RICHARD JOHNSON: Tracy Morgan’s ‘comeback story’ mirrors Friars Club’s return
Tracy Morgan is the perfect choice for the Friars Club’s most prestigious honor because he’s a survivor.
The “Saturday Night Live” alum was nearly killed in a car wreck eight years ago when a Walmart truck slammed into his limo on the Jersey Turnpike.
On Thursday, he was presented the Entertainment Icon Award by the Friars, joining Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Douglas Fairbanks, Tony Bennett, Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro and, most recently, Billy Crystal.
“Never give up,” Morgan told the black-tie crowd. “Fall down seven times, get up eight. Unless you get hit by a Walmart truck … you can lay down and wait for your lawyer.”
The club’s dean, lawyer Arthur Aidala, said Morgan was the perfect choice as the world gets over COVID.
“It’s Tracy’s comeback story. It’s the city’s comeback story. It’s the Friars comeback story,” said Aidala, who hosts “The Power Hour” on AM970.
Three mayors — Eric Adams, Bill de Blasio and Rudy Giuliani — attended the gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. CeeLo Green performed.
The crowd included journalist Geraldo Rivera, actor Ben Vereen, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, actor JB Smoove and actor Joe Piscopo with model Carol Alt.
Plus there was a trio of Knicks past and present — Allan Houston Obi Toppin, Allan Houston and Immanuel Quickley — honoring superfan Morgan.
The gala helped kick-start a comeback for the Friars, whose membership slipped from over 500 to less than 300 because of the pandemic and questionable bookkeeping.
The club’s former executive director was convicted of federal tax crimes in 2019.
The club has a new accounting firm, and the main dining room on the ground floor will soon be a Charlie Palmer restaurant open to the public.
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Layla Law-Gisiko, a candidate to replace retiring West Side State Assembly member Dick Gottfried, is a leading opponent of the plan to build 10 skyscrapers around Penn Station.
Law-Gisiko, a member of Community Board 5, told me that Vornado, which owns 9 million square-feet in the area, is a big contributor to Gov. Hochul.
“It’s absolutely bonkers,” she said. “It’s the old urban renewal policies of Robert Moses. We know it doesn’t work. It will demolish lots of buildings that are occupied.”
Rocker Steve Marshall, whose home on W. 30th St. will be razed under the plan, still remembers when a young singer named Madonna Ciccone rode the elevator up eight floors to his recording studio.
One musician was unimpressed. He told her, ‘Don’t quit your day job,’” Marshall said. “Six months later she released ‘Like a Virgin.’”
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Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez got engaged two months after this column said they would.
Now I can predict that Bennifer 2.0 will exchange vows at their home in Los Angeles around Christmas — if their lawyers can hammer out their very complicated pre-nuptial agreement and they both sign off.
The bride and groom-to-be are each said to be worth $150 million which pays for plenty of legal advice.
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The former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner wanted to be invited to the wedding of Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, but Kris Jenner said no.
Kris simply cannot stand to be in the same room with her former husband, according to sources close to the Kardashians.
The animosity has affected Caitlyn’s relationship with her stepkids. Jenner was in Spain the day of the wedding cheering on her female car-racing team from the sidelines.
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The search is on. Fans of Norm Macdonald eager to see the comedy special shot before his death should know there’s also an unaired comedy pilot, “Back to Norm,” in existence.
On an upcoming episode of “The SDR Show,” Bruce McCulloch of “Kids in the Hall” fame, reveals the existence of the pilot that he directed for Comedy Central and has made his mission to “find it and leak it on the internet.”
McCulloch worked with his fellow Canadian Macdonald over the years and feels that it’s just too funny for people not to see.
“I knew him (Macdonald) from the start of my stand-up … and I will try to find it,” McCulloch said.
Macdonald died of cancer on Sept. 14, 2021.
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Debbie Dickinson, once a top model, is now an art dealer with a gallery on W. 23rd St.
Among the eight artists in her first show is Ukrainian Tatiana Lisovskaya, who was the composer for Julian Schnabel’s movie, “At Eternity’s Gate.”
“The war in Ukraine is taking the heart and enjoyment out of my creative life, yet I have hope the war will end soon,” Lisovskaya said. “I hope that it is a good lesson to other countries to not go to war and resolve issues in better ways.”
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Natalie Portman hated working out to star in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” opening July 8 with Chris Hemsworth and Christian Bale.
Portman, who will be on the cover of Social Life this weekend, confessed to the magazine, “I’m, like, super tired after working out. And during. And dreading it before.”
But she prevailed, and became visibly stronger.
Portman teased the super-buff Hemsworth on Instagram saying, “And you thought you were the one and only.”
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Andrew Lloyd Webber gave artist Maria Kreyn $1 million to create eight monumental paintings inspired by Shakespeare’s writings for the lobby of his Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London.
Kreyn will be showing new work at the Influences of Time show opening May 31 at C1760, the modern art department of Colnaghi, the world’s oldest art gallery on E. 70th St.
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Margaret Bastick Luce, the editor at large at Metropolitan Palm Beach is gracing the cover of 25A magazine this month. The former Ford model is responsible for such past covers as Joe Namath, polo player Nic Roldan and Jack Nicklaus.