Ellen Adler and John
Travolta |
STELLA ADLER STUDIO AWARDS
A Stella-r Celebration
For Who’s Who of Showbiz
By Edward T. Callaghan
Photos by Rob Rich
 ITH
breathtaking views of Gotham, the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller
Center was a celestial setting for the Stella By Starlight
Gala and the 2003 Stella Adler Studio of Acting Awards.
The committee list read like a Who’s Who of
Hollywood and Broadway. No
surprise with Marlon Brando, Mike Medavoy and Roy
Scheider chairing and an alumni roster that included Alvin
Ailey, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Candice Bergen, Diana Ross and
Bette Midler.
The evening was organized by renowned painter
Ellen Adler (Stella’s daughter), vice chairman of the
studio, and her son Tom Oppenheim, president and artistic
director of the famed New York-based acting school, who pulled out
all the stops to create one of New York’s most magical evenings
in recent memory.
Elaine Stritch and Liz Smith |
Show business royalty filled both the stage
and the audience. Veteran
director Gordon Hunt and Roy Scheider conceived a
masterful Salute to Musical Theater featuring Broadway greats Patti
Lupone, Audra Mac Donald, Ann Reinking and new-to-New York Michael
Smith.
Scheider
put on his best Bob
Fosse demeanor as
host. Tony award winners
MacDonald and Lupone brought
down the house with a duet of Happy Days Are Here Again that
would make Barbara Streisand green with
envy.
Elaine Stritch, a studio alumna, was
both eloquent and devastatingly funny in talking about her mentor. Acclaimed director Sidney Lumet presented the Jacob
Adler Award to Steven Spielberg for courageous
contributions to American and Jewish culture.
The incomparable Ruby Dee and Ossie
Davis were sung to the stage by the sweet sounds of the Boys
Choir of Harlem to receive the Group Theater Award for
prolific achievement in theater, film and television arts as well
as for community and social commitment.
John
Travolta, Kelly Preston and
Peter Bogdanovich |
The coveted Stella Adler Award for consummate
artistic achievement and interpretation was presented by director Peter
Bogdanovich to John Travolta to thunderous applause led
by Anne Jackson, country-western star Johnny Lee and
Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston.
Among the glitterati were Stella-r friends
including Ellen Violett (who recently made a major pledge
to the studio in honor of the late Irene Worth), Liz
Smith, Joan and George Hornig, Rose and Donald
Billings, Sony Pictures Classics Marcie Bloom, award
winning screenwriter/director Deborah Kampmeier, producer Beverly
Camhe, Brenda Siemer Scheider, Zoe Caldwell, Phillip Seymour
Hoffman, Fred Westheimer and Paul Bloch.
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