Thursday, April 28, 2011

Chris Noth Spotted on Eighth Avenue Looking for Car?


On my way to the gym today about 5:30pm I saw the actor Chris Noth at the corner of Eighth Ave. and 54th St. looking exasperated while on his cellphone and out in the street waving his hands in an excited fashion. He didn’t look like the calm, collected rich guy he plays on Sex and the City…”Mr. Big.” He also didn’t seem like the cool-headed cop he played on Law & Order or the arrogant lawyer/politician he plays on The Good Wife. I recognized that look….it appeared he was trying to locate his car service driver and was on his cellphone frantically trying to talk to either the driver or the dispatcher. I know that look…I’ve been there myself! What did we ever do before cellphones? I suppose he was trying to meet someone for drinks or dinner before he was due at the theatre on West 45th St where he’s one of the stars of the Broadway hit THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON. I thought to myself “why don’t you just walk, take the subway or just go to the theatre and chill out”…he only had 90 minutes or so before he was due there anyway.
He finally closed the cellphone and tried to flag a yellow cab, of which none were available. Cabs flew past him for several minutes and he finally appeared to give up and marched down W. 54th Street and disappeared into the Café Iguana Lizard Lounge. Accordingly, I disappeared into my gym next door…finished with my little “celebrity snooping” incident. Just wondering: Who tries to get a cab at Rush Hour in midtown Manhattan? I wondered why he didn’t just take the subway? Does he think he’s too famous? At Rush Hour, nobody cares who you are…they are all just looking down at their papers and counting the stops till they get off the train. Besides, I’ve seen lots of famous folk on the subway--people more famous than Noth: Julia Roberts, John Lithgow, Caroline Kennedy and others. In fact, just that morning I’d seen his Sex and the City co-star Mario Cantone on the Eighth Avenue subway platform (I’d seen him there before).
Incidentally, Noth also needs to hit the gym again (I should talk)…that nice slim body he had for the last Sex and the City film is gone and he’s got the middle-aged man’s gut again, pooching out under his beige polo shirt. I heard the filmmakers told him to get a trainer and get in shape a few months before principal photography began. Perhaps walking would have done him good.

Chris Noth Celebrity Spotting on Eighth Avenue

On my way to the gym today about 5:30pm I saw the actor Chris Noth at the corner of Eighth Ave. and 54th St. looking exasperated while on his cellphone and out in the street waving his hands in an excited fashion. He didn’t look like the calm, collected rich guy he plays on Sex and the City…”Mr. Big.” He also didn’t seem like the cool-headed cop he played on Law & Order or the arrogant lawyer/politician he plays on The Good Wife. I recognized that look….it appeared he was trying to locate his car service driver and was on his cellphone frantically trying to talk to either the driver or the dispatcher. I know that look…I’ve been there myself! What did we ever do before cellphones? I suppose he was trying to meet someone for drinks or dinner before he was due at the theatre on West 45th St where he’s one of the stars of the Broadway hit THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON. I thought to myself “why don’t you just walk, take the subway or just go to the theatre and chill out”…he only had 90 minutes or so before he was due there anyway.
He finally closed the cellphone and tried to flag a yellow cab, of which none were available. Cabs flew past him for several minutes and he finally appeared to give up and marched down W. 54th Street and disappeared into the Café Iguana Lizard Lounge. Accordingly, I disappeared into my gym next door…finished with my little “celebrity snooping” incident. Just wondering: Who tries to get a cab at Rush Hour in midtown Manhattan? I wondered why he didn’t just take the subway? Does he think he’s too famous? At Rush Hour, nobody cares who you are…they are all just looking down at their papers and counting the stops till they get off the train. Besides, I’ve seen lots of famous folk on the subway--people more famous than Noth: Julia Roberts, John Lithgow, Caroline Kennedy and others. In fact, just that morning I’d seen his Sex and the City co-star Mario Cantone on the Eighth Avenue subway platform (I’d seen him there before).
Incidentally, Noth also needs to hit the gym again (I should talk)…that nice slim body he had for the last Sex and the City film is gone and he’s got the middle-aged man’s gut again, pooching out under his beige polo shirt. I heard the filmmakers told him to get a trainer and get in shape a few months before principal photography began. Perhaps walking would have done him good.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Ethan Hawke Spotted in Chelsea--Area becomes new Celebrity 'hood

Movie & Stage star Ethan Hawke (ex-husband of Uma Thurman) was seen today on West 21st Street in Chelsea, strolling along and entering a very nice apt. building. Hmmm...does this mean Hawke has relocated? Following the divorce with Uma, he has been known to jump around from place to place, eventually living in a hotel.
Does this new sighting mean he's finally moved into a permanent address in this very gay block of the very gay Chelsea neighborhood? Does this mean he's now gay? Questions, questions....
He is known as a "serious" theatre type and is involved very much with his Off-Broadway theatre troupe lately, directing various projects and putting his movie career on the back burner.
Other big stars who have made Chelsea their home in NYC include Kate Winslet, Javier Bardem & Penelope Cruz, Kelsey Grammer, Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban and others too numerous to mention here.

The Ride Provides Needless NYC "Street Show"

There's a new tourist attraction in NYC called The Ride...it's basically a midtown bus tour that covers no more than 20-30 blocks. Along the way through traffic they have set up street performers...a ballet dancer, a break dancer, a couple of mimes, etc. Instead of a guide, you've got TWO stand-up comics "narrating" NY as you drive by these staged performers. TWO comic/actors pretending to be guides! They do a verbal back-and-forth which must be even more confusing to the tourists on board who are already dumbfounded by the ordinary sites and sounds of our metropolis! They are basically using New York City as the "backdrop" to their little Off-Off Broadway show.
MY question: why go to all this trouble? New York is already a stage show with things to see everywhere without having to "stage" events. The people who dreamed up The Ride probably took the awful GrayLine double decker tour and thought "we can improve on this" (anyone could improve on that). And perhaps they improved on Gray Line, but they have obviously never had a really good tour with a talented guide. A talented guide like me (Jim Dykes) or my friends Jane Marx, Robert Fields, Hardy Phippen, Marta Cooper, Mike Brennan or any number of others can make the city come to life using what is there already! A good guide can simply help a group make sense of the existing craziness and give you a nice historical, fun perspective on how it all got that way.
Why add "staged events" to the madness which ARE the streets of New York on any ordinary day? To summarize, a good guide can verbally paint pictures and create a "show" with much less effort and expense than these people responsible for The Ride have done. Plus you are paying a LOT ($75? $85?) for something which is basically a 20 block bus tour from 42nd St. to 59th St. BIG DEAL! At least with GrayLine's tour you get the whole city for your money and can jump off the bus whenever you feel like you've had enough.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Sarah Jessica Parker moving across from Mr. Big?



OMG-- I just saw an item that Sarah Jessica Parker and Mathew Broderick, who have been hunting for a new house for a long time, have apparently bought a 19th century townhouse on East 10th Street next door to where I once lived! And...wait for it....directly across the street from Chris Noth's apt. in the Brevoort East Apartment Building on University Place near NYU in Greenwich Village!!

Sarah and Mathew have lived in the Village for years over on Charles Street...Mathew grew up in the Village at nearby 27 Washington Square North (same building as my acting teacher, the late great Uta Hagen) and their Charles Street home is, by coincidence, right around the corner from the location used on SEX AND THE CITY as "Carrie Bradshaw's apt."...66 Perry Street.
Funny how these things happen!
In my mind's eye I still remember Sarah and her Mom and family...we all worked together in the Alvin Theatre back when a young teenage Sarah was the third "Annie" on Broadway, promoted from her role as "July" in the orphan chorus. I'm sure she doesn't remember me at all, even though I used to hang out in her dressing room with her brother Toby and his friend Robert Klein. As a teenager in acting school, I sold souvenirs and Annie dolls in the lobby for Ray Fanning and lived in a cold-water flat on nearby Ninth Avenue. I also helped Sarah & her Mom and Brooke & Teri Shields empty out her dressing room and load the car on Sarah's last day as Annie (she was growing up too quickly) but I'm sure nobody remembers me. Now I'm one of New York's best guides with wonderful memories and stories. I worked as an extra on Sex and the City several times, even though I begged my old friend Camille Hickman (Sex and the City co-casting director) several times to give me a small part---and Sarah Jessica looked at me on the set as if she remembered me, but it wasn't the time or place to go into "old time remembrances from our childhood." She was the "star"...I was the "extra."

Celebs in the City-- Lady GaGa & the Kardashians




LADY GAGA?? KIM KARDASHIAN?? As a tourguide in New York these days, we are constantly changing our information especially concerning celebrity names and movie references. With the constant flow of reality shows, internet news and pop culture information spewing out PLUS younger tourists, celebrity names that used to mean something no longer spark interest from most groups.
Gilda Radner (long dead) means nothing, Meg Ryan (career dead...means nothing), Madonna (has-been, gets mild interest), Tom Hanks (mildly interesting), Barbara Walters (might as well by dead), and many other names which I used to mention in my tour 5 years ago get very little eyebrows raised on the tour these days.
Young, hip celebrity names are the answer! I recently did a tour where every young person on the bus dozed thru celebrity names like Tom Hanks, Kelly Ripa, Regis Philbin…even Madonna got a few yawns…they are yesterday’s headlines.
As soon as I mentioned Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian.…the bus erupted…they love it when you show them Gaga's old high school on Fifth Avenue (Convent of the Sacred Heart). Her given name is Stephanie Germanotta and she is 25 years old. She shot to international pop star fame very quickly with her first two albums and many high-profile appearances like wearing an evening gown made of MEAT. Just a few short years before, she was one of those Upper Westside high school girls waiting in her uniform for the crosstown bus to her school at 91st and Fifth Ave. (you’ve all seen those groups of kids on the street).
Like many New Yorkers, I don’t replace my Verizon telephone directory often, even though they bring stacks of new phone books to my building lobby yearly. As a matter of fact I realized I still had a telephone book from 2005—six years ago, which today is an eternity. Six years ago, Lady Gaga was a freshly graduated senior living in her own apt. at 176 Stanton Street in the Lower Eastside and working in hole-in-the-wall Greenwich Village and Lower Eastside nightclubs like The Bitter End. She’s listed in the phone book, as is her Uncle Frank at 45 Wall Street. Her parents are listed as: Joe & Cynthia Germanotta, of 135 West 70th Street. I used to live around the corner at 111 West 68th Street so that area is still a favorite of mine (but I just couldn’t afford the rent increases.)
Her parents love the local restaurant VINCE AND EDDIE’S which I also adore, located on W. 68th St. Apparently, Gaga/Stephanie has happy memories going there every week with her parents-- When she heard they were closing forever, she recently swooped in and bought it and gave it to her parents!
Another sure-fire thing people enjoy is to drive down Spring Street and point out the DASH store, owned by the Kardashian sisters Kim & Chloe and made famous on their reality show KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS. They live over in Tri-beca in a rented loft. They are famous for doing NOTHING, except being beautiful, wearing beautiful clothes and being on TV. But fame is an incredible mistress...people want to know about them!!
On a tour you must give the public what they want!

Footnote: God save us from those awful double-decker tours in NYC. They have so much money to spend on advertising but are the McDonalds of the tourbiz...people hop on but quickly hop off when they realize they have been taken for a ride (literally) with guides that know nothing and have no education. Finding a personal/private guide online means searching beyond the first page of google!