The Friars Club is officially dead.
Over 160 pieces of furniture, art, instruments and other gems from the now-shuttered club will be sold to the highest bidders by Julien’s Auctions on March 4.
Founded in 1904, the members-only social club on East 55th St. is selling off a custom pool table, a Steinway piano, Jack Benny’s violin and bronze busts of Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis.
Other famous members included Milton Berle, Humphrey Bogart, Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Carson and Nat “King” Cole.
Honorary female members such as Phyllis Diller, Barbra Streisand and Lucille Ball were ruling the dais until 1988, when women like Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor and Carol Burnett were granted official membership.
Julien’s Auctions
A bronze bust of Frank Sinatra by Jo Davidson (estimate: $4,000-$6,000) (Julien’s Auctions)
Catherine Williamson, the managing director of Hollywood memorabilia for Julien’s Auctions, tried to find some joy in the tragic end of the club famous for its celebrity roasts.
“If you’ve always wanted to be a member of the Friars Club, this is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to own a piece from the legendary comedy mecca,” Williamson said. “We’re delighted to serve this glorious banquet of brilliant archival treasures from the kings and queens of comedy and entertainment, chronicling over a century of laughter.”
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Sydney James Harcourt knows his role as Rum Tum Tugger in “CATS: The Jellicle Ball.”
“My specialty is pretty boy realness,” Harcourt told me. “Being able to walk in the world and not be clocked as gay. I’ve been walking realness my whole life.”
The original production of “Cats” by Andrew Lloyd Webber, inspired by a collection of T.S. Eliot poems, ran for 18 years on Broadway.
While the reimagining of the musical has the same music and lyrics, it did away with the cat costumes and turned the characters into participants of the Harlem ballroom community that flourished in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
After a successful run off-Broadway, “CATS: The Jellicle Ball” begins previews March 18 at the Broadhurst Theatre, and officially opens on April 7.
Harcourt, who started out understudying five roles in “Hamilton,” thinks the new show will be a huge hit.
“This could be 10 times bigger than the original ‘Cats,’” he said.
For a man who grew up in Detroit, overweight with a lisp, it’s nice when someone tells him he’s the sexiest man to hit Broadway since Hugh Jackman starred in “The Boy from Oz.”
“I’ll take it,” Harcourt said.
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As the sun set on Valentine’s Day, Suzanne Somers’ widower, Alan Hamel, made a secret visit to her final resting place near Palm Springs. He was bearing a bouquet of white peonies, the “Three’s Company” star’s favorite flower.
Actress Suzanne Somers and husband Alan Hamel visit the SiriusXM Studios on November 15, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
Hamel recalled telling his wife years ago that he wanted to give her something memorable for Valentine’s Day.
“She responded, ‘I don’t really need anything, but something shiny and big would certainly be appreciated. I would love that,’” Hamel said, before he broke out into a laugh.
“I gave her a waffle iron, the shiniest and the biggest one I could find. She first reacted by calling me a ‘jerk’ and then laughed so hard she started choking.”
Somers and Hamel were together for more than 50 years, from when they met in the late ‘60s until her death in 2023 following a decades-long battle with breast cancer.
Hamel is now about a year into a relationship with “Blade Runner” actress Joanna Cassidy, whom he initially met when she was a guest on his “Alan Hamel Show” in the ’70s.
Joanna Cassidy poses at the premiere of the documentary film “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, at The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
They reconnected a decade later when Cassidy and Somers starred together in the miniseries “Hollywood Wives,” and again after 18 months of Hamel mourning his wife.
The 89-year-old says he’s sure Somers would approve of the romance.
“In the final days of her life on this planet, before she crossed over, she said to me, ‘I don’t want you to mope around after I’m gone,’” he told People magazine last year. “She’d be very happy that I’m happy… She wanted that.”
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Matt Damon, his wife, Luciana Barroso, and their daughters Isabella and Gia joined a group of nearly 300 swells, including Ricky and Ralph Lauren, at the Round Hill Hotel in Jamaica for the annual Sugar Cane Ball.
Chaired for the fifth time by New York shoe designer Vanessa Noel, the event benefitted Hanover Charities, which is helping rebuild the homes destroyed by Hurricane Melissa.
Ralph Lauren and Ricky Lauren attend the world premiere of HBO Documentary Films’ “Very Ralph” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
As part of an auction, the Laurens donated a shopping spree at their NYC Polo store, valued at $5,000. That, plus ticket sales for the gala and other auction gems, raised over $600,000 for the charity.
Other guests included David Lauren and his wife, Lauren Bush Lauren; iHeart Media CEO Robert Pittman; Jamaica tourism director Josef Forstmayr, who has run the Round Hill for nearly 40 years; and Megan Hearst, the stepdaughter of billionaire Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, whose family owns a luxurious villa at the hotel.
The resort, located in a private gated community near Montego Bay, was founded in the early ‘50s as an exclusive escape for the elite. Legendary guests have included Grace Kelly, Truman Capote, Clark Gable, Noel Coward and Alfred Hitchcock.
John and Jackie Kennedy spent part of their honeymoon there in 1953. They frequently returned, with JFK even using one of the villas to prepare his 1961 inauguration speech.
Today, the Round Hill Hotel remains a second home for the likes of Paul McCartney, Justin Bieber, Whoopi Goldberg and Pierce Brosnan.
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Race to Erase MS founder Nancy Davis has battled multiple sclerosis for 34 years, and she’s in good shape. That’s why she’s working hard to organize her foundation’s 2026 Gala, set to be held on June 5 at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles.
“I was told I’d be lucky if I could hold a TV remote,” Davis told me.
The doomsayers were wrong.
“Not only can I walk, I got a black belt in karate,” she said.
Nancy Davis, Founder, Race to Erase MS attends the 32nd annual Race To Erase MS Gala on May 16, 2025 in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images)
Actresses Selma Blair, Jamie Lynn Sigler and Christina Applegate are also dealing with the disease, which — thanks to research funding — is now being fought with 25 different drugs designed to stop the progression of MS.
Davis’ charity has raised $57 million for the cause with plenty of help. Last year’s gala was attended by Robin Thicke, Kathy Hilton, Kelly Osbourne, and Dee and Tommy Hilfiger.
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Out & About: “Stranger Things” star Caleb McLaughlin was spotted dining with a pal and then posing for photos with fans at Carnegie Diner & Cafe’s new Herald Square location at The Martinique New York on Broadway … Susan Stroman, Lee Roy Reams, and Steve and Debbie Garrin caught Tony Danza’s latest show, “Sinatra & Stories,” at 54 Below.