Innholdsfortegnelse for April 12, 2017 Double Issue i The Hollywood Reporter

April 2017 July 2016 Who in Hollywood doesn’t love a good comeback story? Last spring, things looked grim for Stephen Colbert. The transition from his Emmy-winning niche at Comedy Central to the bigger CBS stage was a rocky one, with critics perplexed by the suddenly stilted comedy and interviews. Late Show suffered nightly ratings drubbings from NBC’s Jimmy Fallon, and some even suggested that Leslie Moonves give Colbert’s time slot to his 12:30 a.m. neighbor, James Corden. As a huge fan of the “Stephen Colbert” of The Colbert Report, I was among the disappointed who canceled my DVR season pass. But by the summer, the embattled host admitted he had a problem and agreed (after a stern Moonves sitdown) to bring in a showrunner, Chris Licht, to help right the…

The Fate of the Furious New York, April 8 Wiesenthal Center Dinner Beverly Hills, April 5 FX All-Star Upfront New York, April 6 Chanel Celebration Santa Monica, April 6 Party Crawler New York City Gets Furious As producer, Vin Diesel (2) helped to bring the Universal action franchise to his hometown with a massive world premiere at Radio City Music Hall. “Family, code, loyalty — those are themes that I was able to bring to the saga from growing up in these streets,” he said. Dwayne Johnson (4), Michelle Rodriguez (5), Tyrese Gibson (2), Charlize Theron (3), Scott Eastwood (1) and Jason Statham also hit the red carpet for the F. Gary Gray (4) film — the franchise’s first title shot after Paul Walker’s death in 2013. “We like to…

Weddings Krishel Coultrup, a publicist at Fox Searchlight, married John Hale on March 4 at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu in front of 150 guests. The couple, who became engaged Nov. 7, honeymooned in Bora Bora. White House aide and former Apprentice star Omarosa Manigault married pastor Allen Newman on April 8 at Trump International Hotel in Washington. The couple became engaged in July. Births James Sikura, president of the Robert Evans Co., and Shii-Jean May Sikura, music coordinator at Walt Disney Studios, welcomed son Mason Sikura on March 11 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Paradigm motion picture literary agent David Boxerbaum and wife Stephanie Cohen Boxerbaum, a principal attorney at Box, welcomed daughter Sage Citrine Boxerbaum on March 11 at Cedars-Sinai. Dave Hollis, executive vp distribution at Disney,…

Nearly 40 percent of all news is fake — or so Americans believe, according to a poll commissioned by THR. The 1,000 respondents (all frequent news consumers, split between Trump/ Clinton supporters) said that only 62 percent of the news is “real,” with Clinton voters finding it a lot more real than Trump’s. This mistrust was among the biggest revelations of the National Research Group survey, conducted April 1-2, just after The New York Times reported that $13 million had been paid out to settle claims of sexual harassment against Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. He proved the most polarizing news figure, with the highest positives from his core audience (75 percent) but also the highest negatives from everyone else. “In a different time, O’Reilly’s situation should have destroyed his…

It had taken years — and the passionate support of Kirk Kerkorian, who financed the film’s $100 million budget without expecting to ever make a profit — for The Promise, a historical romance set against the backdrop of the Armenian genocide and starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac, to reach the screen. Producers always knew it would be controversial: Descendants of the 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Ottoman Empire shortly after the onset of World War I have long pressed for the episode to be recognized as a genocide despite the Turkish government’s insistence the deaths were not a premeditated extermination. The Promise, which opens April 21, finally would bring the untold saga to a mass audience. But at the Toronto Film Festival premiere in September, producer Mike Medavoy…

I t was 9 a.m., and I was barely functioning on three hours of sleep, having just flown coast-to-coast-to-coast. Fidgeting in my lie-flat leather-trimmed lounger, I just couldn’t fathom yet another glass of champagne. So I ordered a mimosa. In that moment, feeling like I’d woken up on the floor somewhere in Vegas, I knew I had underestimated this seemingly cushy assignment: to compare the top premium flights between Los Angeles and New York City. Between noon on a Tuesday and midnight the following day, I jetted back and forth between the two cities on the carriers that offer lay-flat seating — American, JetBlue, Delta and United. It was a 36-hour vision quest that spanned 10,000 miles and forced me to confront hard choices (lobster roll or lamb shank?). My…

S ince launching his first private golf and residential community in the 1990s — The Estancia Club in Scottsdale, Arizona — real estate developer Mike Meldman’s Discovery Land Co. has become known for its insiders’ playgrounds. “Our members are looking for privacy, exclusivity, a high level of service and convenience,” says Meldman, whose portfolio includes such U.S. properties as The Madison Club in La Quinta, California, and the soon-toopen Silo Ridge Field Club in New York’s Dutchess County, where Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen were among the first to purchase. It’s Discovery Land’s careful blend of exclusivity — to be a member, you must be a homeowner, and the average buy-in is $5 million — with its strong focus on community, family and outdoor activities that has attracted stars Reese…

The election of Donald Trump has been a galvanizing force in journalism, with ratings and readership up across the news spectrum as his unorthodox playbook and Twitter tirades — not to mention White House palace intrigue — have generated intense interest. Journalists covering Trump day in, day out also have seen their profiles raised and their lives upended. “Trump creates then feeds off the energy he creates, and that’s what we’re seeing here,” says Haberman, 43, the New York Times White House correspondent and CNN political analyst who covered the campaign and has maintained a relationship with the president; she was among his calls after his health care bill failed. “This is the business. It just moves faster than it ever did now.” Adds NBC’s White House correspondent Jackson, 32,…

$5M N.Y. Adam Levine sold his SoHo digs in June to shoe designer Nick Lucio for $5.4 million, well above the $3.5 million neighborhood average. The 1-bedroom, 2-bath loft offers 2,800 square feet of wideopen space and exposed brick. L.A. In September, Oscar winner Viola Davis purchased a 7,545-squarefoot Toluca Lake estate for $5.7 million. In addition to 5 bedrooms, including a master private terrace, it has a screening room, wine cellar and saltwater pool. D.C. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson bought his $5.5 million, 5,478-square-foot 4-story house (with 3 bedrooms and 7 baths) from AOL exec Richard Hanlon in February, joining the Obamas, the Kushners and Jeff Bezos in the Kalorama neighborhood. $10M N.Y. In February, Trevor Noah traded his $15,000-a-month rental for a $10 million Hell’s Kitchen duplex…

Every burning question we have about American culture can be profoundly answered by watching The Real Housewives. This is particularly true when it comes to understanding the subtle yet significant differences between New York City and Los Angeles lifestyles and mind-sets. A closer examination of the Zen of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and The Real Housewives of New York reveals the major cultural contrasts between the home of the NYC middle-finger salute and the home of the SoCal “hang loose” hand wave. First, my bona fides for commenting on both cities: I grew up in New York City and spent much of my youth in Harlem, where I played street ball, frequented jazz clubs, got caught in a race riot and spent a summer as a journalism intern,…

Despite the sunny swimsuit weather, older families in Palm Beach, Florida, long have turned up their noses at too much exposure, holding fast to the adage that one only should be in the papers at birth, marriage and death. “The Old World Palm Beach people wouldn’t dream of going to a restaurant — they entertain in their homes or clubs,” says Shannon Donnelly, a longtime society columnist for Palm Beach Daily News, aka “The Shiny Sheet” by locals. “If they go to a charity ball, they ask not to have their pictures taken.” Then along came Donald Trump — and the conversion of his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago estate into the winter White House. (His Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, is predicted to become his summer “Camp David…

In an alternate version of our current reality (one in which last November’s presidential election yielded a different result), Hulu’s new adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale could be enjoyed as simply a beautifully made speculative thriller — a cautionary tale worthy of particular appreciation for Elisabeth Moss’ terrific lead performance. Instead, it’s that, plus an urgent and terrifyingly timely portrait of a world in which religious zealotry and despotic forces combine to control female reproductive health as a way of totally disenfranchising women. Adapted by Bruce Miller, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the near future in what was once Boston, now patrolled by the armed guards of the Republic of Gilead. Infertility is widespread, and the few women still able to give birth have been enslaved…

It has taken three and a half seasons, but Beck Bennett, 32, is finally having a breakout moment on Saturday Night Live. The Illinois native and graduate of USC’s acting program joined the cast as a featured player in 2013. A malleable performer, he’s had a few modest hits (like the swoopy-haired aspiring pop star he plays on “Weekend Update”) and some misses (his “office boss trapped in a baby’s body” was exiled to the SNL character graveyard). Nothing, however, has come close to the blockbuster success of his Vladimir Putin impression from the current season — a sly spin on the Russian president as a gleefully manipulative and perpetually shirtless puppet master to Alec Baldwin’s dim-bulb President Trump. THR sat down with Bennett in Studio 8H to watch his…

I’ve had a good run,” says Bob Mankoff of his 20-year tenure as cartoon editor at The New Yorker. As of May 1, his post will be filled by 29-year-old Emma Allen — who, unlike Mankoff, is not a cartoonist but has written about comedy and edited humor for the magazine (“I keep hearing that I have the best job in the world,” she says). Mankoff, 72, plans to teach college courses on humor and communications and pour his energies into Botnik Studios, a tech startup that seeks to “crack the humor code.” But his droll doodles will continue to appear in the weekly’s pages, and he’s editing The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons, featuring 3,000 cartoons organized around tropes like desert islands and space aliens. Another favorite theme is…

G wyneth Paltrow’s yearlong effort to sell her Tribeca loft illustrates the goldplated challenges afflicting New York’s luxury real estate market. Originally listed in early 2016 for $14.25 million, the apartment’s price was quickly cut to $12.85 million. That’s when the Oscar winner capitalized on her celebrity, posting photos of the nearly 4,000-squarefoot space on her Goop.com, where it was eulogized as floating “above cobblestone streets like a pale, dreamy cloud.” People, Elle Decor and USA Today promptly picked up the story. It wasn’t until March that the condo finally sold — for $10 million, nearly 30 percent below its original price. Paltrow’s pad wasn’t an outlier. In 2015 and 2016, a confluence of events, including a glut of luxury units and uncertainty surrounding the presidential election, forced many sellers…

I f there is one thing Sam Gores has learned over decades of buying up smaller talent agencies to build Paradigm into a full-service player, it’s that you have to create a work environment as dynamic as your clientele. “Architecture,” he says, “is as much about how you feel as it is about how it looks.” That was foremost on his mind when the chairman decided to consolidate his East Coast operations, with 200 employees, into a single location — a 50,000-squarefoot space on two floors in a 1967 skyscraper on lower Broadway, with floor-to-ceiling windows and Hudson and East river views. The agency, whose clients include Zoe Kravitz, Stephen King and Ed Sheeran, had shared a space on Park Avenue South with indie booking shop Windish, which Paradigm acquired…

“I’m the mom of the group,” says Ripa, clarifying the family dynamic — complete with constant ribbing and volleying of a few surprisingly crude jokes — that she shares with pals Cohen and Cooper. “And I’m the funny old grandfather,” adds Cooper. The trio, frequent guests on one another’s television shows (Ripa’s ABC morning staple Live, Cooper’s 360 at CNN and Cohen’s Bravo gabfest Watch What Happens), have been close friends for more than a decade. But it’s apparent that this time together on a weekday — one on which they’ll collectively put out 150 minutes of live broadcasting in various time slots — is rare. So Cohen does not let the opportunity pass without locking his friends and their respective partners into weekend plans. Says Ripa, “Andy is the most social person in…

Guest writer Jimmy Kimmel WHY HE MATTERS At 6-foot-12 and 104 pounds, Stern is the most powerful man in New York. In a city bursting at the streams with podcasts and pundits, Maddows and Mirandas, Stewarts and Stephanopouli — Howard is lord of an extraterrestrial radio oasis, an FCC-free forum on which major celebrities and slow adults (some are both) are given equal time and consideration. The scope of the show is staggering. An hour in-studio with Paul McCartney might be (and was) followed by an hourlong phone call with “Jeff the Drunk” — a deadarmed alcoholic calling from a trailer in upstate New York. Howard is probably most famous for his early work popularizing lesbianism and repurposing butts as bongos, but those who followed him to satellite radio know…

TOP BABY NAMES Mini power monikers from Nameberry.com’s Pamela Redmond Satran and Abby Sandel N.Y. (trendy, literary) Dashiell Sophie Matilda Ophelia L.A. (playful, unisex) Zen River Story James (for girls) D.C. (classic, conservative) Sam Charlotte Jack Lily — ELYCIA RUBIN WHERE TO BE SEEN N.Y. In the culinary cage match that is NYC dining, The Grill, opening in the former Four Seasons space, is a near sure bet — partners Jeff Zalaznick, Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi also are behind Carbone, the downtown phenom whose regulars include Stephen Colbert, Taylor Swift, Chelsea Clinton, the Obamas and George and Amal Clooney. Still, the toughest table in town may remain Le Coucou in the 11 Howard hotel. “The restaurant is beautiful,” says Clive Davis. “And you can actually hear everyone at your…

People say Donald Trump does not read. Reading leads to people being more compassionate, so it is very sad that it is something he has no interest in. He does not seem to be the kind of person who has any interest in the lives of anyone outside of his own family. If he were to read, he should start with the Bible. He pretends to be religious but has shown zero familiarity with the Bible or the New Testament. He probably needs to learn some of the basic ideas preached by Jesus Christ. He talks a lot about the poor, but his ideas only serve the rich. His core ideals could not be less Christlike. He definitely should read some self-help. He has told interviewers he has never seen…

Tribeca Film Festival C redit Donald Trump’s presidential victory for the strong documentary lineup at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, running April 19 to 30. “With the election, our priorities changed,” says programming director Cara Cusumano. “It became clear that there are very different worlds within this country, and nonfiction storytelling provides such a valuable mode for empathy and communication.” Films such as The Reagan Show, which charts Ronald Reagan’s camera-friendly presidency, and ACORN and the Firestorm, about the controversial community organizing group, survey events that helped create today’s political landscape; while such titles as Copwatch, about citizen activists who police the cops, and When God Sleeps, about an exiled Iranian musician, capture the current moment. “That’s in our DNA — this festival was founded as a response to what…

B y all accounts, 2016 was a disappointing year at the Chinese box office, but three months into the new year, Hollywood fare has created optimism for a rebound. Already, two U.S. imports have crossed the 1 billion RMB mark (an important local milestone) in China: xXx: Return of Xander Cage ($163.6 million) and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter ($159.5 million). Even more encouraging is the fact that Hollywood’s biggest China-friendly tentpoles have yet to hit the market. “As the 2017 year opens up, there will be many major studio films we’ll be following,” says Rance Pow, president of the Shanghaibased cinema consulting firm Artisan Gateway. Indeed, if the blockbuster pedigree of the big-budget releases on the horizon is any indication, China’s box office is in for a major boost.…

40 Years Ago, Studio 54 Unhooked Its Velvet Rope On April 26, 1977, Studio 54 set the ball rolling on a three-year run as New York’s best nonstop party. The club, located at 254 W. 54th St., achieved international fame as the place where the gay disco scene, New Jersey teenagers and bold-faced names merged: Salvador Dali, Liz Taylor, Monaco’s Princess Grace and Jackie Kennedy Onassis among them. But while Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager got credit for founding the club, a fashionindustry publicist named Carmen D’Alessio was a major force in attracting stars. She was behind stunts like having Bianca Jagger, then married to Mick, ride a white horse inside the club for her 30th birthday party in 1977. Hollywood’s take on the place came in 1998 with Miramax’s…

Last July, after Gretchen Carlson sued 21st Century Fox and Roger Ailes, the then-head of Fox News Channel, for sexual harassment, Rupert Murdoch told his sons, both Ailes enemies, that paying off Carlson without a fight would mean more lawsuits. Easy-money settlements always bring more claims. James and Lachlan Murdoch, however, were eager to get rid of their nemesis, and the most direct way to do that was to accept Carlson’s claims after a quickie investigation and then use a big payoff — $20 million — to end the dispute and calm the storm. Nine months later, Fox has continued to collect a string of look-alike claims against Ailes and against ratings giant Bill O’Reilly, with a firestorm of recent press attention on what The New York Times is calling…

When San Francisco-based MasterClass got underway in 2014, it had a hard time finding big names to teach its $90 online education courses. But the days of co-founder/CEO David Rogier cold-calling author James Patterson to convince him to sign on as an instructor are over. A-listers such as Hans Zimmer, Aaron Sorkin and now Shonda Rhimes are signing lucrative deals to teach, as MasterClass plans to expand into new subjects. MasterClass aims to bring the quality of Netflix to the $100 billion e-learning industry. That means getting “the best in the world to teach and share and make it a price point that is affordable,” says Rogier. Each course offers several hours of instruction directed by the likes of Jay Roach and Davis Guggenheim, workbooks full of additional material and…

Hot Ticket New Yorkers who turned the elegant year-old Metrograph on the Lower East Side into celluloid sacred ground will cheer the April 14 return of the formerly down-at-the-heels Quad Cinema in Greenwich Village. Real estate developer (L.A.’s Pacific Design Center) turned film player Charles Cohen — he’s been buying up movie libraries (Buster Keaton, Merchant Ivory), investing in restoration (Daughters of the Dust) and backing foreign-language films, including Oscar winner The Salesman — is behind the revival. “I’d been looking for a theater forever,” he says of the fourplex, the city’s oldest multiscreen theater (it opened in 1972). A multimillion-dollar renovation allows screenings in 35mm and 16mm as well as 4k digital and 3D projections; programming is led by vets of Manhattan’s IFC Center and the Film Society of…

New York EDITION Are Mika and Joe a Couple? Their Pets Sure Think So! It’s not your imagination — there has been an uptick in flirting on Morning Joe lately. But are the co-hosts of MSNBC’s politically charged morning show — liberal Mika Brzezinski, 49, and conservative Joe Scarborough, 54 — romantically involved? They appear to take a big step toward coming out as a couple in a new THR interview. “We have a crackling on-air chemistry, and a crackling off-air chemistry, too,” says Scarborough, who divorced his second wife in 2013 (Brzezinski split from her husband of 23 years in June). Rumors of the relationship circulated during the 2016 campaign, but Brzezinski shot them down (“I really don’t want to talk about my personal life,” she told GQ). Now,…

RÉSUMÉ CURRENT TITLE Co-chairman, Th e Weinstein Co. PREVIOUS JOB Co-founder, Miramax Films BIG HITS Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction ($214 million worldwide) put Miramax on the map, and the 2003 Oscar best picture winner Chicago ($307 million) was its biggest grosser. At The Weinstein Co., Tarantino’s Django Unchained ($425 million) and 2011’s Oscar best picture The King’s Speech ($414 million) have done best. Ask Harvey Weinstein if he’s mellowed with age, and the famously brash mogul acknowledges “mellow” may not be the most apt descriptor. “Sometimes I wake up in the morning and just have to be tenacious,” says the Queens-born co-chairman of The Weinstein Co. “That’s what the job calls for.” Weinstein, 65, once churned out Oscar bait (Shakespeare in Love, The Artist) like an unrivaled heavyweight, but as…

NEW YORK TOP TAILORS LUX TAILOR 20 E. 68th St. “I trust them implicitly,” says Micaela Erlanger of these handlers of both couture and basic hems. Cristina Ehrlich’s preference: CHRISTY RILLING STUDIO (325 W. 38th St.). BEST SHOE REPAIR COBBLER CONCIERGE cobblerconcierge.com Jason Rembert loves the convenience of its delivery service. Erlanger swears by ANDRADE SHOE REPAIR (320 Bleecker St.) and, “for more complicated repairs, The Leather Spa” (55 W. 55th St.). FAVORITE SPAS SHIBUI SPA 377 Greenwich St. Kate Young relaxes at this outpost at Greenwich Hotel (pictured), while Erlanger calls on Chris Minehan of RECLAIMED BEING for at-home massage and cupping sessions: “My back pain is gone because of his work” ($150; reclaimedbeing.com). SPECIAL SKIN CARE JOANNA VARGAS 501 5th Ave. Young enjoys Vargas’ Triple Crown facial ($250, $550 with Joanna), while Ehrlich likes…

When Taylor Swift went apartment hunting in New York’s West Village, it was her own indoor parking space she was after. She found one at the carriage house she’s renting on Cornelia Street while her Tribeca apartment is being renovated, but it came at a price: $40,000 a month for the fivestory home, which also has an indoor pool and landscaped roof deck. But due to its rarity in Manhattan, where garages increasingly are being razed for more residential construction and bike lanes have gobbled up street spots, a permanent parking space (or two) is now what separates a luxury home from the pack. “It’s the latest feature in the amenity wars,” says Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc., who noticed the trend as early…

I In July, I interviewed Stephen Colbert as he was preparing for live telecasts of CBS’ Late Show for the political conventions. He was still less than a year into his tenure as David Letterman’s replacement, and both ratings and buzz remained far behind the frontrunning Tonight Show on NBC. A hot rumor at the time was that his slot would be flipflopped with his lead-out, James Corden. In conversation, Colbert was more upbeat than the public narrative would suggest. But criticism about his performance — “I’m a human being. Yeah, I care,” he said at the time — clearly was wounding. What a difference eight months and the election of a reality TV star makes. As I sit with Colbert in early April in his 12th-floor corner office above…

JIM ACOSTA CNN senior White House correspondent At President Trump’s Feb. 16 press conference, Acosta, 45, buttonholed him on repeated assertions that reporting based on intelligence leaks is “fake news.” Trump responded by slamming CNN’s reporting — “The tone is such hatred” — adding, “I’m really not a bad person, by the way.” BRET BAIER Fox News chief political anchor; host, Special Report Baier, 46, landed a one-onone with Abdel Fattah el Sisi on April 3, after the Egyptian president’s Oval Office meeting with Trump. Baier pressed Sisi to explain his country’s jailing of dissidents. “There are … extremists living in our society,” responded Sisi. TUCKER CARLSON Host, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight On March 15, Carlson, 47, landed one of the few sit-downs with Trump since he took office.…

B ased on the amount of time I spend reading his tweets or a transcript of something he said,” says Seth Meyers of President Trump, “he’s probably the ‘writer’ that gets the most time on our show every week. I’m surprised he hasn’t come for a credit because — I don’t know if you know this about him — but he loves credit.” Indeed, the sheer volume of the news coming out of the White House has upended many of the best-laid Late Night With Seth Meyers monologue plans. Meyers’ signature “A Closer Look” segment, a comic take on that day’s head-scratcher out of D.C., has become a nearconstant crash. A writer pens a draft the night before that Meyers begins to refine at about 9 a.m. The script must…

The sky life isn’t for everyone. “Any building, no matter how prestigious, has a lobby. People can see you come and go, and doormen talk,” says Richard Steinberg, a top broker at Douglas Elliman. “So high-profile people are going back to townhouse living because it’s the best way to remain anonymous.” And due to landmark restrictions, the only way to go truly mega is to buy multiple properties and Frankenmansion them together. These massive single-family compounds are most pronounced in the West Village, where Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are combining a pair of adjacent townhouses purchased in 2016 at 273 and 275 W. 11th St. for $34.5 million. The 13,900-square-foot property will span 50 feet, with a 2,100-squarefoot garden. A few doors down at 138 W. 11th St.,…

2004 Friars Roast D onald Trump is no stranger to roasts. In 2011, he was lampooned by Snoop Dogg on Comedy Central. And it was his skewering by Barack Obama later that same year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that allegedly fueled his presidential ambitions. But it arguably all began in 2004, when Trump was guest of honor at the Friars Club’s annual roast. At the show emceed by Regis Philbin at the height of The Apprentice’s popularity, Trump laughed heartily at the parade of bad-hair jokes and cracks about beauty pageants. (“He’s the only guy who could sleep with 72 virgins without having to blow something up,” quipped insult comedian Jeffrey Ross.) Occasionally the cuts went deeper, with Richard Belzer calling Trump “the man, the legend, the f—ing…

IN NEW YORK CITY: ‘IT’S BAD FOR BUSINESS’ Trump Tower may no longer be beleaguered by news vans, thousands of protestors or street closures (except for 56th Street between Fifth and Madison avenues — that one-block stretch still is restricted for vehicles). But vestiges remain of the madness brought by Donald Trump’s presence during the election: a lone protestor holding a “Show me the taxes” sign; steel barricades lining Fifth Avenue; six NYPD officers strapped with machine guns stationed at the tower entrance; and crowds of tourists snapping away on smartphones. “Fifth Avenue is turning into a mini Times Square — I’ve seen a guy dressed up as him, people selling anti-Trump buttons,” says a Fifth Avenue employee. But however much Trump Tower is a draw for tourists (employees there…

“The page uniform is a scarlet letter,” says Universal Television’s reality chief Meredith Ahr, who donned the infamous polyester suit as a member of NBC’s page class of 2001. “It’s so hideous, and everyone sees you in it and knows you’re the lowest on the totem pole; but at the same time, it’s like this golden ticket that opens every door.” Indeed, long before the job was immortalized by Jack McBrayer’s Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock, NBC’s 84-year-old internship program was a broadcasting institution that paved the way for hundreds of careers in the entertainment business. Eva Marie Saint, Regis Philbin, Ted Koppel, Michael Eisner, Aubrey Plaza — they all got their start giving tours to out-of-towners and fetching coffee for network stars like Johnny Carson. What the gig…

In Nevertheless, Alec Baldwin offers a breezy and sometimes insightful account of his life. The actor’s narration of his Long Island childhood and college years is the most illuminating part: Interwoven with sweet portraits of family and friends is a frank acknowledgement that economic insecurity, resulting from his father raising six kids in a nice suburb on a high school teacher’s salary, had a huge effect on Baldwin for the rest of his life. But the majority of the book covers the star’s 40-year and still-thriving career. Despite some surprising revelations (he almost died from a cocaine overdose in 1984 while filming Knots Landing; he’s been sober since 1985), bon mots (Anthony Hopkins’ voice sounds “like the French horn solo from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth”) and bombs (Harrison Ford is “a little…