The stars came out amidst a sea of flash-bulbs and strolled down the red carpet to the Waldorf for The Actors’ Fund of America’s Annual Gala: “That’s Entertainment!” The event raked in $1 mil to help the Fund provide for the welfare of all entertainment professionals — ranging from actors and opera singers to designers and stagehands.
The evening kicked off with a welcome by Actors’ Fund Executive Director Joe Benincasa and Tony Award-winning (for Kiss Me, Kate) Prez Brian Stokes Mitchell, (who also closed the evening with a stirring vocal performance of “The Impossible Dream” from his 2002 Broadway run in The Man of La Mancha).
The highlight of the evening was emcee Whoopi Goldberg’s presentation of the Lee Strasberg Artistic Achievement Award to Johnny Depp, now starring as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie in the multi-Oscar-nominated Finding Neverland. Known as the king of quirky film roles, Depp’s performance last year in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, as the sword-wielding, beer-swilling, eyeliner-wearing Captain Jack Sparrow, also earned him rave reviews and an Oscar nod.
Jack Valenti presented the Nedda Harrigan Logan Award to J. Nicholas Counter III, prez of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Bernadette Peters took the stage to give Oscar-nominated and Tony Award-winning Angela Lansbury the Lifetime Achievement Award. The Fund’s highest accolade, the Medal of Honor, was presented to the Prez of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Thomas Short by Gerald Schoenfeld, chair of the Shubert Organization.
Among the glitterati: Barbara Cook, Julian Schnabel, Marc Rosen and Arlene Dahl, Phil Smith and Tricia Walsh Smith, Martha Nelson, Henry Isaacs, Robert and Barbara Taylor Bradford, John Clancey, Anthony DePaulo, Christopher O’Donnell, Alex and Flora Sugarman, Anna Strasberg, Geoffrey Hemingway, Jane Powell, Elaine Zelnick, Amanda DuBois, Robert Osborne, Paul and Florence Libin, Charles Busch, Barbara von Borstel, Alice Ripley, Billy Porter, Christine Ebersole, Michael Cerveris, Marty Richards, Louise Peabody, Norm Lewis, and Joyce Randolph. An all-around award-winning evening!
