Ann Leary, author of The Good House
Author of The Good House
For some reason I haven’t taken any photos this fall and it’s been a beautiful fall up here. So I looked in my photo file and came across some pictures I took last winter. I was still driving my daughter back and forth to school at the time and her school is almost a half hour away, so I spent a lot of time, once winter set in, driving along, looking at a sometimes bleak horizon.
Sometimes there would be a new snow and there was nothing but whiteness all around:
Last night we attended the first annual “Notes of Hope” benefit dinner, to raise funds and awareness about the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Jane Rosenthal, Craig Hatkoff, Robert De Niro and others who have been instrumental in the revitalization of downtown Manhattan since 9/11 were honored. Denis hosted the event, introducing Billy Crystal, Peggy Noonan, and the other speakers.
Jane, Craig and Robert DeNiro, (Jane and Craig are our friends, and though I’ve met De Niro quite a few times, I can’t do that Hollywood thing of referring to him by his first name, because he really has no idea who I am every time we meet.) Anyway, I adore (worship) him as an actor and am in awe of his quiet, gentle public manner and the way that he very privately works wonders for the city he loves so much. He and producer Jane Rosenthal (They co-founded Tribeca Productions, his film company) started the Tribeca Film Festival after 9/11 in an effort to help that neighborhood recover. Millions attend the festival each year, bringing huge amounts of revenue to the downtown area.
(I originally posted this tribute to Pongo several months ago. Pongo died today so I am repeating it.)
Allow me to introduce Pongo. Pongo is under-represented on my website because he’s not usually running around in front of the camera. He’s usually asleep someplace.
Pongo is 15 years old and is some kind of terrier/poodle mix. He used to be all black with a white chest. We hooked-up with Pongo in Canada, when he was just a puppy. We were staying in a house in Toronto for several months while Denis was making the movie “The Ref.” Jack was 3 years old, Devin was 1 1/2. I was a little lonely and broody that summer – I think I had just weaned the baby and I wanted another baby, but we had a tough time having the two, and were not going to have any more.
In an earlier blog, I shared the little known fact that the men and women on the other side of the red carpet (photographers/journalists/cameramen) are usually far more attractive and entertaining than the actual stars themselves. Today, I would like to share another secret, which is that the behind-the-scenes workers on any television or film set are usually: a)more educated, b)more hilarious, and c)just all-around happier than not only the stars, but also the general population.
This morning I was searching an online image database for photographs (for book publicity) and I found many photos I had never seen before, including this one:
This was probably the first time a professional photographer ever took our picture (besides our wedding). The date on the photo is January 1, 1992. I was twenty-nine years old, and although you can’t tell from the photo, I was pregnant with our daughter, Devin. We were at a party celebrating the opening night of Denis’s one-man show “No Cure For Cancer,” which he was performing at the Actor’s Playhouse in the West Village.
The night before last I saw a dress rehearsal for The Country Girl, which is certain to be Broadway’s biggest hit this season. It’s directed by Mike Nichols and stars Peter Gallagher, Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand. The Country Girl is about the wife of an actor and I watched the rehearsal with the wife of one of the actors – my dear friend Paula Harwood Gallagher. Paula has agreed to do a Q&A with me for an upcoming blog in which we will discuss the actor’s wife life.
