Richard Johnson: Timothée Chalamet spotted in NJ shooting Dylan biopic
NEW YORK — Timothée Chalamet caused a group of 40 teenage girls to start screaming while he filmed a dancing scene as he swigged from a beer bottle on the roof of the Viking Hotel in Cape May, New Jersey.
Security finally got the girls to stop yelling so the scene could be finished. Chalamet is starring as Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic “A Complete Unknown,” co-starring Elle Fanning, who was also spotted in town at the Congress Hotel where the stars and crew are staying.
Chalamet and Fanning have been in Cape May for two weeks and have been posing for selfies and signing autographs or their admirers.
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Bob Gutkowski, who ran Madison Square Garden before James Dolan took over, tells his story in “Gut Punch” coming out this month to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup.
Co-written with sportswriter Wally Matthews, with a foreword by Marv Albert, the book starts with Gutkowski’s career as an ad salesman at NBC, which had just launched “Saturday Night Live.”
On one of the first “Weekend Update” segments, Chevy Chase said, “Today the United States government announced a commemorative stamp for prostitution. It costs a nickel. Or a quarter if you lick it.”
Coca-Cola immediately pulled its ads and hasn’t come back in 45 years.
“Meanwhile, we couldn’t stop laughing. It was a hell of a line,” Gutkowski writes.
“Years later, when I was president of Madison Square Garden, I met Chevy Chase in a suite at a Knicks game. I reminded him of the joke.”
Chase said. “It was one of the first ones I wrote. NBC wasn’t happy with me.”
Gutkowski writes, “Neither was I. Needless to say, I did not buy him a Coke.”
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Dan Landon was a Broadway theater manager for nearly 40 years, working on more than 9,000 performances of 50 shows. But he’ll never forget Alec Baldwin.
In his memoir, “From the Back of the House,” due out on June 13, Landon recalls how Baldwin turned down a $5 million sequel after playing Jack Ryan in “The Hunt for Red October” to star on Broadway in “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1992.
Baldwin, a vegetarian who was dating Kim Basinger then, had been leading the fight to do away with carriage horses, and one day 20 horse carriages pulled up to the Ethel Barrymore Theater to protest.
“Alec got up on the shoulders of the biggest stagehand and started arguing with them,” Landon told me.
Baldwin’s recklessness was apparent even as he followed in Marlon Brando’s large footsteps.
“If there was a pile of poop in the street, he’d step in it,” Landon said. “But he threw himself into the role of Stanley, and he was brilliant.”
On July 9, Tony Award-winning actress Priscilla Lopez will join Landon at the Drama Book Shop on West 39th Street for a book signing and talk.
Landon said, “This is my love letter to Broadway and all the stars and luminaries my job allowed me to meet and know. In these pages you’ll meet them, too, as they wait in the wings, glow in the spotlight, and take their bows.”
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Frederick Lesort — the debonaire Frenchman who owned such hotspots as Jour et Nuit and Opia — will open Casa Tua in the old Cafe Boulud space at The Surrey hotel on East 76th Street.
There are already Casa Tua restaurants in Miami, Paris and Aspen.
Lesort is having a comeback. A friend said, “He’s in Aspen starting the summer season. He’s got a 6-month-old baby boy named Frederick.”
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Mark Kostabi has figured out a new way to hustle his paintings: He throws lavish Sunday brunches at his Chelsea townhouse, (referred to by his friends as “the Five-Story Tower of Decadence”) catered by legendary restaurateur Shelly Fireman.
He invites major art collectors to mingle with celebrity guests like Suzanne Vega and Rosanne Cash.
Promoter Adam Sands invites beautiful models and actresses.
Live jazz is played by Steely Dan guitarist Jon Herington, Guns N’ Roses drummer Frank Ferrer and White Zombie co-founder Paul Kostabi, Mark’s brother.
Kostabi sells paintings and hosts similar brunches and dolce vita evening parties at his multimillion-dollar villa in Rome.
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“Raging Bull” actress Cathy Moriarty doesn’t hold back.
The Bronx native will join the annual one-day New York Music Month conference at NYU on June 5.
“I like being independent,” she said. “Some people think I’m snotty. So what! They never asked me out when I was serving cheeseburgers!”
Organized by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment, the conference features more than 40 of New York’s music industry experts, including Chris Munger, Barry Cole and DJ Johnny “Juice” Rosado.
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Christian Siriano — who designs gowns for Cardi B, Zendaya and Ariana Grande — now has a furniture line called Siriano Interiors he’ll unveil in August at Iris Dankner’s Holiday House Hamptons.
Siriano will join Campion Platt, Andrea Stark and 20 other interior designers to raise funds for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
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The original costumes worn by Sophie Turner, Kit Harrington and Emilia Clarke in “Game of Thrones” will be on display at Rick Friedman’s Hamptons Fine Art Fair July 11-14 in Southampton.
The art fair will showcase over $150 million in art from 120 galleries including important pieces by Warhol, Basquiat and Picasso.
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Out & About: “Sex and the City” author Candace Bushnell introduced skincare mogul Peter Thomas Roth as he was honored at the Luisa Diaz Foundation Gala, which supports victims of domestic violence … Frank Schilling, who stars in the current Hulu hit “Grand Caymans: Secrets in Paradise,” poured magnums of his bubbly rosé Aphrodise for Youth America Grand Prix’s celebration of making the Guinness Book of World Records for the most ballerinas on en pointe. A record-smashing 353 dancers from the ages of 9 to 19 struck a pose at the David Koch Theatre at Lincoln Center.
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