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‘Connie Sue’ helps bid Libby’s farewell
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tears flowed along with the champagne at Libby’s Cabaret as 2007 beckoned early Monday morning. After a 6 1/2-year run, singer/owner Libby Whittemore closed up shop for good, citing a hefty load of debt and a looming increase in rent in the space on Northside Parkway.
Old friends and regulars had snapped up every last seat for the New Year’s Eve celebration by Labor Day.
“Each one of you here tonight is a familiar face,” Whittemore told the packed house. “It means a great deal that you’re here. We’ve had a great run, and honestly, its because of all of you. The way you’ve felt about this room, well, there are no words that would amply tell you.”
And among the Libby’s servers working one last shift? Waiter Justin Proctor, whom Whittemore referred to onstage as the “miracle boy.” After the 26-year-old suffered a severe head injury last year, Libby’s regulars took up a collection for his medical bills as Proctor languished in a coma for a month.
Early Monday morning, Proctor was back, busy waiting on customers, taking pictures for regulars, dancing around in the back of the club and texting friends on his cellphone.
The waterworks began onstage as Whittemore and Lisa Paige, an Atlanta vocalist who has come into her own on Libby’s stage, attempted “For Good,” a friendship-themed ballad from the Broadway hit “Wicked.”
Tears streamed down Paige’s face as she and Whittemore tried to get through the number. Afterward, Whittemore cracked, “I thought we’d be a little deeper into the night before I started this.”
As midnight neared, Whittemore’s alter ego Connie Sue Day, the actress and singer’s bawdy character from Tom Edwards’ “Della’s Diner” series of plays (the Atlanta playwright and old pal of Whittemore’s was on hand for the evening) arrived to stifle any further emotional outbursts.
As “The 31st Lady of Country Music,” complete with gravity-defying red wig and tiara, Whittemore belted out Patsy Cline numbers as midnight arrived. In the wee hours, as regulars dined on a breakfast buffet, Whittemore, then out of Connie Sue’s costume, confided to Buzz: “As she’s done countless times in my career, Connie Sue saved me tonight. It’s hard to get all weepy and emotional when you look like that.”
Whittemore will continue to operate her Web site, www.libbyscabaret.com, throughout 2007 to update her former customers.
Ray’s takes a rest
Ray’s on the River regulars were jolted over the weekend when they discovered the doors locked at the Sandy Springs mainstay. For the first time in its 22-year history, the restaurant is closed for a major renovation.
We’re told that when it reopens this spring, Ray’s on the River will have a “sophisticated, upscale look as well as a state-of-the-art remodeling of the kitchen.” Atlanta architectural firm Seiber Design is overseeing the project.
Ray’s rep Hilary Abbott tells Buzz that regulars craving Ray’s signature New Orleans barbecued shrimp, steaks and smashed red bliss potatoes can venture to Ray’s Killer Creek in Alpharetta or Ray’s in the City on Peachtree.
Just a granite gag
This just in from the Atlanta Latino newspaper: Stone Mountain is moving — all the way to the Mexican border.
And who’s to do all the heavy lifting, you ask? Latinos, of course.
That’s what readers of Atlanta Latino, a bilingual weekly, learned Thursday in a front-page article headlined “The Latest News: Stone Mountain to Be Moved Out of State.” The “Department of Development of Georgia,” the article reported, has contracted about 5,000 Latinos to haul one of the state’s top tourist attractions away by the truckload in an effort to stimulate the economy and secure the border.
Only readers who made it to the end of the story discovered the truth. Thursday was Dia de los Inocentes, or “Day of the Innocents,” a Latin-American version of April Fools’ Day that comes on Dec. 28. Stonewall Jackson and his fellow Confederate carvings wouldn’t be going Lou Dobbs after all.
Judith Martinez-Sadri, editor in chief of Atlanta Latino, said she, the publisher and one other editor were the only ones who knew about the hoax beforehand. So staffers picked up the paper Thursday with mouths agape. “They bought into it,” Martinez-Sadri said. “They thought it was real.”
So did many shoppers at the Plaza Fiesta mall near Chamblee. Martinez-Sadri said attendants at the newspaper’s kiosk heard several folks comment that they’d better make one last visit to Stone Mountain Park before one of the main reasons for going — that oh-so-gigantic chunk of granite — retired farther south. One man wanted to know how he could apply for a job with the project.
Though a few readers called to complain, Martinez-Sadri said the vast majority have roots in Mexico, Colombia and other countries where newspapers occasionally mark Day of the Innocents with a phony article or two.
At least one guest who called Stone Mountain Park was fooled, however, said Katie Seuberling, the park’s public relations coordinator. “They wanted to know if it was true or not,” she said. Perhaps the callers hadn’t read the quotes from “Gov. Soni Perrdu” and “Sen. Chiip Rollers.”
Stork report
Former Smyrna gal Julia Roberts is expecting her third child with her husband, cinematographer Danny Moder, her spokeswoman confirms.
The baby is due this summer, Roberts’ publicist, Marcy Engelman, said in a story posted on People magazine’s Web site. News of the pregnancy first appeared in the New York Post’s Page Six column. A call to Engelman by The Associated Press wasn’t immediately returned.
Roberts, 39, and Moder, 37, have 2-year-old twins, Hazel and Phinnaeus, born in November 2004.
Uncoupling
Actress Victoria Principal’s 21-year marriage to her second husband is officially over.
The former “Dallas” star is single again after reaching a financial settlement with plastic surgeon Harry Glassman, according to court papers filed last week in Los Angeles. The two have property interests worth more than $50 million, according to the divorce judgment.
Principal, 56, and Glassman were married in June 1985. She filed for divorce in May, citing irreconcilable differences.
Principal and her first husband, Christopher Skinner, divorced in 1980.
Celebrity birthdays
Actress Gabrielle Carteris (“Beverly Hills, 90210”) is 46. Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. is 39. Model Christy Turlington is 38. Actor Taye Diggs is 36. Drummer Scott Underwood of Train is 36. Singer Doug Robb of Hoobastank is 32. Actor Dax Shepard (“Employee of the Month”) is 32. Actress Kate Bosworth is 24.
Contributing: Brian Feagans and news services
HIGH FIVE
Top-selling products on Amazon.com in 2006:
Books: “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t” by Jim Collins
Music: “Taking the Long Way” by the Dixie Chicks
DVD: “Pirates of the Caribbean — Dead Man’s Chest” (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
Software: “World of Warcraft”
Electronics: Apple iPods
Source: Amazon.com
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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