May 8, 2009 |
Short Order
Who Can Play Elvis? James Franco? Andrew Garfield? Adam Lambert? Joe Bastianich?
 |
|
Andrew Garfield
|
Is there an Elvis spirit out there? I asked. Swivel-hipped, curled lip. Kate nominates James Franco. Dana sends a photo of Andrew Garfield. “I think he’s so cute,” she writes. Isengart, of Foreign Affairs Cabaret, nominates Michael Carbonaro, a Cabaret regular playing off-broadway in “Sophistry” at the Beckett: “Strong presence, intelligent, charming, knows how to move. Looks enough like him I'd say...mesmerizing on stage.”
“Young (27 years old) Adam Lambert of current "American Idol" fame is the perfect Elvis,” Nancy writes. “Not only does he have the dark hair, the same look and some of the best pipes I've heard, that guy can perform with all the swagger of Elvis.”
"And what about gorgeous Joe Bastianich?" submits Karen Page (one half of the writing team behind the James
 |
| Michael Carbonaro. Photo: Brad Walsh |
Beard Foundation award winning “The Flavor Bible.”) An idea to chew on.
So far no one has been rude enough to suggest Uma Thurman isn’t perfect to play me.
***
What's a good title for "Insatiable," the TV series?
Who can play Elvis in the TV series of my memoir, "Insatiable"? That was Grub Street asking yesterday. Obviously Russell Crowe could play old fat Elvis. Tom Cruise, even a younger Tom Cruise? I don’t think so. He can jump up and down but can he swivel sideways? Even as a Nazi Cruise was too clean cut. A younger Jude Law? A young Omar Sharif type…maybe – does he exist? The Elvis I couldn’t resist – I was just out of college – was the twenty-ish baby Elvis, thin Elvis, pale, hip-swiveling, sulky, slightly menacing. Help please. Who among today’s callow pop stars could possibly do an Elvis? Got a hot candidate? Email me.
I was really just kidding when I suggested the series be called "It Takes Two to Fork Play." Eater quite properly gagged at the idea. How about "Sex and the Truffled Panini"? "Lipstick on My Fork." (Stupid? Better than "Lipstick on My Teeth"). How about “Nobody Knows the Truffles I’ve Seen?” I never was brilliant at titles. Please email me your ideas.
***
Saturday Night Live’s Julia Sweeney does Pilot of Insatiable, the TV series
My Memoir Could Have A Future as Video Reality, Sort Of...
Julia Sweeney ("Sex and the City," "Saturday Night Live") is writing the pilot for a television series based on my memoir, “Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess.” Am I excited? Dare I hope? I always thought "Insatiable" could be "Sex and the City at the Table" or "It Takes Two to Fork Play." Serendipity Point, the Canadian film company that bought the option -- their “Eastern Promises” won both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, as well as a couple of Genies, Canada’s Oscar -- seem to agree. Serendipity leader Robert Lantos has emailed me: Sweeney is writing a pilot episode “for what we hope will be a long-running television series.”
Within 12 minutes of meeting Lantos, at lunch, I knew he was the one. The dream producer for "Insatiable." First he confided that he had been tracing my footsteps, heeding my columns in New York, following my trail in the truffle fields since the seventies. So he’s a certified foodie. His first foray into film while still a graduate student at McGill was to bring “The Best of the New York Erotic Film Festival” to the campus in 1972, then to theaters in Montreal. Sex. Remember the film: “In Praise of Older Women”? That was his too. Got goosebumps yet? Are we star-crossed? Robert Lantos: Food lover. Older women. Sensual. (I’m just guessing… at that first lunch he seemed to be as transported as I by the sea urchin toast. Jean Georges does have that mesmerizing effect.)
As for Julia, the hilarious Pat on "Saturday Night Live," author of "God Said Ha!," "In The Family Way," and "Letting Go of God, “ I’ve got to hope she can channel a complex but endearing stiletto-heel-worshipping version of me. Is that what it takes?