“Driving” Jones to the Cort

Broadway’s Cort Theatre was just renamed for my longtime friend James Earl Jones.

I maybe know James Earl a week or two under forever. I’ve been backstage in his dressing room. The play was “You Can’t Take It With You,” and he was sitting just in his drawers. I knew his wife. I know his son.

I was there when son Flynn zipped him up and adjusted his suspenders before he met the public. I recall Jimmy and wife Cece in my kitchen. I can’t forget calling him when the Tony winner with assorted Emmy noms said: “Write me. I can’t hear well on the phone.” And Christmas I remember him reading Lincoln’s 1848 manuscript aloud.

When he was in Broadway’s “Driving Miss Daisy,” he said, through a cookie in my apartment: “The play’s structure is really simple. No makeup. If I get shiny, they powder me. The show’s only 90 minutes. No intermission.” And then this incredible onetime great voice for CNN added: “So if you have to pee, you’ll have to crawl over someone.”

James Earl Jones, I love you.

Roiled in royal confusion

Princess Diana I met. I understood. Kristen Stewart, Oscar nom for playing her, I don’t understand.

Kristen: “I had to learn everything objectively. We haven’t objective experiences with people we don’t know. It’s always through some funnel or lens. She had unstoppable energy — but was stopped. Losing her made her character ghost-like. She was remote, but liked people — sort of. Unknowable, she helped people connect with fellow humans. Everyone should have a different experience with the movie. To be able to hold her energy again.”

And, “We are all Lady Di when we watch ‘Spencer.’ ”

Movie, good. Explanation, not.

A lady’s charms

The Bernie and Sid show, WABC radio’s enormously successful program — 770 on the AM dial 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. — celebrated International Women’s Day.

On their air, I said women today are executives, pilots, bus drivers, carpenters. But our widely advanced position on race and sex hasn’t reached everyone.

An attorney I know got on an elevator. One other passenger. A young girl. Both got off at the same floor. This senior gentleman stepped back to politely allow her to exit first. She screamed at him. Railing how old hat and stupid he was.

Maybe we need to work on training gents besides teaching them basic toilet habits.

Food & thoughts

Yesterday’s Post wrote about Carmine Street’s Ukrainian restaurant Sveta. Outside, Ukrainian flags fly. Inside, knowing her family’s suffering devastation in Kharkiv, Svetlana Savchitz cries.

Boris Kleyman, my Russian born/American citizen techie and friend 20 years: “Mother and son run NYC’s Sveta restaurant. It’s where I wanted to go with you. We were planning to go there for dinner. I know her and her son very well. Now her family is being bombed.”

Florida smarties

Florida deficiency flourishes. Its governor wants to be president. Its former governor, Rick Scott, now a junior GOP senator, is another major brain. On Zoom with Ukraine’s Zelensky he went mute. He was also admonished. Non-techie and probably preferring crayons to send a message, this wizard also voted against post office upgrades. So for something from Florida — try oranges.

What pols love more than bashing NYC is to visit it. Kevin McCarthy, California congressman/minority leader of the House of Representatives, was at the St. Regis. Cartographers list that a really large schlep from downtown Palo Alto.

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.