De Niro lets his hair down
“About My Father” is about funnyman Sebastian Maniscalco’s hairdresser father. Their friend Robert De Niro plays him.
De Niro: “I was in ‘The Irishman’ with Sebastian. This is a personal element from his life. A classic Italian family comedy cultural clash with WASPy stiff in-laws. His actual father was my model. I always want a real element in anyone I play. We met in Oklahoma while shooting a movie.
“Actors I admired included Gregory Peck and James Dean who only did three movies but was excellent. I never worked with Montgomery Clift. Brando, always great, I knew personally. I worked with terrific Robert Mitchum twice.”
In this is Kim Cattrall. Opens May 26. Go. Take your father. Maybe he’ll do your hair.
Write & wrong?
More of writers on strike: Writer submits a story. It’s later stolen. The denying studio says, “Sue us!” Broke writer fades away. Like Hollywood’s “Casting Couch” before the “Me Too” taboo, work stolen is not Once Upon a Time.
Writer Jack Piuggi of Flipp Productions claims he has hours of legally admissible audio/video footage. His lawyer Robert Hantman — who has rep’d Steven Seagal, Magic Johnson, Don King, Danny DeVito — has filed a David vs. Goliath lawsuit in US District Court, Southern District of New York, alleging Piuggi’s “Instafamous” osmosed into cable shows “Fake Famous” and “FBoy Island.”
Piuggi says it goes something like this: Funneling ideas they’ve heard, independent contractors filing 1099s remain work-for-hires not house employees. Studios thus say, “We were unaware of this person’s actions. They don’t work for the company. We were never informed.” Or, “This is a parallel idea — the term for a supposed coincidence that more than one person has that same idea and thus cannot be accused of theft.”
It’s three card monte.
Piuggi claims: “I [can] prove that these ideas were mine. I even suggested actors. Garrett Morosky, later cast to star in one of these shows, told me: ‘We know they stole your show.’ I recorded that, too.”
Re: calling
Memories: Bernie Goetz infused himself into today’s story of a Marine who killed homeless subway rider Jordan Neely, saying recently of the Marine: “He has got to pay.” In ’84 Goetz shot four teenagers on a train. He was acquitted. His lawyer, Barry Slotnick.
We exist in a wondrous world. I knew Bernie. I went to his 14th Street apartment. He opened the door — accompanied by his live-in live chinchilla.
Also. Sunday’s NY Post reported how busy is the late Shah of Iran’s exiled son Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.
Long ago, repeatedly received by His Majesty in Sa’dabad Palace, giant floor-to-ceiling doors seemed burnished in gold and — with servants on both sides — opened magically in front or behind when you entered His Majesty’s presence.
The Crown Prince was then a child. The Shah told me: “For his birthday we’re going to let him open his own door.”
Troubled with homelessness, migrants, druggies and Biden’s open borders, San Francisco is thinking to ask if Tony Bennett’s OK enough to stop by and pick up the heart he left there in 1960 . . . Listen, if not, they can give it to Kamala. She can always use it.
Thought mostly only in New York, kids, only in New York.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
