NAMES
Coen comedy strikes again; White Star burns out after 21 years
By Carol Beggy & Mark Shanahan, Globe Staff, 12/3/2003
EPICURIOUSHere's hoping three times is a charm for Larry Coen. The Boston actor has sold the film rights to "Epic Proportions," the play he wrote years ago with "Friends" creator David Crane. But then that's nothing new. Twice before the comedy has attracted the attention of Hollywood. The first time, in the late '80s, Steve Martin and Charles Grodin were interested. Later, actress/director Lee Grant was involved. Now, it's Endgame Entertainment. The play, which had a brief run on Broadway in 1999, is about extras working on the set of an epic movie. "It's getting some interest now because there's a bunch of epics in the works," Coen said. (We can think of three -- "The Last Samurai," with Tom Cruise; "Troy," with Brad Pitt; and "Alexander the Great," with Colin Farrell.) Coen's latest project is a role in Ryan Landry's newest play, "Who's Afraid of the Virgin Mary?", which opens tomorrow at Machine.
WHITE STAR GOES DARKAfter 21 years of running restaurants in the Back Bay, Frank Bell closed his White Star Tavern on Boylston Street Saturday night. "I'll be around town; now I get to eat in other people's restaurants," said Bell, who has decided to join his longtime friend George Ruggiero in the insurance brokerage business. "I'm sure somewhere there are several insurance agents out there dreaming of owning their own restaurants. Now I get to live their life," said Bell, adding he'll also be writing about wine, doing some restaurant consulting, and creating an alcohol-awareness curriculum with the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. Bell started in the restaurant biz in the late 1970s in Hawaii with Grape Escape, which he dubbed Honolulu's first wine bar. He said his large family (his wife, parents -- ages 88 and 91 -- five children, and two grandchildren) might get to see him more often because he'll have more regular hours. He stops an interview to take another call: "No, you can't have lunch here, we're closed. Some other folks are taking the place over, but thanks for all the years." A group approached Bell about six months ago seeking to buy the restaurant and its liquor license (the Back Bay's at the maximum), and the deal just started to sound sweeter. A final pact hasn't been inked but one is expected soon.
WITNESS TO HISTORYShe'd just returned from Switzerland yesterday about 10 minutes before we talked to her, but Diane Balser didn't seem too tired to talk about being one of only a few US representatives to attend the "unofficial peace accords" signed on Monday in Geneva by those supporting a "two-state solution" to the Middle East peace process. Balser, who teaches women's studies at Boston University, is the vice president of Brit Tzedek v' Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, the only chapter-based American Jewish organization publicly supporting the Geneva process. Balser said her organization will reach out to "US Jews to back this plan and say this is what we really want." She added: "It may not be perfect, but there is a shot at a final agreement and [we] can't wait for our official leaders to come to a solution."
RUNNING THROUGH TOWNThe folks at the Eliot Hotel note that they've replaced the famed Eliot Lounge (a well-documented hangout with the running crowd) with Clio and its Uni Sashimi Bar, but that hasn't stopped some of the world's best-known runners from staying at the hotel. We guess that's why three-time Boston Marathon champ Uta Pippig was spotted at the Eliot yesterday; perhaps she was checking out those last few blocks of her famed runs.
CRITICS' DARLING"Entertainment," the 1979 album by the British punks Gang of Four, is among the top 500 "Greatest Albums of All Time," according to critics polled by Rolling Stone magazine. So what? The band's drummer was Hugo Burnham, now an instructor at the New England Institute of Art. Gang of Four just made it onto the list, at No. 490, but are in impressive company: the No. 1 album is the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and the list also includes LPs by Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Wonder.
MAKING A DIFFERENCEIn his book "Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes," Dan Kennedy makes the point that dwarfism is not a disability, it's a difference. Kennedy, a senior writer at the Boston Phoenix, has thought a lot about the condition since his daughter, Rebecca, was diagnosed with dwarfism days after her birth 11 years ago. "It's an interesting moment now in our culture to be different," says Kennedy, who'll read from his book tonight at the Barnes & Noble in Kenmore Square. "It's never been easier to be different, but at the same time it's never been easier to eliminate difference."
Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253.
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