Boston would be 'Prince' of a location
Novelist Chuck Hogan would be surprised if his ``Prince of Thieves," a gritty thriller set in Charlestown, weren't filmed in Boston. ``It's about Boston. I can't see them doing it any other way . . . and filming it somewhere else would change this story," Hogan said yesterday about the news British director Adrian Lyne had gotten the go-ahead from Warner Bros. to make a film version of the award-winning book. Lyne, whose previous credits include ``Unfaithful," ``Indecent Proposal," ``Fatal Attraction," and ``Flashdance," will be in the Bay State soon to scout locations Hogan's book references, including Braintree, Malden, and Canton. Asked if he was a bit starstruck, Hogan said ``No, but I hope to be." Yet he admitted an affinity for Lyne and his work. ``I sold my first book while I was working at a video store on Huntington Avenue," Hogan said. ``I used to rent out his movies to other people."
She won't see herself on the big screen
Make no mistake: Paul and Rebecca O'Brien are thrilled that their little girl got to work on ``Gone, Baby, Gone," but there isn't a chance the North Shore squirt will see the finished film. Not for a long time, anyway. Why? Because Madeline O'Brien plays the tiny tot who goes missing for most of the movie, and that's frightening stuff for a 4-year-old. (During filming, fake flyers with her smiling photo were displayed around Dorchester.) ``She knows nothing about what the movie's about," her mom told us yesterday. ``She knows what she had to do, and that's it." Picked for the part from 70 or so aspiring actresses, O'Brien worked for nine days, and fell hard for director Ben Affleck. ``Maddy adored him," said her mom. The feeling is mutual, said casting director Carolyn Pickman: ``As Ben said, `Madeline knocked it out of the park.' " So will she ever get to see the movie? ``We'll see," said her mom. ``We might put together a little G-rated clip for her."
Feeling is mutual between Ben, Lehane
And speaking of ``Gone, Baby, Gone," author Dennis Lehane made the rounds yesterday, first with a stop at NECN's Newton studios for an interview with anchor Chet Curtis and later at the Attic for a reading of his book, ``Coronado: Stories," which comes out next month. In the interview slated to air tomorrow night, Lehane tells Curtis that his experience with Ben Affleck in filming ``Gone, Baby, Gone" this summer was far different than with ``Mystic River." That's because this time around people were calling up Lehane's mom trying to see if she could get them a role in the film. Although that didn't make him happy, Affleck did. ``Hats off to Ben Affleck," Lehane said. The respect seems to be mutual, with Affleck taking time during a press conference over the weekend to recommend ``Coronado: Stories," a collection of five short stories and a play. ``It's worth reading," Affleck said. ``You should check it out."
As they always do, the boldfaced names came up big at Monday's Possible Dreams auction, raising $730,000 for Martha's Vineyard Community Services. Marc Brown alone managed to raise $72,000 by donating not one, but two dreams. (The ``Arthur" author will give both lucky bidders a sneak peak at his new movie , ``Arthur's Missing Pal.") A sail with Walter Cronkite, whom Art Buchwald called ``the most trusted man in America . . . the only trusted man in America," went for $30,000, and Carly Simon raised some serious cabbage with her offer to squire someone around the island -- in her red convertible, no less -- and sing a few old faves. (Simon sang a new tune at the auction -- the one she'd written for Buchwald's funeral.)
The good news is that ex-Boston rocker Anthony Rossomando is back in town next week with his new band Dirty Pretty Things. The bad news is he's no longer seeing Kate Moss, so the supermodel's not likely to be in attendance at Great Scott. Rossomando, who played in the Damn Personals while in Boston, had a fling with Moss earlier this summer, but it's now over. . . . Restaurateur Darryl Settles and his wife, Dr. Lisa Owens, welcomed a 7-pound, 13-ounce baby boy recently. The new addition, Preston Blair Settles, joins his big sis, 16-month-old Taylor Michelle Settles. Among the many changes for Settles brought on by fatherhood is his ride. He traded in his Mercedes SL500 convertible for a
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