted everything. That title is used as headline or comment constantly for the last 40 years whenever any group of anything screws up. So Jimmy leaves that as a legacy as well as his Pulitzer, his other accolades, and all the regular people he wrote about. He illuminated our lives. I was happy– eager– and honored– to carry his bags that night.

Mel Gibson knows no shame.

Ten years after his anti-Semitism was revealed in a DUI arrest, he’s still trying to figure out how to undo the massive damage he did to his career.

Let’s not forget that the DUI came AFTER we learned that his father was a Holocaust denier, that he wouldn’t dispute his father’s writings, that Mel funded a church that now has a $70 million value for parishioners who still blame Jews for Jesus’s death. The church more than anything is a reality.

Yet, Mel knows that he must do something to spin his past messages. So now he’s something gotten involved with a group called the Survivor Mitzvah Project. They’re a fine little organization in Los Angeles with a smallish budget run by a woman named Zane Buzby. They give away a little less than $500,000 a year to help Holocaust survivors. On their website, they feature celebrities who’ve helped them or lent their names. Gibson’s is not one of them.

But in the last two days, Gibson’s name has turned up on “Extra” and in People magazine as one of their secret benefactors. It’s a bit of remarkable public relations item planting that should fool no one. But it helped get Buzby’s name in the press– she’s being honored by the Anti Defamation League on March 30th so this has been the hook of her interviews. Buzby worked in TV from the mid 80s to the mid 90s as a sitcom director and writer.

In the decade or more since the reveal of Gibson’s anti-Semitism he’s never once had any association with a Holocaust group. Suddenly he’s “supporting eight Holocaust survivors” around the world. Has he mentioned to them his connection to the denial of the death of 6 million Jews? Has he mentioned his statement to Peggy Noonan that “the Holocaust is a numbers game”? Somehow I doubt it.

Remember: In that decade, as he built up a $70 million in his church’s war chest, he hasn’t given a penny to any Holocaust museum, to the Shoah Project, or to any number of groups associated with Holocaust education.

I’ve emailed Buzby and will report faithfully what she has to say.