Graydon Is Going to Have Another Grayby! Graydon Carter and wife Anna are expecting their first child together (Carter has four kids from his first marriage). Kim Cattrall has been bragging that her SATC: TM castmates got paid higher salaries because she held out for more money. Bono, his wife, and Helena Christensen were harassed by paparazzi while eating at Serafina in the Dream Hotel. New Yorkers Julian Schnabel and PR guru Dan Klores both took home Independent Spirit Awards. Abby Diaz, the former maître d’ of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s who wrote the restaurant tell-all PX This! was asked to leave Jean Georges while having a glass of wine. “Page Six” mourns that dive bar Siberia has been converted into a Dunkin’ Donuts.
in other news
Freemasons Make a Deal With the DevilOf the PR variety, that is. After literally centuries of mystery and subterfuge, the Freemasons have done the unthinkable: They’ve hired a publicist. According to the Times, a flack from Dan Klores Communications has been calling around trying to advertise Masonic locations in New York, in conjunction with the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets. (Seriously.)
“We’ve gotten a lot of bad press over the years,” explained Thomas Savini, the librarian at the Grand Lodge of New York. “We reached a point we saw ourselves being represented as conspirators or useless old men, neither of which is an accurate representation of Freemasonry. For a couple of centuries, we sat back and stayed quiet and let our actions speak for themselves. But we decided to open up our mouths a little bit more and draw some attention to the positive role that Masons play in the public world.”
The Times has a good rundown of Masonic history on their Website, but for us the most titillating read was the virtual tour of the Grand Lodge on West 23rd Street that’s available on the Freemason Website. It’s a gorgeous building, with meticulously maintained interiors and opulent finishing. It’s like a gentleman’s club meets Versailles. Except, you know, with giant candled altars in every room.
The Freemasons Enter the Spin Zone [City Room/NYT]
party lines
Even Crazier Love
Dan Klores’s new documentary — the boy-meets-girl, girl-leaves-boy, boy-hires-thugs-to-blind-girl-with-lye, girl-marries-boy-after-he-gets-out-of-prison love story of Burt and Linda Pugash — tells an amazing and freaky story. But, as Klores confessed to us at the premiere earlier this week, he collected some even weirder material that didn’t make it into the film. For starters, there’s rampant speculation among people who know them well that Burt and Linda have never had sex, even to this day. And then there’s the story of Pugash’s first sexual experience. “The first time he got laid, he totally deceived and lied to a woman,” Klores told us. “He met her, and she said, ‘Are you from New York? I hate those Jews.’ And he says, ‘Me, too!’ And then when he was making love to her, she saw that his dog tag had an H on it. In those days they were labeled C, P, or H, Catholic, Protestant, or Hebrew. And she said, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘Hindu.’” Jimmy Breslin puts it just right in the movie: “I’ve been covering news in New York City for 50 years,” he says, “and no one is as visibly insane as Burt Pugash and is not institutionalized.” —Jada Yuan
gossipmonger
Norm!Norman Mailer still hates Michiko Kakutani, dislikes Janet Maslin, too, and did an interview with Martha Stewart for her TV show. CNN execs went on a corporate retreat to the Bahamas, and “Page Six,” presumably on behalf of Fox News, mocks them for it. If you complain at Nobu, Drew Nieporent might blacklist you. Peter Cook, Christie Brinkley’s soon-to-be ex-husband, went grocery shopping. (Cindy Adams, meantime, dubs Brinkley Professor Emeritus in How to Handle El Piggo, which she actually means as a compliment.) Retired Ford Models vet Neil Hamil to run Elite Models. There’s a reality show being shopped in which ten virgin men compete to lose it to “a celeb.”
cultural capital
Sundance Report: Superflack Dan Klores Is the Talk of Park City, on the Cheap
Dan Klores’s new documentary, Crazy Love, was picked up for distribution little more than an hour after its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival Friday night. It was the festival’s first sale — and the talk of its opening weekend. The fourth docu by the Brooklyn-born PR maven turned filmmaker, Crazy Love revives the 1962 scandal of Burton Pugach, a wealthy Queens attorney who served fourteen years for hiring a man to throw lye in the face of his estranged mistress, Linda Riss, and their marriage after his release from prison. The unlikely love story’s shocks drew audible gasps from the audience, but Klores treats his subjects with empathy and even humor, scoring the movie with stalkerish pop songs like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s “I Put a Spell on You.” On the day the sale to Magnolia Pictures was announced, we talked to Klores in the lobby of Park City’s Yarrow Hotel.
gossipmonger
Barry Diller Has No West Side Panic RoomBarry Diller denies that Frank Gehry built him an invader-proof, bullet-proof bunker in the bathroom of his office at the new IAC headquarters. So Pamela and Kid didn’t break up over Borat — they broke up because Pam partied too much and left the kids home with Kid (and maybe lied about her miscarriage). New crotch-flashing best friends Paris Hilton and Britney Spears will host the Billboard Music Awards Monday in Vegas. Rush & Molloy “breaks” the news that the “raisin face” Nicole Richie was referring to on her blog is Rachel Zoe, which, like, everyone knew two days ago. Ed Koch lost his pants at an airport in Portugal. Steve Schirripa accidentally head-butted James Gandolfini on the set of The Sopranos. Bobby Kennedy Jr. had dinner with his sister’s husband’s ex-wife. The publishers of InStyle want the magazine’s weddings editor to make things a little more highbrow. Snoop Dogg filed a $2 million lawsuit against his record label for royalties owed; TomKat spent $4.75 million for a cottage in London. Robert Altman tattooed dogs for a living before he made movies. Publicist Dan Klores has a movie in Sundance this year, his third in five years. Some people laughed at a screening for a new comedy about Adolph Hitler, and some people didn’t. (And yes, the director’s Jewish.) Cindy Adams speculates (twice!) that ABC’s Primetime co-anchor John Quinones will take over Ed Bradley’s vacant seat at 60 Minutes. Liz Smith reminds us that Rudy and Judy Giuliani are truly, madly, deeply in love. Lillo Brancato, of A Bronx Tale fame, is in solitary confinement at Rikers Island for a third time (this time for heroin). And the Post scolds the Daily News for calling a kettle black.