MY WEEKEND: Tommy Tune
It will take more than a solar eclipse to overshadow Tommy Tune, the 6-foot-6, 10-time Tony winner. Texas born and bred, his high-school graduation gift was a trip to New York: “I stayed at the Algonquin Hotel and got into the elevator, and there was Anna May Wong and Milton Berle! Then I went to my tiny room and lifted the shade and saw a brick wall. I thought that was so urbane!” These days, the 78-year-old lives in Midtown, close to the East River. Catch him and Chita Rivera on Sept. 16 and 17 in “Chita & Tune” at Kean University’s Enlow Hall (KeanStage.com/ Enlow-Hall) in Union, NJ. The director/producer/choreographer/dancer tells BARBARA HOFFMAN about his favorite weekend haunts.
I have an art studio on the High Line where I spend a lot of my free time painting water towers, palm trees, giraffes . . . I’m always painting tall things! For lunch, I trudge over in my overalls to the Hotel Americano. They have a lobby bar there, with wonderful music, and they make great, great mezcal margaritas.
I try to see everything the Park Avenue Armory presents. Last fall, they had professional mourners come in from all over the world. When they all chanted at once, the sound surrounded you. And then there was a guy who won the [Turner] Prize in London who decorated the Armory in his inimitable way. One room was all white balloons from floor to ceiling, and you just got lost in it. I love shopping at the Dover Street Market. It’s a many-floored department store of extraordinary, out-there clothing. You can go from floor to floor, leave what you’re buying on each floor, go downstairs and have lunch, and they bring your packages down to you! I bought a greatcoat there that goes all the way to the ground. It’s black and very dramatic. There’s a little haberdashery in Hell’s Kitchen called Fine and Dandy [where] I order all my shirts. They have an incredible collection of cuff links and vintage ties. I bought a doll there that looks like Twiggy and sent it to her on her birthday. She wrote back, “Thank you so much for the doll. I’d never seen it before.” When you’re famous, people do facsimiles of you and you don’t know it. I don’t think there’s a Tommy Tune doll — it wouldn’t fit in the closet.
I always go to the upstairs bar at Sardi’s before I see a Broadway show, because there’s such a buzz from this melting pot of fans from all across the country. And they’re very excited that I’m there, because I’m, like, a Broadway guy and we always have a lot to talk about. Then we disperse promptly at 10 to 8 for whatever theaters we’re going to, and the curtain goes up on the latest bit of make-believe.