Tina Brown Thinks Bubba Will Recalibrate; Peter Hermann Thinks It’s Best to Watch His Sex Scenes in PrivateWhen we caught up with Tina Brown at last night’s Atlantic dinner and State of the Union–viewing session, we were curious as to what she thinks about Hillary Clinton lately. The senator, after all, is going to be one of the subjects of Brown’s just-announced book, The Clinton Chronicles. “I think [her campaign so far] is a complete high-wire, absolutely astonishing, ever-changing drama,” Brown explained. “I think a lot of it, too, is a construct as well. Whenever I see so-called Bill Clinton eruptions, they’re not eruptions at all.” Man, she’s already dissecting them like fetal pigs! Awesome. “I think that he will definitely recalibrate,” Brown added. “I think you will probably see less of him in the next two weeks.” Elsewhere at the party, Law & Order: SVU heroine Mariska Hargitay lounged with her husband, Peter Hermann, one of the male stars of Cashmere Mafia. So, Peter, what does Mariska think of your steamy Cashmere sex scenes? “We go do other things when it’s on, and then I rewind the DVR and watch them in private,” Hermann explained carefully. “Then we talk it through and let it all subside a little bit and then we move on.” He laughed then and showed his megawatt smile (Mariska has one, too, but she’s not allowed to show it on TV). “We’re working through it.” Good for them, but too bad for us. How great would it be if Mariska kicked down a studio door and shoved a 9mm in Miranda Otto’s face? We love it when she does that. —Jada Yuan
Get more dirt from Andy Borowitz, Bronson van Wyck, and Rick Lazio at our complete coverage of the Atlantic’s State of the Union Dinner.
Earlier: Tina Brown to Publish a New ‘Chronicles’
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A Problem Like Mariska’s, SolvedGood news! Our pal Mariska Hargitay, the Law & Order: SVU star, has finally nabbed a buyer for the Beach Street duplex she shares with her husband, actor Peter Hermann; the three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath penthouse has just gone into contract. It spent five months on the market, and Hargitay isn’t getting what she initially asked for: The original price tag was $6.495 million, but it was later slashed twice to $5.495 million. Brenda Powers of Brown Harris Stevens, who shares the listing with Elizabeth Lee Sample, wouldn’t say what the final price was, except that it’s “close to asking.” (They couldn’t host typical open houses — no surprise given the owner — and every visitor had to sign confidentiality agreements, which might explain the delay in finding a buyer.) No word yet on where Hargitay will end up, but she’s been seen at 11 Spring Street — the big, weird Soho building briefly owned by Lachlan Murdoch and now converted to condos — with Corcoran broker Robby Browne. An e-mail to Hargitay’s publicist went unanswered. —S. Jhoanna Robledo
Earlier:
Detective Benson Gets Slashed Again [NYM]
Daily Intel’s coverage of Mariska Hargitay
party lines
Skating With Mariska, Carson, Johnny, and the Kids
At last, an upside to this inconveniently truthy weather: an outdoor ice-skating party in April that felt as frigid as an ice-skating party ought to. “Skating With the Stars Under the Stars,” held at Central Park’s Wollman Rink last night, wasn’t a competition; it was a free-skate night benefiting Figure Skating in Harlem, a skating and educational program for girls, many of whom were on hand in snazzy ensembles to skate and get celeb autographs. The celeb contingent included lots of skaters — plus, of course, Mariska Hargitay. But the quotes of the night belonged to Carson Kressley and Johnny Weir; they’re after the jump.
party lines
A Hargitay’s Work
The theological battle over Mariska Hargitay rages on. Last week, Daily Intel named her “the patron saint of Party Town” for her regular appearances on our end-of-day wrap-up of boldfaced parties scheduled for that night. But dedicated Mariskavites were having none of it, and by Monday we’d received more than a few angry missives from her devoted followers. (“What is your problem with this wonderful woman?” was a not untypical bit of protest.) Then, Tuesday, we crossed paths with The Hargitay herself, who also objected to the honor, though more genteelly. “I never go out,” she told us. “I’m a mom now.” Oh? A quick search of the PatrickMcMullan.com archives — okay, actually a grueling slog through those archives, as is par for the course with the barely functional McMullan site — reveals no fewer than five Marish appearances already this year: a dinner to honor Olivier Theyskens on March 19; Talk Radio’s opening night on March 11; a Liz Claiborne event on March 6; Dining by Design on February 26; and the SAG Awards on January 28. All that, plus the Gotham Magazine party in her honor on March 21, which prompted our initial canonization. Is that a sufficiently miraculous performance to warrant the sainthood? We’re sure you’ll let us know.
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Mariska Hargitay Teaches, Will Not Be Canonized
Mariska Hargitay is a multitalented women. She’s a star of Law & Order: SVU, she’s our recently canonized Patron Saint of Party Town, and she inspires a vociferously devoted following among her fans. She is also, as it turns out, a humanitarian: Yesterday she was one of about a dozen celebrity artists who volunteered to teach master classes in their crafts at the New Design High School on the Lower East Side. In her class, sweetly awkward teens performed short self-penned monologues, and Marish mostly deferred to her co-teacher, the hyperactive, class clown–ish Matthew Lillard, of Shaggy–in–Scooby Doo fame. But she flared up when a student’s cellie went off. (Weren’t those things not allowed in schools?) “Come on, guys, this is theater!” she barked, before covertly checking her own phone.
the in-box
Do Not Mess With HargitayEvery Monday through Thursday, Daily Intel ends its day with Party Town, a feature that identifies a few of the charity galas or premieres happening that evening and then lists the celebrities who are scheduled to appear. Invariably, that list includes Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay. So when she got her own event last week for making the cover of Gotham, we declared Hargitay the “patron saint” of Party Town. And we (sarcastically) chided the Gotham article for mentioning all of Hargitay’s fine qualities but “shamefully failing to note her fetching singing voice and kindness to disabled puppies.” Though we have never heard from Hargitay, her fans came in her defense. After the jump, three outraged e-mails.