The Gilded Age received a SAG Award Nomination for Best Ensemble Cast, and HBO MAX invited all those who could go to attend the Ceremony at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles (February 23rd -26th) It was apparent early on that we were unlikely to win: “Succession” was at Table 2, and we were at Table 53. But we had a wonderful weekend, and were delighted to catch up with old friends and to meet the delightful Lily Gladstone* and her cast-mate from “Killers of The Flower Moon” William Bellau.
I did receive The Washington Irving Award For Excellence in The Arts from the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York the day before leaving for LA, so I wasn’t empty-handed.
There were two talks on “All that glitters is not gold – behind the scenes of “The Gilded Age” – at The Lotos and The Harvard Clubs, and at the latter location was Co-Guest of Honor (with Ben Ahlers) at the 158th Annual Gala of The Horological Society of NY on April 6th.* For The Coffee House, of which I’m honorary President, I hosted a straw Poll for The Oscars, and wielded the gavel for the Annual Coffee House Auction. I also served as MC for the Annual Gala benefit for The Floating Hospital at Guastavino’s on June 4th.
The audiobook of Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” received a rave review in AudioFile, and resulted in my fifth consecutive Earphones Award.
Coming soon: “When the Sea Came Alive” the audio ensemble drama of Garrett Graff’s book of the same name, in which I give a respectable version of Winston Churchill, and for Dreamscape Media, “A Delicate Truth” by John le Carre.
Look out also for the September Issue of Vogue Magazine, available in August, for which I participated in a photo shoot for the cover by Baz Luhrman. My colleague in “Gilded” Morgan Spector, along with Marc Kudisch and Ali Fazal were also rounded up for the shoot with Hugh Jackman and Blake Lively.
June began with two zoom read-throughs of first four episodes of Season Three, two episodes a session, and filming begins on July 9th.
And finally: Idly watching on TCM, “The Grass is Greener” (1961) directed by Stanley Donen, and starring Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, on February 3rd, I’m amazed to see Moray Watson as Sellers the butler wearing Arthur Dent’s dressing gown. That’s nearly twenty years before I wore it on the TV version of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (and seventeen years before I worked with Deborah in “Candida” at the Albery Theatre in London’s West End.)
Kudos on the SAG nom (stiff competition) and hats off for the awards . :)