Hollywood buffs and old time gossips should take notice: Clifford Odets’ “The Big Knife,” which opened on Broadway last night after 65 years of dormancy, is a veiled look at a salacious moment in the life of Clark Gable. The play was produced once, in 1948, and never revived. Now Bobby Cannavale is a movie star with a load of secrets, and Richard Kind is the studio head who has enough nasty information to ruin him. In real life, Cannavale is playing a closely imagined version of Clark Gable, and Kind is Louis B. Mayer. Maybe.

What we do know: in 1945, Gable had a car accident in Brentwood, just past Beverly Hills. He crashed his car into a tree. That was the official story. But Hollywood press agents were (and still are) notorious for covering up scandals. And in this case, many people believed– and so did the tabloids of the time–that Gable had been involved in a hit and run that killed a girl.

Odets obviously knew the story, and the rumors. In “The Big Knife,” produced three years later, Mayer — Kind’s character– has helped cover up the crime. He’s sent a studio flack to jail who takes the rap for the girl’s death. Now he’s using this information to blackmail Gable–here, Cannavale as Charlie Castle– to sign a 14 year contract with the studio. Castle’s wife doesn’t want it. And then a witness to the accident turns up. And things turn ugly.

Did Gable do it? Who knows? But his life was full of secrets– including his illegitimate daughter with fellow star Loretta Young. Odets, a playwright, worked in Hollywood in the 40s as a successful screenwriter. But he was bitter. And then in the early 50s his life was destroyed by the Hollywood blacklist and HUAC. He died in 1963 at the age of 57.

“The Big Knife” slices through Hollywood’s studio system, and it’s rough. Cannavale is superb as Castle, a golden boy who’s made a lot of bad choices. Richard Kind unexpectedly–because he’s known for comedy– steals his scenes as he menaces these people to keep the studio moving forward. Kind will get a Tony nomination and maybe even win. He should. The whole cast is excellent.

A swell premiere party followed the opening last night at the Red Eye Grill, one that Odets would have loved (or actually hated). I ran into a lot of New York actors including Tovah Feldshuh, Tony Lo Bianco and Richard Schiff. David Schwimmer and Trudie Styler added some Hollywood type glamor to the evening. And there was a lot of blood-red steak, and a lot of big knives. Only Walter Winchell was missing, to finish us all off.

It was a busy night in New York. Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa came out to support Steve and Maureen van Zandt, who produced the Rascals show on Broadway. “Sopranos” creator David Chase and his wife Denise were also there, as was Vincent Pastore and long ago Springsteen manager Mike Appel, as well as Bruce’s current managers Jon Landau and Barbara Carr (current like since 1977). The Rascals’ “Once Upon a Dream” plays until May 5th at the Richard Rodgers Theater. After the show, everyone went over to Sardi’s, where Bruce hailed Little Steven as an “entrepreneur.” Rascal Eddie Brigati praised van Zandt for his passion. “Anyone could have tried this but only Steven could have pulled it off. Back in the day we had no one. We didn’t even have a bass player. We did everything on our own. That’s how we got into trouble.” Indeed. Music producer Joe Mardin, son of the late Arif, who produced the Rascals great hits, stopped by to say hi, too…

…Earlier in the night, Vanity Fair kicked off the Tribeca Film Festival with their annual cocktail party at the State Superior Court in Foley Square. Graydon and Anna Carter hosted along with Ronald Perelman and Robert DeNiro, and Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff.  Peggy Siegal brought “Great Gatsby” director Baz Luhrmann– his first outing since “locking” the film ten days ago. “I’ve been working on the soundtrack,” he told me. “Wait til you hear Fergie, Beyoncé and Jay Z.” Plus, it turns out that Bryan Ferry sings jazz all the way through the movie.

Some other guests–whom I was knocked out to meet– were Charles Sturridge and his wife, Phoebe Nicholls. He wrote and directed the all time great mini-series, “Brideshead Revisited” in 1981. Nicholls played Cordelia. They are married, and their 28 year old son, Tom Sturridge, is a famous young British actor now on Broadway with Alec Baldwin in “Orphans.” He is also engaged to Sienna Miller, and they have a nine month old daughter. So they are all here for “Orphans.” Sienna is glowing, and now she’s part of two amazing families.

Also at Vanity Fair: lots of movers and shakers in the media biz, from New York Times editor in chief Jill Abramson to Norm Pearlstine who runs Bloomberg News to Sir Howard Stringer, Gayle King, Charlie Rose, Wendi Deng Murdoch, Perri Peltz, Drew Nieporent, Tory Burch, Whoopi Goldberg. Sir Howard is upbeat about his impending retirement from running Sony, especially since I told him I bought a new Vaio laptop over the weekend. He told me: “For my retirement, the Sony owners sent me a big James Bond box filled with bobble-heads of all the Sony executives. When you touch each one, they have a recording saying nice things about me.” Of course they do! We’re going to miss Sir Howard. A lot.

PBS isn’t doing much to promote their “Memphis Soul” show tonight– so let me do it. It’s running at 8pm on most PBS channels. (WNET is hiding it on their website. I don’t know why.) There are classic performances on this show– Sam Moore singing “Soul Man” and “When Something is Wrong with My Baby,” Mavis Staples doing “I’ll Take You There,” Eddie Floyd– “Knock on Wood,” and Justin Timberlake very convincing on “Dock of the Bay.” Booker T. Jones is the musical director. It should be a great edited version of the live show which was streamed from the White House on April 9th.

Watch In Performance at the White House: Memphis Soul on PBS. See more from In Performance at The White House.