DENIS & BEYONCE
Leary gets gown & dirty in new book Pals with celebs, even if they don’t know who he is
“AMERICA’S TOP LEADER.” “Dancing With The President.” “So You Think You Can Govern?”
Any of these titles would suit the 2020 White House race if we start electing presidents the way Denis Leary suggests. In his book “Why We Don’t Suck,” Leary proposes officially turning the election into a reality show. He’s only kidding — maybe. The upside of his plan: The campaign would last a mere 13 weeks. Voting would be done on smart phones, with the weekly elimination of low-polling hopefuls keeping the public invested in the outcome.
Leary’s screed is strictly nonpartisan, equating President Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “In the end,” he offers, “they’re both just rich old white people trying to grab as much cash as they can.”
As profane and scathing as the actor, stand-up comic, director and producer can be, he’s also hopeful and revealing. Leary’s stories about celebrities are self-deprecating and oddly relatable.
Ultimately, his Beyoncé anecdote is a dad story — OK, a dad-in-drag story.
Leary recounts donning the gold Gucci gown Keira Knightley wore to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” premiere along with a pair of six-inch Louboutin heels.
Most fathers can’t relate, but Leary was hosting the 2008 Fashion Rocks concert at Radio City Music Hall and the lineup included Beyoncé.
His 16-year-old daughter was a huge Beyoncé fan and he wanted to do his daughter proud. And nothing makes a teenage girl happier than her father dressing in drag for an audience including her idol.
By the end of the night, Leary found a spot to casually hang near the backstage exit used by celebrities.
He had a plan to play it cool, as if he and daughter Devin were waiting for someone else and just happened to run into Beyoncé.
If she stopped to talk to Leary — he had been the host, after all — then he would introduce his daughter.
As Beyoncé passed, Leary couldn’t help himself. He called out that she was awesome.
“She looked up at me and smiled. A beaming smile. A smile that clearly said, ‘Oh my God, it’s YOU!’” he writes. “I was almost beside myself as Beyoncé, as if to validate my introduction, blurted out this: ‘So were you, Bryan!’”
She confused Leary with Canadian rocker Bryan Adams — a fellow tall, thin white guy who performed at the show.
Earlier, while trying to wiggle into his gold get-up, Leary managed to creep out Justin Timberlake during an unsettling men’s room encounter.
To be fair, Leary was in a bathroom stall trying to maneuver into a thong, and thought he was asking his friend for advice — not singer/actor Timberlake.
Leary’s questions cannot be repeated.
Despite dozens of movies and frequent TV appearances, Leary reports that he is often confused with other actors. His list of doppelgangers includes Kevin Bacon and Willem Dafoe — and Jane Lynch.
The “Glee” star, Leary concedes, is prettier than he.
As far as women he resembles, Leary says he really wants to play White House mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway.
Sometimes fans were so insistent that he was someone else, Leary just went along with it. Rather than explain he’s not the star of “Footloose,” Leary would instead sign Bacon’s name to autographs and agree that his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, is lovely.
This often seemed the path of least resistance — until it got him kicked out of an Uber for impersonating Bacon.
“Having been exposed to the hot white light of Hollywood for two and a half decades, I can tell you this: fame isn’t a cure for anything,” he writes.
“Matter of fact, fame is the disease. And it’s eating our country alive.”
Leary cites a market research poll of the 100 most trusted people in America, with Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep taking the top four spots.
He’s been friends with Bullock since they made “Demolition Man” together in 1993.
“I know you could hand your car keys to Sandra Bullock and say go pick up two cases of beer and some vodka and she would not only do it no questions asked, she’d be back in a flash,” writes Leary. “At least in the old days.” Tom Hanks? Not so much. Hanks, instead, looks like the kind of guy who would take your car keys if you were overserved, says Leary — which is exactly why the “Forrest Gump” star holds the top spot.
Leary’s concerned with how much trust people place in actors, whose careers depend on convincing the public they are somebody else.
He’s extremely aware that people in many other fields are contributing greatly to society. He
also notes that Oprah Winfrey came in at No. 46, proving how influential a constant TV presence is.
Much as Leary loves his craft, as the son of Irish immigrants — a maid and a mechanic — he’s keenly aware that Hollywood cred does not make you important.
Still, he’s definitely remained star-struck, at least when it comes to his music idols.
Meeting David Bowie, the rock icon was polite but only interested in Leary’s friend, comedian Steven Wright. Leary didn’t fare much better with Rod Stewart, who provided more of a show than the comedian expected.
It was again backstage at Radio City Music Hall, this time in 2004. Leary, a major Stewart fan, was thrilled when a costumer asked to leave the singer’s outfits in the small office off-stage where he was prepping as host.
When Stewart changed, Leary found himself seated with a naked Stewart directly in front of him. Leary tried to act cool. He was not completely successful.
He had the opportunity to go beyond the fan zone when asked to work with the Rolling Stones on a film for their Voodoo Lounge Tour.
Leary got to spend a few weeks with the band, bringing his brother along to hang out for a couple of days. Mick Jagger one night delivered a Heineken to the Leary sibling before asking what his favorite Stones tunes were.
“I can still see the shock on my brother’s face as Mick handed him a cold beer and waited for his opinion on ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’”
Over the years, Leary has run into Keith Richards a couple of other times.
The image of Richards playing with a kid and coloring a unicorn’s mane — and Leary frantically searching for a hot pink crayon for the guitarist to do so — is about as surreal as seeing the real thing romp through your living room. The unicorn or Richards.
The book — his third, all featuring “suck” in the title — is like his others in that it’s facile and heartfelt, and sometimes sappier than people would expect given his tough-guy act.
Still terminally allergic to anything smacking of pretense, and with a wife he’s been with since college to keep him grounded, Leary’s more optimistic about the future than some might expect.
As the father of two grown children and the uncle of 12, he’s impressed by millennials. At age 60, Leary’s come to the conclusion that as coddled as they might be, “You guys are the best bet America has going for it.”