Social Diary 12/14/04 - An evening with Leo DiCaprio

Star Time

Trotting down Central Park West. 1:00 PM. Photo: JH.

Pale Male Update: John Flicker, President of Audubon, said last night that he was up on the roof earlier in the day as part of his negotiations with Richard Cohen et al and observed new sticks and nesting material ledge where the nest was removed. This may bring up new issues. If Pale Male is rebuilding, is the nest active? If so, removal may have been unlawful, as would be tampering with the nest now. Also, without the anti-pigeon spikes that anchored the old nest, could a new nest slide off the ledge and injure someone below? That might make an interesting liability.

Star time. I met Leo DiCaprio last night at Osteria del Circo, the Maccioni brothers’ restaurant on 55th between Sixth and Seventh. We’d all just come from a screening of his new picture, “The Aviator,” directed by Martin Scorcese — a film biography of Howard Hughes. It’s a big picture and you’ve probably already read about it elsewhere. Hollywood in the 30s, 40s and 50s, big and flashy and splashy, like the Hughes legend, the audience loved it.

A screenshot of Leo DiCaprio and Gwen Stefani in The Aviator

It was interesting for me to see if this kid (which is how these eyes see DiCaprio) could handle the role believably. And indeed, when it starts out, he is a kid, as is Howard Hughes in the story. And indeed he matures so credibly, it’s almost like seeing Leo grow up and mature before your very eyes. He’s a powerful actor and yet in person, in conversation (he was talking with Mario van Peebles when we were introduced by Peggy Siegal), he’s this very pleasant fellow.

I asked him if the age transition was difficult for him. Answer: of course it was – walking onto Martin Scorcese’s set everyday, knowing the world was watching. Nevertheless, he pulls it off so believably that a whole generation of people will now see Leo DiCaprio in their mind’s eye when they hear Howard Hughes’ name. But they shot the picture (that was ten years in the making) in four months and came in not one dollar or one day over budget (which was something like $100 million and looks it).

Then I told him I had lunch the other day with his next door neighbor in the Hollywood Hills – Joan Linclau, who owns the house just above his. When we visited her out there a couple summers ago, she told us Leo liked to shoot hoops in the wee hours – this she knew because … ahem … she could hear the bouncing ball. The other day, when I asked her about the late night hoop shots, she told me he’d built a full basketball court in its place. Which was quite a production, lights and all. However, she told me that although she was worried at the outset, they've done a great job on the court and that it won’t affect her sleep. And, that “Leo couldn’t have been nicer.” Their neighborhood is pure star-land. Leo lives in Madonna’s old house. On the other side of Joan is Keanu Reeves and one beyond that is Toby Maguire.

The problem these days in that neck of the woods is not late night basketball courts, but burglaries. There’s a wave of break-ins among those multi-million dollar villas. (Michael Shnayerson’s got the scoop in the next Vanity Fair) The perps always hit when no one is home. Some believe it’s a ring with insider’s knowledge of their victim’s homes as they seem to go right for the stuff and are out long before the cops get there.

Meanwhile, back to last night’s screening. There were two hundred over at the screening room at MoMA and another hundred at the MGM screening room. Mr. Miramax, Harvey Weinstein was on hand, along with the star. I went with Brooke Duchin and Alex Hitz. We sat behind Jackie Rogers and John Mernigan and next to Regina and Rainer Greeven (Cristina Cuomo’s ma and pa). The Ahmet Erteguns were there, along with Reinaldo and Carolina Herrera, screenwriter Bobby Harling, Judy Licht and Jerry della Femina, Lewis Lapham, Bob Fellner, Katharina Otto and Nathan Bernstein along with Alec Baldwin who plays Hughes’ arch-rival Juan Trippe.

Have you subscribed to New York Social Diary?
Enter your Email address and click on subscribe to receive emails about the activities of NYSD. It's free!

Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance!

Bettina Zilkha and Randy Kemper

Kim Heirston and her hubby

And while we’re on the subject of show biz: I went the other night to the Music Box for an “evening of theatre to benefit Friends of NIDA in America” to see Dame Edna, Back With A Vengeance.

I had never seen Dame Edna live and in person before. I’ve seen her creator Barry Humphries dining and lunching at Swifty’s any number of times with beautiful blonde wife Lizzie Spender and so many of their New York pals including Wendy Vanderbilt Lehman and Gale Hayman Haseltine. I saw him a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday night at a small dinner a mutual friend gave for him and Mrs. Humphries. And I’ve seen a couple of TV clips of Dame Edna doing Dame Edna. However, I had no real idea what the hullabaloo was all about until I saw the real thing.

It’s a show like no other and the Gorgeous Star Herself has a big co-star: the audience. She keeps the place jumping and the crowd regaling with laughter and surprises. On the night I was there, she got a young couple up from the audience to “counsel” them on their marriage. We soon learned that they met in Singapore where she lady had been working and that she was originally from Melbourne, Dame Edna’s hometown. Dame Edna asked if the lady had any relatives still living there. Yes, the woman’s mother (her name was Diana). So out comes the phone (this is all unplanned) onto the stage, Dame Edna dials the number she’s been given and we hear it ringing and a moment later, Diana answers.

It didn’t take long for her to recognize the caller’s voice. The entire evening is riotous and full of surprises, none of which will I give away, just in case you get to see the show. The only clue I can give is that you don’t know what’s going to happen because it changes with each audience. There were some in the crowd who are such fans that they’ve been back again and again.

This night’s performance was benefiting NIDA (National Institute of the Dramatic Arts of Australia) and co-chaired by Anna Murdoch Mann and William Mann, with a dinner afterwards at Sardi’s. In the crowd that night, Mario Buatta(who’s a religious devotee of the show), Pauline Pitt, Billy and Kathy Rayner, Dixon and Arianna Boardman, Robert Couturier, Patricia Patterson, Stan and Sydney Shuman, Antoinette Guerini-Maraldi, Maria and Bruce Bockmann, Wendy Lehman, Sarah and Lachlan Murdoch, Daryl Roth (who’s producing the revival starring Kathleen Roth and Bill Irwin of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Nick Simunek and Terry Allen Kramer (who’s one of the producers of the just opened, stupendous revival of La Cage Aux Folles).

William Mann, Kristi Witker, and Caroline Roehm

Jamie Figg and Antoinette Guerini-Maraldi

Daryl Roth and Tom Guinzburg

George McNeely and Wendy Lehman

Grace Meigher

Barry Humphries and Geraldine Shepherd

Jane Holzer

Pauline Pitt, Chris Meigher, and Wendy Lehman

L. to r.: Barry Humphries and Anna Mann; Sydney Shuman; Tony Ingrao and Liz Humphries.

This past Sunday night The Cycladic Art Foundation held a festive evening honoring Dr. Carlos Picon, Curator in Charge of Greek and Roman Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art at a dinner at Le Cirque. Dolly (Mrs. Nicholas) Goulandris as Honorary Chair. Alexis Gregory, Louise Grunwald, and Doda Voridis were co-chairs.

Christine Kondoleon

The evening began with a preview of "Alexander The Great, Treasure From an Epic Era of Hellenism” at the Olympic Tower and hosted by the Onassis Foundation. The exhibition includes portraits of Alexander as well as examples of classical antiquities from his time including swords, arrowheads, armor, coins, bronze sculpture and gold jewelry. Amongst the wonders is a bronze equestrian Alexander from 1st century BC, and the “Costume of the Lady of Aigai, circa 500 BC, a burial costume of gold.

After the exhibition everyone moved over to Le Cirque. Among the guests were Shelby White, Renee and Robert Belfer, Alex Hitz, Jane and Peter Marino, Nan Kempner, Kenny Lane, John Dobkin, Gerry Fabricant, Francesca Stanfill, Kasper, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Scott, Leonard and Allison Stern, Boaz Mazor, Ellery and Marjorie Reed Gordon, Liz Fondaras and Paul Gunther.