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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2007 > October > 25 > Entry
Alge Crumpler in ‘hall of fame’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Alge honored Former Boys & Girls Club of America member and current Atlanta Falcon Alge Crumpler was inducted into the Atlanta-based nonprofit’s Alumni Hall of Fame on Wednesday night during the organization’s annual Southeast Chairman’s Dinner at the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead. What’s more, former “American Idol” winner (and previous BGCA alum hall of fame winner) Ruben Studdard serenaded the football player at the posh dinner. We’re told that Crumpler “grew up attending the Boys & Girls Clubs of Pitt County in Greenville, N.C., while his mother worked.” Alge’s mother addressed the crowd before her son’s induction Wednesday, crediting the BGCA for helping to teach her child important life lessons.
Crumpler told the assembly that the club was where he first learned how to use a computer.
Coppola nephew knows family drama
For a generation of cult comedy fans, actor Jason Schwartzman will forever be Max Fischer, the troubled prep school kid from director Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore” of nearly a decade ago. The actor and musician is also “Godfather” and “Rocky” actress Talia Shire’s son. His uncle is Francis Ford Coppola, and he grew up playing with cousins Nicolas Cage and Sofia Coppola.
Lineage not withstanding, Schwartzman was completely unassuming, bright, funny and low-key over lunch Thursday as he polished off a fifth pecan pie dessert (roughly the size of a shot glass, mind you) at Seasons 52 in Buckhead.
Schwartzman was in town to talk about his latest film with Anderson, “The Darjeeling Limited,” the quirky comedy that hit Atlanta theaters last Friday. But just because he’s got some bold-faced names in the fam, Schwartzman says he and Anderson wanted to write about the universality of families in crisis when they set out to write the screenplay for “Darjeeling.”
In the India-set film, Schwartzman and co-stars Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody play the estranged wealthy Whitman brothers who come together again for the first time since their father’s death.
“Wes said to me, ‘I want to do a film about three brothers on a train in India. I don’t know what happens. But I want to write it with you, and I want it to be filled with really personal things from our lives.’ “
Two years later, they had a script centering on bickering brothers still grappling with the death of their father (who, depending on your interpretation, may or may not be played in “Darjeeling’ by Bill Murray).
“No matter who you are, a death in the family is like a grenade going off,” he explained, tugging a lock of hair away from his face. “And you end up pulling that emotional shrapnel out of your body for years.”
The actor says that “Hotel Chevalier,” the short film featuring his “Darjeeling” character Jack Whitman and directed by Anderson a full year before the “Limited” shoot began (the 13-minute short, which has been downloaded more than 400,000 times on iTunes, will get officially tacked onto the beginning “Limited’s” theatrical run starting today) was key to him finding his character.
“Every actor should have that experience,” he recalls. “It was an incredibly gentle way to reconnect with Wes as a director. I was able to wear Jack’s clothes, grow out his mustache, play with his iPod and find him.” He says the film’s organic shoot, shot largely in sequence, helped him, Wilson and Brody connect emotionally as well.
And then there were the unique living conditions the trio found themselves in.
“We all lived together in this house that has been converted into an eight-bedroom hotel,” Schwartzman explained. “We played badminton and watched movies together. It was like being in summer camp. Not to get all Marvin Gaye on you, but we discovered we’re all sensitive people.”
Curtis: ‘Freaks’ progress?
Thursday’s luncheon featuring actress Jamie Lee Curtis offered nourishing food for thought.
Addressing the Atlanta Women’s Foundation’s 11th annual “Numbers Too Big to Ignore” luncheon, Curtis urged the crowd of more than 2,000 to honor and respect their “unique magnificence.”
“We don’t make change by following the same path,” Curtis said. “We make change by making and forging new paths.”
Curtis, who caused something of a stir a while back when she posed sans makeup for a More magazine photo shoot, had harsh words for the whole stick-thin-is-chic look.
“Women today look like freaks,” Curtis said. “Is that progress?”
Proceeds from Thursday’s luncheon will help enhance AWF’s grant-making initiatives and women’s leadership programs. Since its inception, AWF has granted more than $9 million to more than 250 nonprofit organizations serving women and girls in metro Atlanta.
Celebrity birthdays
Actress Jaclyn Smith (“Charlie’s Angels”) is 62. “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak is 61. Musician Bootsy Collins is 56. Actor James Pickens Jr. (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is 55. Guitarist Keith Strickland of The B-52’s is 54. Actor Dylan McDermott (“Big Shots”) is 46. Country singer Keith Urban is 40. Actor Jon Heder (“Blades of Glory,” “Napoleon Dynamite”) is 30.
OVERSCENE
Actress (and Joan Collins’ former “Dynasty” mud-wrestling partner) Linda Evans taking in the Dalai Lama’s “Mind & Life” symposium at Emory University.
ON MY iPOD AND TiVo Katt Williams, comedian:
” ‘The Tudors’ and good stuff like that I want to watch at my leisure. And ‘Entourage’. All the hip-hop events and awards and important things, like [VH1’s] ‘Hip Hop Honors’. I’m a TV Land addict. And then whatever’s on Cartoon Network, because I have eight kids.” “As for music, I’m kind of a rare person, I buy like 30 CDs a month, but I don’t download a lot from like iTunes or anything. I go to the store. Read all the liner notes. Then put it on my computer. And my playlists range from everything from Lil Wayne and some Dipset and my new album on one, Big & Rich and Larry the Cable Guy on another, and Nelly and Yung Joc and E-40 on another. I do it like that. I do it all.”
Contributing: Jennifer Brett and news services. If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.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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