Kitt lived in Pound Ridge throughout the 1990s before moving to Connecticut. Joan Silbersher, who runs Antiques & Tools of Business & Kitchen in Pound Ridge, told me Kitt was a frequent customer.

“She used to walk by regularly with her dog wearing these weights on her ankles,” Silbersher said. “She was a very attractive woman. She was so fit and so charming.”

Silbersher said her store is also frequented by other celebs that live in the northern Westchester area, including Richard Gere, Tom Brokaw and Martha Stewart.

Wanna know what they buy from her store? Come on, you know you care.

Get this, Tom Brokaw bought an ice cream scoop there over the summer! For some reason, I find that hilarious. Picture a journalism titan who has squared off with some of the world’s most destructive dictators… scooping some Rocky Road into a bowl and dousing it with fruity sprinkles.

(I wonder if Tom Brokaw hums the NBC Nightly News theme song right before he makes himself a yummy snack.)

As you know, Richard Gere owns the Bedford Post Inn. So what’s he buying for his restaurant?

“Richard and his wife came through recently buying a copper boiler,” Silbersher said. “He said he was going to use it as an ice container for his restaurant.”

Using a copper boiler as an ice-container? Talk about a fashion no-no, that’s soooo 2005!

Now, Martha Stewart is a domestic doyen. I’m sure she hits up Silbersher’s store all the time.

“Actually, ever since Martha went to prison, she hasn’t come through at all,” Silbersher said.

Hmm, coincidence???

I’m really hoping you’ve caught onto my sarcasm in this post.

(AP Photo /Gino Domenico)

Well, art shaped like dogs. Whatever. It’s a good cause. Stay with me here.

This Monday, the artwork of celebrities – many with a connection to the Lower Hudson Valley – will be paraded down the streets of New York City as part of an initiative to raise money for a Brewster charity.

About 30 celebs painted life-sized fiberglass dogs that will be aboard a float in the city’s Columbus Day Parade. Among the artistic celebs with a local connection are Pound Ridge residents Richard Gere (pictured) and Clive Davis; Bedford residents Chevy Chase, Glenn Close, Robert Kennedy Jr., Paul Shaffer and Martha Stewart; Chappaqua resident Vanessa Williams; North Salem resident and John Jay High School alumnus Stanley Tucci; and former Putnam County resident Judge Judy Sheindlin.

The money raised through a subsequent auction will benefit Green Chimneys, a 60-year-old non-profit organization that operates a special education school, a residential treatment center for children and a farm and wildlife rehabilitation center in Brewster. The auction ends Nov. 1.

For the rest of October, the dogs will be on display at the TimeWarner Center in Columbus Circle.

Among the other celebrities to apply their palates to fake pups were Fiona Apple, Rachael Ray, Robin Quivers, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Goodall, Cyndi Lauper, Soledad O’Brien, Joe Piscopo, Mike Richter and Bill Walton.

Check out and bid on all the dogs at www.CharityFolks.com and learn more about Green Chimneys at www.GreenChimneys.org.

(AP Photo/Evan Agostini)

Podcast file

Flash video

This week’s quiz revolves around actor William Hurt, who lives in Sneden’s Landing.

Can you guess which TV show he’s just recently accepted a leading role on for next season?

A. 24
B. Damages
C. CSI: Boston
D. Heroes

Answer, as always, is at the end of the clip or after the break.

Answer: B. Damages

Seriously? The Chinese are that paranoid that an ad with no spoken words and no overtly political message can be interpreted as inflamatory? Apparently, yes. So much so that the Italian auto maker issued a public apology, saying it feels bad for “misinterpretations of its well-established position of neutrality.” Which, let’s face it, is like saying, ‘I’m sorry you blew things out of proportion,’

“Fiat to keep running ad featuring actor Richard Gere in Tibet despite apology to China” [AP]

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

In fact, Gere is about as busy as we’ve ever seen him. He just signed on to star in two new films, according to Variety. The first is “Amelia,” an Amelia Earhart biopic starring Hilary Swank in the title role (Gere will play Earhart’s husband, publisher George Putnam) and directed by Mira Nair. That one begins filming later this month in Toronto, Nova Scotia, and South Africa.

The second film is cop drama “Brooklyn’s Finest,” is about three Brooklyn cops whose lives are following very divergent paths, yet all three end up at the scene of the same deadly location. Gere’s costars will be Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Variety also mentions that Gere is currently shooting “Hachiko,” with director Lasse Halstrom, a neighbor of Gere’s who live in Bedford and has collaborated with the actor before. Boy, that man is busy, busy, busy. I’m winded just recounting all this!

(Gere speaking at a pro-Tibet rally on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, in San Francisco: AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Then on Monday the Daily News broke the story that phase two—the larger, more upscale, main Bedford Post restaurant—had hit a snag: The town of Beford said that Gere had erected a 180-foot-long, 5-foot-high cedar fence that was a foot taller than local ordinances permit. Hazel Nourse, head of Bedford’s zoning board, told the DN, “It’s a lovely building, but the fence sticks out like a sore thumb.”

The only reason Gere built the fence in the first place was because neighbors had been complaining that they didn’t want to see the new restaurants’ parking lot—which, when I stopped by a few weeks ago, was packed. Anyway, unlike his stand-offish attitude towards the recent Olympic torch saga, it appears that Gere is willing to bury the hatchet and trim the fence. As his business partner Russell Hernandez said, “If they say you have to have a 4-foot fence, then that’s what we’ll do.”

(The exterior of Hoppfields Restaurant in Bedford at 954 Old Post Road in Bedford: Photo by Elizabeth Orozco / The Journal News; Gere: AP Photo/Evan Agostini)

Podcast file:

Download:

Here’s this week’s quiz:

The rumor mill is churning again about who Chappaqua resident Vanessa Williams is reportedly dating. Which celeb has she been linked to this time?

A. Ludacris
B. Justin Timberlake
C. Tyler Perry
D. John Legend

Personally, I thought that was way hard—assuming, of course, you aren’t already caught up to date with your Suburbarazzi blog reading. Stacy-Ann, however, got it without even having to think about it. Her correct answer is at the end of the clip and, as always, after the break.

Answer: Tyler Perry. According to MediaTakeOut, the mogul-in-the-making has been spending lots of time together at Perry’s house. Which of course means they’re dating, getting married, about to get pregnant, and on the verge of divorce.

Here’s the full Blitzer interview:

Flash video:

At the end of the video and after the break is the answer to this week’s quiz: Born in South Africa, musician Dave Matthews spent the bulk of his childhood growing up in Yorktown, but he’s now lending his voice to TV commercials for the tourism board of the next state he called home. Which state is that?

A) South Carolina
B) Vermont
C) Virginia

The answer is C) Virginia. Where’s the same love for New York, Dave?

Or, more to the point, India’s top court yesterday dismissed a warrant against the Pound Ridge resident, whose allegedly illegal kiss in New Delhi 11 months ago today caused an international stir.

Gere, as you may recall, kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at a public AIDS awareness event in New Delhi on April 15.

The Associated Press quoted Anil Grover, an attorney for Shetty after the Supreme Court proceedings:

Gere is allowed to come and leave. He can’t be arrested.

Gere’s publicist, Alan Nierob, told AP the actor would not comment on the matter.

(AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

• Even if Hillary Clinton wins the race for White House, it turns out she won’t be selling her Chappaqua white house (above). So said its current primary resident, Bill, to CNN. [Politics on the Hudson]

• Richard Gere continues to piss off prudes in India. Witness the open letter to the Pound Ridge resident published in the Hindustan Times. Here, just one choice excerpt: “Moreover, in case you do commit a rape, the law is likely to take a while to catch up with you because unlike kissing in public there are so many rapes happening everyday. And then you are likely to get off on a technicality.”

• Lee Woodruff will be coming to the County Center this Saturday. The wife of ABC reporter and Rye resident Bob Woodruff, who was nearly killed by an IED attack in Iraq, will speak about how she and her family overcame the tragedy at the fourth Every Woman’s Conference on May 12. The event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the County Center in White Plains ($10 conference admission, $5 childcare, call 914-995-5972 to register).

• Fashion faceoff time! Both People mag and teamsugar.com spotted Eva Longoria and Hayden Panettiere wearing the same summery yellow-and-white mini from NeimanMarcus.com (cost $396). Clearly, you gotta vote for the Rockland’s hometown hero, Hayden. Share your thoughts on why she looks better on People, or just go to teamsugar and vote for the Palisades native. Currently she’s got a commanding lead with 80 percent of the vote.

• Speaking of Hayden Panettiere ... her advice to Paris Hilton: “Don’t drink and drive.” [TMZ]

(Clinton outside his Chappaqua home: Carmen Troesser/The Journal News)

• “The Ex”—Zach Braff is a 30-something slacker forced to take a job at a new age advertising agency when his pregnant wife (Amanda Peet) quits hers. There he encounters wheelchair-bound ad man Chip (Rye native Jason Bateman), who just happens to be infatuated with his wife and is making attempts to sabotage him. Much as I’ve been looking forward to this movie, which was originally titled “Fast Track” and supposed to come out in 2006 (see my previous post, “Fast Track takes the excruciatingly slow track”), the 32 score on Metacritic doesn’t bode well. But ah, forget that. It was filmed in Nyack and features Bateman: Reason enough to go see it.

• “Spider-Man 3”—In case you didn’t notice this post, or this one, or this one, the latest Spidey installment stars Bryce Dallas Howard, who once lived in Armonk and graduated from Byram Hills HS. Yes, she’s only on screen for about eight lines of dialog, but oh, that bleached blond hair is totally worth the price of admission. Metacritic score: 60

• “The Hoax” —Pound Ridge resident Richard Gere stars as Clifford Irving, the guy who somehow managed to sell a phony biography of Howard Hughes to publishers in the ‘70s. Make sure to go see this one while its still in the theaters (and Gere is still safe from India’s hyper-prudish court system). Metacritic score: 70

• “The Namesake” —This film, about an Indian family’s assimilation into the United States, was shot in Eastchester (the main home used for the Gangulii family), Yonkers (the parents’ initial apartment in the U.S.), and Nyack (the library). And oddly, it’s the perfect complement to “The Hoax.” This film delves into many Indian cultural taboos, such as public displays of affection. Once you’ve seen Kal Penn’s character cringing as Jacinda Barrett kisses his on-screen parents, you’ll have some sense of why some people in India freaked out over Gere passionately smooching actress Shilpa Shetty. Metacritic score: 82

Protesters in India burned effigies of the Pound Ridge actor after he kissed a popular Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty, at an Aids awareness rally in New Delhi. Public displays of affection and sex remain major taboo subjects in the country and many Indians were apparently offended by Gere’s theatrics. Some protesters have even chanted for Shetty’s death.

The protesters say Gere insulted Indian culture, according to the BBC, by kissing Shetty on her hand and face multiple times. Shetty has defended Gere’s off-the-cuff action, which was acted out to entertain the audience.

“I understand people’s sentiments, but I don’t want a foreigner to take bad memories from here. I understand this is his culture, not ours,” she told Indian news outlets. She added that Gere has apologized profusely to her for the incident and the reaction it caused.

(AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

If you’ve got a case of the blue Mondays, it’ll cure it.

Guaranteed.

[YouTube]

So, when Bedford director Lasse Hallstrom needed to shoot Richard Gere exiting the infamous octagon for his latest movie, The Hoax (coming out in theaters today), he stayed close to home. Turns out, the Westchester County Michaelian Office Building in downtown White Plains was a suitable stand-in.

During filming in August of ‘05, Haddad’s trailers lined Martine and Lexington Avenues and fans gathered en masse, hoping to see Gere or the film’s other stars (Marcia Gay Harden, Julie Delpy, Alfred Molina). Though our 1930 landmark’s Art Deco entrance wasn’t a perfect Pentagon match, it’s pretty hard to tell the two apart now. Can you guess which is which?

The answer is after the break.

Anwer: The Pentagon is on the right; Michaelian is on the left.

Me: So Richard, thanks for agreeing to this interview. How are you doing?

Gere: Fantastic. Life’s good. I’ve got a movie I’m proud of, a family I love, and a new restaurant opening in Bedford this fall.

Me: Speaking of, I understand you’re auctioning off a private lunch date with yourself at the restaurant.

Gere: You are correct. And may I say your telephone voice is great. Have you ever considered voice-over work?

Me: You flatter me, Mr. Gere. But anyway, about this auction, what’s the bidding up to?

Gere: $13,500 last time I checked…which was 30 seconds ago…I check every minute.

Me: I assume you know that the auction also features other “dates� and other celebrities…and, in fact, you’re not pulling in the most money. You’re losing to Alan Greenspan. Bidding on him is up to $50,000. What’s it feel like to come in behind a 70-something-year-old man?

[Silence]

Me: Uh, Mr. Gere?

Gere: This interview is over.

And that concludes the FAKE portion of this post. Now for the very real interview with Clifford Irving in Time Out New York, keep reading:

Irving on the relocation of some of the action from Europe to our area:

Most of what actually happened took place in Spain, but they didn’t want to shoot there. So they reconstituted me as a broke, washed-up deadbeat writer who lived in Westchester County.

Irving on his portrayal in the movie:

If I were the man portrayed in the film , I’d shoot myself. I’m not happy about that. It’s stupid and insulting. But hey, it’s a movie.

Yeah, can’t we all sympathize with Irving. It’s horrible when writers take liberties with someone else’s life…
(AP Photo/MIRIMAX, Dave Allocca)

Quick! You only have 7 days 4 hours and 35 minutes to beat out “bigbidder” for a rendezvous with the ravishing Richard Gere. Charitybuzz, which holds online auctions for nonprofit agencies, lists Gere as Lot# 3601. The bidding began on March 20th at $200 and is already up to $13,500.

The dreamy date will take place at Gere’s new Bedford inn, which is scheduled to open this fall. Gere, wife Carey Lowell, and business partner Russell Hernandez, bought the 14-acre site at 954 Old Post Road—home to the former Hoppfield’s Inn—for $2.7 million January 2006. Gere, a Pound Ridge resident, plans to renovate the beat up building into a 125-seat restaurant and a nine-room inn, complete with a yoga studio, bar, cafe, and horse trails.

It will be the perfect place to discuss the Dalai Lama over a cup of joe before hopping on a stallion and riding him into the sunset. No, not that stallion…the horse. I’m talking about the horse.

(L-R: AP Photo/Rajesh Nirgude; Rory Glaeseman/TJN)

Not to be outdone by fellow Pound Ridger Richard Gere, actor-director Tim Robbins has booked his own local screening for later in the month. He’ll be showing “Cradle Will Rock,” a 1999 film he directed about the theater world during the communist scares of the 1930s, at Stamford’s Avon Theatre Film Center on March 19.

After the 7:30 p.m. screening, Robbins will do a Q&A with John Farr, a theater board member who invited Robbins to speak. According to the Stamford Advocate, Farr met Robbins at a Little League game in Bedford, N.Y., last year. Although the movie never got quite as much recognition as his other directorial efforts—“Bob Roberts,” “Dead Man Walking”—it has a stellar cast, including Hank Azaria, Bill Murray, the Cusack siblings, and of course Susan Sarandon. Tickets went on sale to nonmembers yesterday for $25 (or $15 for members). The 350-seat theater will probably sell out, so be sure to get yours by calling 661-0321.

Also exciting: next Tuesday, March 13, the Avon is going to have a screening of “The Namesake,” the adaptation of Jumpa Lahiri’s novel, and Q&A with the film’s director Mira Nair (who did “Monsoon Wedding” and “Vanity Fair”). A huge chunk of the movie was filmed in Eastchester, in a house we profiled in the October issue of InTown Westchester.

“Tim Robbins to ‘rock’ Avon Theatre this month” [The Advocate]

“Almost Famous” [InTown Westchester]

(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

The PPH is going to host a 7 pm screening of “The Hoax,” the highly anticipated movie about bogus Howard Hughes biographer Clifford Irving (check out the trailer HERE). Pound Ridge’s Richard Gere, who plays Irving in the film, won’t be the only local taking part in a post-film Q&A with Travers. You’ll also get to hear from director Lasse Hallstrom (of Bedford), as Hallstrom’s longtime producing partner Leslie Holleran (of Larchmont). Tickets cost $35 and will go on sale tomorrow at the PPH website.

Also, in case my post about the Picture House’s “Cinema Soiree” came off sounding extra snarky, I’d like to point out that everyone at the organization—especially Lea Emery and Rachel Breinin—was extraordinarily nice and friendly at the Feb. 10 event. My description of it being “awkward” says much more about my own sheepishness in that environment than it does about the group behind the Picture House. Unlike Clifford Irving, they’re totally on the up and up.

“Richard Gere to Talk at Preview Screening of ‘The Hoax’” [Larchmont Gazette]

(Photo credit Ken Regan/ Courtesy of Miramax Films)