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Broadway: yes, perennials “The Lion King,” “Book of Mormon,” and “Wicked” were the top three highest grossers last week on the Great White Way. But number 4? It wasn’t “Spider Man: Turn off the Dark.” The flying side effects machine took 5th place. It lost, by $30,000, to a regular play– “Lucky Guy” with Tom Hanks, written by the late Nora Ephron. “Lucky Guy” is bursting at the seams with standing room only tickets. Celebrities can’t even get in. The Broadhurst is filled to capacity and then some. “Lucky Guy” took in $1.294 million last week, compared to $1.264 for “Spider Man.” Consider that “Spider Man’ has 748 more seats to sell as well at the Foxwoods Theater. And none of the “Lucky Guy” cast flies. They do soar, however.
This is a fruitful new season on Broadway. Not only is “Lucky Guy” a hit but so are Cyndi Lauper’s “Kinky Boots,” and “Hands on a Hard Body” with Keith Carradine. “Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike” with Sigourney Weaver (which cannot be missed) is picking up nicely. Newcomers “Cinderella” and “Motown” each did well over $1 million last week. “Phantom of the Opera,” unaccountably, is selling tickets to someone. Last season’s Tony winner for Best Musical, “Once” is also over a million a week. Next week a new cast comes in. And audiences are very taken with “Ann” at Lincoln Center, starring Holland Taylor.
Just a note about Holland Taylor. When I was backstage at “Lucky Guy” on Friday night I asked Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari what they thought about their old “Bosom Buddies” boss being on Broadway at the same time. What were the chances 30 years later that they’d all be on track for Tony Awards? I wish I had had a camera for their answer. They responded like 22 year olds, with huge smiles and shouted, “Isn’t it amazing????” I don’t think they could have been happier. So funny. So nice.
EXCLUSIVELindsay Lohan — and some other B list celebs like LaToya Jackson– has found a new source of money from a China billionaire transplanted to Los Angeles. On Monday morning, Lohan Tweeted a thank you to “Mr Pink” for getting her a private plane from New York to her court date in Los Angeles. Mr. Pink is a California-only distributed ginseng drink that is owned, sources tell me, by a Chinese billionaire and former entertainer who has money to burn.
My source says that last fall, Poe Qui Ying Wangsuo of Monterey Park, California– alleged to be the enigmatic owner of Mr Pink–threw a lavish promotional party in Beverly Hills for the product just because he could. Mr Pink, my source says, paid Lohan over $75,000 to come to the product presentation. The company also paid $21,000 for her private plane to LA. That’s also what he paid on Monday morning to fly Lohan in for the court date.
All the money is negligible to Wangsuo. A source says: “He spent half a million dollars for the party, and $3 million to date to launch Mr Pink, and it’s only available in California. They just want to go out and party. [As far as marketing and selling a new drink] they have no idea what they’re doing.”
Mr. Pink is owned by Wangsuo but run by him and three men under the name Kings Investment Group LLC. They are all based in LA. Their names are Artur Arenyan, Kaine Wen, and Farhad Novanian. Arenyan, who works in the beverage business, got Wang Sou into Mr Pink, I am told.
Wangsuo loves celebrities, my sources say. To rub shoulders with the rich and famous, he donated $35,800to the Obama Victory Fund in 2011 at a Hollywood fundraiser. But Wangsou keeps a low profile. He leaves the high life to his Romanian girlfriend, known as Monica Gabor. But he counts among his pals Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, with whom Wangsuo hoped to launch Mr Pink in Canada.
Lohan’s involvement is key. With little work and bills to pay, she must rely on her notoriety to make money. Mr Pink doesn’t seem to mind. It gets his brand attention even if you can only buy it on the west coast. “It’s a vanity product,” says a source, “It’s not meant to be a success. Wangsuo has $2.7 billion. He wants to party and be with celebrities.”
After Lohan arrived in LA this morning, she Tweeted both Mr Pink and WangSou’s party planner, Sheeraz Hasan.
Hasan has a couple of websites including one called www.hollywood.tv. (Hasan didn’t respond to my emails.)Â However, one look at the website and you see that Hasan has had his picture taken with every living celebrity and famous politician. Most of the shots look like standard set ups– he waits on lines, has a standard picture taken with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and then posts the pictures to make it seem like he’s their best friend. Maybe he is, who knows? I won’t deny him those relationships.
According to his website, Sheeraz Hasan’s customized services include: Creating the coolness factor for your brand, something called Paparazzi On Call, and Celebrity Booking for Private Engagements, parties, events, etc. He also gives Investment Advice. You’ll be happy to know that:
“Sheeraz, Inc. has the Hollywood paparazzi on direct dial any time of the day. Whether you happen to be in Los Angeles, London, or Miami, we are able to create a paparazzi media frenzy to highlight and publicize your profile to the mass media. This service is available 24 hours a day.”
And Hollywood.tv– it’s sort of a lower rent version of TMZ (that’s like penny slots vs. nickel slots).
Prince, Paris, and Blanket probably didn’t realize when they endorsed Mr. Pink that it’s tied to Hollywood.tv, and that the site keeps up a famous amateur video of their father being removed by ambulance from their house after he died.
Nora Ephron did a lot of things but she didn’t write plays. She did write, with her sister Delia, the omnibus “Love, Loss and What I Wore.” It was spoken, with scripts, by five women who sat on stools and didn’t really have characters or interaction. Nora wrote screenplays, of course, and a funny, funny novel (“Heartburn’), but never a proper two act piece of drama so polished it could just appear on Broadway.
But that’s what “Lucky Guy” is. I did get to see a preview of “Lucky Guy”– which opens on April 1st– on Friday night at the Broadhurst Theater. Tom Hanks, star of Ephron’s two greatest movies– “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail”– simply steals the Broadway season as late New York tabloid reporter Mike McAlary. I can’t think of any other movie actor in recent history who makes a Broadway debut like this one. And the playwright: Nothing Nora ever did prepares you for this as her last act, or maybe everything does. All her close friends talk about the perfect little gifts she used to give them. This is one of those gifts.
First of all, the play is unexpectedly greater than just “great.” To think that Ephron wrote this play when she was so ill makes you pause right there. It’s not jokey or constructed of memorable one liners. It’s actually an honest, beautifully wrought tragicomedy about a larger than life guy who burned too brightly. Some of it has been dramatized or condensed from McAlary’s life. But believe me, you get the important stuff.
There’s a person-for-person breathtaking cast that includes Peter Scolari, Maura Tierney, Peter Gerety, and Richard Masur. Then there’s George C. Wolfe, who stages this piece. I can’t get out of my mind at least two scenes where he rises above his already vaunted career highs.
McAlary wrote and reported for the Daily News, the New York Post, and New York Newsday, In the mid 90s, his career turned into a frenzy of headlines — and some were about him. There was still no internet, and the three tabs were in a deathcage match. Editors and reporters went back and forth among the papers as loyalties kept changing. So did the papers’ owners. There was a strike at the News, and then a public showdown at the Post. It was a wild time. At the Intelligencer column in New York magazine, circa 1994-1995, Pat Wechsler and I wrote a lot of stories just about the daily New York media games. A lot of them took place in bars. And at Elaine’s. And it’s all here.
Ephron, who’d worked at the Post in the 70s, and had written for New York, lays all of this out in “Lucky Guy.” I felt like I was watching a hologram of history. And then into this comes McAlary– his successes, failures, his famous car crash, and his cancer. And all those stories, not the least of which was Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a broomstick by rogue cops. McAlary broke that story and won the Pulitzer. And then he died.
Ephron, Hanks and Wolfe really capture what would be the last great hurrah of New York newspapering. This isn’t “The Front Page” and Hanks knows it. Somehow, even though he never knew McAlary, he gets the whole gestalt of what was going on. With his mustache he somehow looks like McAlary on stage.
I don’t know how all the people who will want to see “Lucky Guy” with Hanks will get in there before he’s supposed to leave on May 26. Maybe he’ll extend into the summer. Also Hanks should try and make it past the Tony Awards. With some luck the play will keep going for a while with a replacement. It’s too good not to let it not have a real life in the theater.
And as for Tonys, as much as I love Chris Durang’s “Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike,” “Lucky Guy” is headed to Best Drama, Actor, Director, and several supporting acting nods. It’s going to be a bittersweet experience, I imagine, for everyone involved.
So: Justin Timberlake has 1o more songs, a “20/20 Experience, Pt. 2,” ready for fall release. On a web forum, Questlove of the Roots made the announcement today in response to criticism that’s come up about Timberlake’s “faux soul.” Indeed, this whole marketing scheme of Timberlake’s for “The 20/20 Experience” is a mixed cultural reference. He either sees himself as a Rat Packer– Dean Martin?– singing 70s soul with a 16 piece band. Or, I don’t know what. Because no soul singer, not even Marvin Gaye, or Jackie Wilson, performed like this. Maybe Nat King Cole, who was dead before the 70s soul revival.
The hit single from “20/20” is “Suit and Tie.” It’s largely sampled and reworked from a 70s track by a group called Sly, Slick and Wicked. The record was called “Sho Nuff.” Here’s a weird story. There were two Sly, Slick and Wicked groups. One was from Los Angeles, the other from Cleveland. The LA group was first. The Cleveland group came after them, and had the hits like “Sho Nuff.” The Cleveland group actually sued the LA group over the name and lost. Still, they have to be paid for the “Sho Nuff” sample, which now called an “interpolation”– haha–Timberlake and co. just rewrote the song. Nevertheless, good job.
This whole excavation and archeology project of ripping off obscure songs started more than 25 years ago. At first it was called sampling. Now, as the songs have become whole “tributes” to a sound, it’s “interpolation.” Alicia Keys has been in the forefront of this, which always surprised me since she was capable of writing new songs. This past year Bruno Mars made a whole “tribute” to Sting and the Police from his “Locked Out of Heaven.” Some people may actually call these things “rip off.” Even John Legend did it, renaming the 60s hit “Spooky” by Dennis Yost and the Classics IV as his “Save Time.”
“The 20/20 Experience” is clearly a tribute to Philly Soul, Gamble and Huff. And it has tons more “interpolations” and samples than just “Suit and Tie.” We can only guess how many more will be lodged in Part Deux.
One of the Real Housewives of New York–women who are not and never have been housewives– says she knows which ones will go and which will stay when filming for their next season commences. Mind you, I have never written a word ever about any of the Real Housewives shows. I have never seen a minute of any of the editions, even when I accidentally appeared in the first episode of the Beverly Hills show when Kelsey Grammer got filmed during his premiere of “La Cage aux Folles” on Broadway a couple of years ago.
But over the weekend, I did meet Sonja Tremont Morgan, who is on the New York show, and is trying to market a Toaster Oven. So far, the Toaster Oven has not appeared, and even though she explained to me all her marketing ideas, I’m still not sure why GE or DeLonghi or Sunbeam hasn’t come along and branded one of their existing Toaster Ovens with her name. It would make a lot of sense, no?
In my life I have actually known two women who became “housewives.” I knew Bethany Frankel, slightly, before she got on the show. And I’ve known the wonderful Carole Radziwill a long time– even though I’ve never seen her on the show. I would rather be forced to watch The Knitting Channel.
Anyway, Ms. Morgan was a delightful dinner companion. She told me she’d been married to the great great grandson of John Quincy Adams, who was also descended from J.P. Morgan. Right away, this is pretty amazing. She is, by checking, 50 years old this year. She looks 40. However, Mr. Morgan is 83. Their marriage produced a child, but was brief. “He had a car accident, almost died, was in a coma,” she told me. “When he woke up, he had amnesia and didn’t remember me or his daughter.”
Wow! Isn’t that a screenplay? Why hasn’t she produced that movie, or sold the rights, I wondered? It turns out she once did promise to produce a movie, didn’t do it, and was sued by the people involved. She lost millions.
Anyway, back to “Real Housewives.” I didn’t know who they were, but Sonja Morgan says she could guess who will be ‘out’ for the next season. “LuAnn and Heather,” she said. LuAnn is a Berlin, Connecticut girl who married a real life Count, named deLesseps. He divorced her, however. Now she is known as Countess LuAnn deLesseps. And Heather is a woman who is suing the owner of Spanx, the form fitting underwear, for allegedly stealing her idea. Heather Thomson has a company called “Yummie Tummies.”
We are not at the Oscars anymore, you dig?
A friend of mine insists: “This is big, big news.” So I am telling you. It’s Sunday and the Yankees have already played. So I have time for this.
Please, someone, make this Toaster Oven. Sonja has whole lines of things she’s ready to license: aprons, napkins, blenders, etc. We are ready. John Quincy Adams is ready. So is J.P. Morgan.
Either the folks at Page Six are talking to the wrong people, or they just don’t get it. Just so we’re all on the same page. As I told you last week, Elisabeth Hasselbeck will exit The View when the season ends for summer. Hasselbeck will make her announcement later this spring. Brooke Shields is set to take over one of the two open spots. Joy Behar is leaving, but it wasn’t because she was found “too polarizing.”
Behar told Barbara Walters and ABC “quite a while ago” that she wanted to go. As the lovable– and I think still to have another big talk success–Behar told friends recently: she had a great run, got her family settled, bought three houses, and got married. She wants to do other things. As for Hasselbeck, she’s out of step even with conservatives, she’s not bright (it’s not like they have Mary Matalin representing the right).
The View will need a journalist and someone a little more in the center to balance out the group, someone in her 30s. George Stephanopolous’s talented wife, Alexandra Wentworth, I am told does not want the job although she likes occassionally filling when someone is out. Hey–by next fall Nicki Minaj might be free!
SUNDAY UPDATE: Worse news than was thought: “Burt Wonderstone” comes in at $10.3 million for the weekend.
Earlier: This has not been a great winter for Warner Bros. This morning they’re waking up to their fourth box office disaster in a row. “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” — with real stars Steve Carell, Jim Carrey, James Gandolfini, and Oscar winner Alan Arkin. The movie looks like it will make a very meager $11-$12 million. The official budget is listed as $30 million, but of course, that’s highly unlikely given just that quartet. The cast also includes Olivia Wilde, Jay Mohr, and actual magician David Copperfield. “Wonderstone” also sports 11 producers, 4 writers, and 1 director–Don Scardino, a highly regarded television director and former actor.
“Burt Wonderstone” caps a long, bleak stretch that started with “Gangster Squad,” “Beautiful Creatures,” “Bullet to the Head,” and “Jack the Giant Slayer.” Every studio has its run of back luck. Warners is also coming off a mega success with “The Hobbit” and a Best Picture Oscar for the hit “Argo.” Last year “The Dark Knight Rises” was a monster success. And the studio is looking forward to a glittery opening for “The Great Gatsby” in May including the Cannes Film Festival premiere. Also about to be unleashed: “The Hangover Part III,” “Man of Steel,” a promising comedy called “We’re the Millers,” and “Gravity” with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock.
This film, though, is a puzzlement. Why it was allowed to butt up against “Oz the Great and Powerful,” another family film with magic that had “The Wizard of Oz” marketing edge? And the mixed to poor reviews didn’t help. Neither did the very tacky looking posters. Oh well. This, too, shall pass.
Well, well. The music charts haven’t been so good in ages. Bon Jovi, Bowie, Pink, Jimi Hendrix. There’s too much to listen to! Plus, if so inclined, Justin Timberlake is streaming on iTunes. (“20/20” isn’t officially released until Tuesday.) For this week, which ends on Sunday, the race to number 1 is close, close, close. David Bowie’s excellent “The Next Day” looked like it would be at the top– quite an accomplishment considering it’s Bowie’s first album in 10 years. But Bon Jovi’s “What About Now”– terminally catchy, fun rock and roll– now seems to be edging Bowie out.
There are two mitigating factors here– well, maybe three. Bon Jovi is on tour. They appeared on “Katie” on Friday, and “American Idol” on Thursday. Plus amazon.com is just about giving away the download of the album for five bucks. The Bowie album is $9.99. Unfair advantage? Well, it’s a dog eat dog world out there right now.
But how rewarding to have so much good music after a long, long drought. The Jimi Hendrix album, “People, Hell and Angels” has barely left my CD player or devices. Eric Clapton has “Old Sock.” I am addicted to the Pink song, “Try” from her current hit album. And if you’re not listening to Aaron Neville’s “My True Story” produced by Keith Richards, you’re missing the first best new release of 2013. Bravo!
“Jobs” or “jOBS” or however you want to spell it, will not be coming to a theater on April 19th. The movie about Steve Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher, has been yanked from its April 19th opening date. Open Road Films says it needs more time to market the film. But “Jobs” received lukewarm reviews from its opening at Sundance. And now Apple is having stock problems. They’re also being pelted by Samsung and other companies. Suddenly, Apple — hard to believe — is getting baked. Open Road says it chose April 19th because it’s the Apple anniversary date. But if they wait until May, they’ll be butting up against summer releases. Until August, the schedule is not that conducive to releasing a middling movie with a so so TV actor. We may not see “jOBS” for a while. Maybe they should time it to the release of the iPhone 6. Or 7.
Thursday’s “American Idol” sank to a 3.0 rating with just 11.63 million people watching the show. It was the fourth most watched show of the night. But it was almost the FIFTH. A show called “Elementary” was behind it by a whisker– 11.63 to 11.49 million. This is very troubling. “Idol” had a 3.8 on Wednesday, revised up. Even if this number is revised up, it still means that the carryover from Wednesday to Thursday was dismal.
And on this episode, Nicki Minaj got up and stomped around when she didn’t get her away over her favorite contestant leaving the show. This was after she showed up 20 minutes late on Wednesday and looked like a hot mess. Her explanation was that she had been caught in traffic– yes, a first for live TV considering she’s paid millions to be in that studio on time. If it wasn’t a PR stunt, then Nicki’s got problems. And so does the show.
The fact is, Thursday has become a disaster for “Idol.” The CBS comedies “Big Bang Theory” and “Two and A Half Men” just roll over it. “Person of Interest” picks up steam from those shows at 9p, giving CBS a blockbuster evening. But now “Elementary,” which follows “PoI,” is just on the verge of making it a CBS night. “Idol” is also facing the return of “The Voice” on NBC Monday, March 25th–with hot hot hot Adam Levine and lots of young stars.
So many things are wrong. Why, for example, didn’t Mariah Carey perform her “Oz” song, “Almost Home,” this week? “Oz” opened to $80 million over the weekend? This would have been the perfect moment for that. Why aren’t we seeing Keith Urban perform a song? He is hot hot hot. The “Idol” audience loves him. It’s enough with Phillip Phillips.
