CELEB SIGHTINGS 23

 

Right after my January 14th birthday, (don’t feel bad if you missed wishing me a good one—many of my supposed best friends did, too—Manti Te’o may have had the right idea with his imaginary pal!,) the celebrity sightings around LA picked-up. Here are the highlights of this past winter, that I haven’t had a free day to bring you before:

1/20/13 This whole evening was a highlight! At the best party I’ve ever been to, which was actually my first carefree night in three and a half years, thrown by actors’ manager Maria Calabrese, I played Charades all night with a group of show biz peeps, including fabulous actresses JoBeth Williams and Jeannie Berlin, and soap actor Nicholas Coster. I’m proud to say that every team that JoBeth and I were on won! For five hours! Except the last one. Come on, we had to throw them a bone! Now the other teams know how Patty Lupone felt when I beat her at Musical Chairs at her own party all those years ago. But I think her Tony win for Gypsy a few years ago helped her get over it!

Ron Howard and Tom Hooper.

1/24/13 Ron Howard helming a Q-and-A withOscar-nominated Les Miz director Tom Hooper at a private industry screening at the Arclight Hollywood. Talk about a power director duo! Ron was the best moderator of one of these events that I’ve ever seen!

Jacie Collins. Photo by Lauren Clarke-Bennett.

1/30/13 Jackie Collins, looking as fabulous as always, at opening night of Backbeat at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown LA. She proudly told me that her daughter Rory Lerman, (an old fan of my show, which is how I know Jackie, too,) just had her first book published. I guess that apple didn’t fall far from that tree!!!

1/31/13 Jessica Szohr, who played Vanessa on Gossip Girl, leaving hip clothing store H & M, on Sunset Strip, as I was entering. I always thought she was gigantic, but she’s actually a little skinny thing in person. I think it’s her humongous noggin on TV that threw me off.

Lisa Ann Walters.

2/1/13 This one is really only a working actress (as supposed to “celebrity,”) but it gives me the chance to rag on the Santa Monica restaurant Babalu! (A review will be coming in the next month or so, so look-out for it.) She was sitting right across from me at a recent lunch there, and the servers were so slow that it gave me plenty of time to look at her face and try to figure out why she looked sort-of familiar. She had beaten me out for a good movie role back in the day because that’s when I looked great, and the casting director said they didn’t want someone who’s “sexy, with a great body,” because it was opposite Whoopee Goldberg, and she didn’t want anyone thin and good-looking playing her sidekick. Can’t really blame her on that thinking. So, I lost the part to Lisa Ann Walters, the woman who was sitting opposite me that day. And now, I don’t look great, either! So, hang in there, everyone! Things often turn around in life.

Raini and Rico Rodriguez. Photo by Karen Salkin.

2/6/13 Doris Bergman’s Valentine’s Suite at West Hollywood’s Cafe La Boheme featured quite the age range of celebs! They went from young brother and sister actors Rico and Raini Rodriguez all the way up to oldies but goodies Dyan Cannon and Martin Landau! How’s that for an eclectic mix?!

2/12/13 This was one of the juiciest nights of celeb sightings in a long time! At the Pantages Theatre pre-Broadway opening of Jekyll and Hyde, starring Constantine Maroulis, I spied: his fellow American Idol alums Diana DiGarmo and Ace Young (who are engaged) confabbing with their former musical director, Michael Orland; Maxwell Caulfield and wife Juliette Mills (the only other Hollywood couple who’s lasted even longer than Mr. X and I have!); former ‘NSync bandmates Joey Fatone and Lance Bass (with whom I exited the theatre); and Dancing with The Stars pro Anna Trebunskaya, So You Think You Can Dance judge Adam Shankman, and old school singer Lainie Kazan (although those three were not together. Duh.) Whew! What a diverse bunch of theatre-goers!

2/22/13 At this year’s QVC Oscars party at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, I saw absolutely not one famous female, but I did run smack dab into new father-to-be Mario Lopez. I’m surprised I’ve never seen him in person before, and even more surprised at how not tall he is! I also spied Paul Sorvino, The Good Wife‘s Chris Noth, and the most casually-dressed person at this most dressed-up of events all season, Modern Family‘s Eric Stonestreet, who should have known better.