Timothée Chalamet's mother, Nicole Flender, is having her own moment
Call Nicole Flender by her name, as she is not just the mother of two successful actors.
Flender is the mother of Timothée Chalamet, star of numerous films and a two-time Oscar nominee, as well as Pauline Chalamet, who most recently starred in the series 'The Sex Life of College Girls.' But Flender is also an accomplished real estate agent with the famed Corcoran real estate firm in New York City.
According to a recent article in Curbed, she 'has been selling real estate with Corcoran for nearly a decade, ever since her husband, Marc Chalamet, a French journalist who now works for the U.N., spotted a Groupon deal for discounted courses at the New York Real Estate Institute.'
'Flender was working as a dance teacher in New York City public schools at the time, and her children — by that point working, but not famous, actors — had left the nest: Timmy was about to audition for 'Call Me by Your Name,' and his elder sister, Pauline, was at acting school in Paris,' the publication stated.
Thanks to the article, we know that Flender's connections to the entertainment industry aren't just tied to her famous children.
'Flender's father, Harold, was a comedian and novelist whose book 'Paris Blues' was adapted into a film starring Sidney Poitier,' the article states. 'Her mother, Enid, was a Broadway dancer. Her brother, Rodman, was a child star who became a writer and director.'
In the 1970s, Flender and her family were 'among the first to move into Manhattan Plaza, the subsidized-housing complex in Hell's Kitchen where the majority of tenants had to be performing artists, through the city's Mitchell-Lama program.'
Their neighbors in that building included 'the then-30-something Larry David, who lived next to a comedian named Kenny Kramer, the inspiration for the Seinfeld character.'
Not that Felder isn't proud of her kids.
After Timothée Chalamet won SAG Award for male actor in a leading role for 'A Complete Unknown,' she talked to 'Entertainment Tonight' about her excitement.
'It's just incredible because I was with him from the start,' she said. 'From those first commercials he did and 'Law & Order' he did as an 11-year-old. This is just incredible. I'm so happy. I'm so proud.'
Felder also had her own star turn.
Her bio on the Corcoran site notes that she danced at the Lincoln Center with the New York City Ballet when she was a child and went on to perform in several Broadway musicals.
Felder, who is fluent in English and French, is also listed as an officer of Actors' Equity Association, where she represents more than 50,000 stage actors across the country. She is a member of the voting body for Broadway's Tony Awards and the author of the book, 'Cool Careers for People who Love Movement.'
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Los Angeles Times
42 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Inside Allee Willis' fabulously kitsch party house that inspired a pop-up book
When you walk into Willis Wonderland, your eye doesn't know where to land. The North Hollywood house, which songwriter Allee Willis first purchased in 1980 and turned into a living ode to all things kitsch, is awash in trinkets and tchotchkes. But also in coveted art pieces and stylish furnishings. The living room alone features a lavender Plycraft chair and a Sputnik chandelier as well as a Weltron Space Ball Retro stereo boasting an Earth, Wind & Fire 8-Track and a 'Sock It To Me' squished beer ashtray. It's all just the way Willis had it before she died in 2019 at 72. And now, for those who have always wished they could tour this most fabulous of L.A. houses where everyone from Lily Tomlin, Paul Reubens and Cassandra Peterson once partied, comes a new pop-up book that brings it into your own, likely less fantastical, home. 'Willis Wonderland: The Legendary House of Atomic Kitsch' was written by Willis' friend Hillary Carlip and Trudi Roth, designed by Carlip, illustrated by Neal McCullough and paper-engineered by Mike Malkovas. And, like the house it hopes to capture and mythologize in equal measure, the pop-up book is a celebration of Willis' own 'more is more' sensibility. 'When you walk in, it's full of surprises,' Carlip tells me as we walk around the house on a sunny Friday morning and admire the Jason Mecier portrait of Willis made of trash trinkets. 'You keep finding new things. I've been here hundreds of times, and I saw something today I hadn't seen before. I wanted to do that with the pop-up book. To have easter eggs and things where you pull and spin and open and that kind of thing. I just think the interactivity, where you really immerse yourself in it, is really important now, especially since so much is digital.' The tactility of the book encourages you to explore every nook and cranny of the house, which does already feel like a museum of sorts. Of kitsch, perhaps, but also of Willis herself. The more you get to learn both about this well-kept building (once rumored to be an MGM party house), you also learn more about Willis' extraordinary career. Willis is perhaps best known as the songwriter behind such hits as Earth, Wind & Fire's 'September' and 'Boogie Wonderland.' But over her four-decade career, she also co-wrote the songs for Broadway musical 'The Color Purple'; penned a Grammy-winning tune for 'Beverly Hills Cop'; and worked with acts as varied as the Pet Shop Boys, Dusty Springfield, Patti LaBelle, Cyndi Lauper and Taylor Dayne. But she was also a visual artist, a designer, a sculptor and an avid collector. With her signature asymmetrical haircut, her loud, fashionable outfits and a penchant for all things off-kilter, the Detroit-born artist made little distinction between her work and her life. It makes sense her abode, a pink William Kesling single-family house (one of only 15 built in the Los Angeles area in the 1930s) dotted with bowling balls and palm trees, would serve as a continuation of her wild, wondrous aesthetic. When Willis died, the question of what to do with her Willis Wonderland was entangled with how to further cement her legacy. Her partner, animator and producer Prudence Fenton, knew the famed house would need to be cared for. And, perhaps more importantly, memorialized. When Fenton and Vincent Beggs — the executive director of the Willis Wonderland Foundation, launched in 2022 — came up with the idea of a book about the house, they knew it couldn't be just any kind of book. They toyed with a sleek coffee table book with gorgeous photos of the house. 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I think when people come into this house, they feel all those things, they're inspired to create. I think just the breadth of her creativity is infectious. You cannot help but be inspired by being in here.' Carlip points to a painting that sits atop the fireplace right above a Sascha Brastoff gold ceramic bull. The piece features a blue-hued woman whose irregular features (bold neon lips, perky colorful nipples) are intentionally meant to evoke a certain famed artist. It is signed 'P. Picasso.' 'People would always ask her, 'Is this …?'' Carlip recalls with a laugh. 'It's not. I mean, it's called 'Girl with Blue Period.''
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
On Tonys night, Broadway divided over Patti LuPone's remarks about Audra McDonald
More than a few years ago now, my mom asked me why the UK's royal family seemed to be all over the news all the time. That's all I see when I turn on my computer, she said. I think that might be because you've been clicking on some stories about Meghan and Harry, I told her, leading to lots more stories about Meghan and Harry. Similarly, I've lately been treated to many variations on basically the same recycled story about the great offstage Broadway drama featuring Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald. Stop, I cry, though if they weren't my Meghan and Harry, I wouldn't keep seeing this stuff. In case they're not your Meghan and Harry, here's the deal: A recent New Yorker profile of LuPone made news, none of it good for her. In the piece, she's quoted saying disparaging things about two Black actresses, her fellow Tony winners Kecia Lewis and McDonald, Broadway's most decorated star. Some 700 Broadway performers signed a petition saying LuPone should be disinvited from Sunday night's Tony Awards for her bullying and racially insensitive remarks. She then profusely apologized, falling on her own knife like Liù in Puccini's 'Turandot,' and various stage actors have been weighing in on whether or not she should be forgiven. Now, Patti LuPone has always been unfiltered, in that one way like the Donald Trump she's said she hates; you do not want to be caught with your cell phone ringing when she's on stage. Only she comes off in this profile as generous and gigantic and human and hurt and self-sabotaging but also finally going too far in letting loose on others, and in general. Is she for real or putting on a show when shouting at New York Rangers, 'Take your clothes off, boys! Naked hockey! No cups — I want full frontal! HA!' She is in let-'em-have-it mode throughout, referring to Glenn Close, the actress who replaced her in 'Sunset Boulevard' 100 years ago as a 'bitch,' and telling the New Yorker writer Michael Schulman more than once that the now Trump-run Kennedy Center 'should get blown up.' Which, hello, is not in any way OK. Serious or not, and people who say these things always insist that they were not, it's wrong to complain about Trump's violent rhetoric and then go around talking like this. So LuPone should also walk those remarks way the heck back. And I do not love to see women tearing down women; are things really not hard enough? Kevin Kline got off easy in the profile; all LuPone said about him is that he was a terrible boyfriend back in the day. Despite all of the many posts I have read about the explosions that followed the publication of the profile, I would never have understood the genesis of the contretemps without the guidance of New York Times theater reporter Michael Paulson. He reported on what happened after LuPone complained last year that noise from the Black-led Alicia Keys musical 'Hell's Kitchen' could be heard in the theater next door, where LuPone and Mia Farrow were performing in 'The Roommate.' LuPone took her gripe to the Shubert Organization, which runs both theaters. So far, perfectly normal, and something that happens all the time. Shubert fixed the problem. But then, Paulson wrote, after LuPone sent flowers to the 'Hell's Kitchen' sound crew, she was videotaped describing the musical as 'loud,' and refusing to sign a 'Hell's Kitchen' playbill. That's when Kecia Lewis, who is in 'Hell's Kitchen,' responded with a video calling LuPone's behavior 'racially microaggressive' by reinforcing stereotypes. McDonald weighed in by posting some supportive emojis on the video. In the New Yorker interview, LuPone said of Lewis, 'Don't call yourself a vet, bitch.' Which was way over the line. She said McDonald was 'not a friend,' and then declared that she needed a nap. Of course she did; setting yourself on fire can be very draining. McDonald wisely said she didn't know about any rift between herself and LuPone. Lewis has wisely not made any public statement. 'For as long as I have worked in the theater,' LuPone said in her own statement, 'I have spoken my mind and never apologized. That is changing today. … From middle school drama clubs to professional stages, theater has always been about lifting each other up and welcoming those who feel they don't belong anywhere else. I made a mistake, I take full responsibility for it, and I am committed to making this right.' Both McDonald and LuPone have given me so much joy, not just over the years but this year, that this is drama I could have done without. McDonald ripped my heart out and then handed it back to me with her 'this-isn't-your-Momma's-Momma-Rose' performance in 'Gypsy.' I spent a lot more than I could afford to be on the front row with our Aunt Mimi Turque, who was cast by composer Jule Styne to play June in an early national touring company of the show. LuPone also showed me a wonderful time recently with her show at the Kauffman Center, where she received five standing ovations, one before she sang a note. It's the only time in my experience — Can you say 'gay icon'? — that there hasn't been a line outside a ladies' room at the Kauffman at intermission, and I went home so energized from her performance, which these days in particular is worth a lot. So what I want to say is that with everything going on in the world that the arts stand squarely against, energy spent on fury at someone who has groveled from here to Argentina is energy wasted. I still love both of you 'Ladies Who Lunch,' the Sondheim anthem to female rage that I've seen both of you crush. I'd like to think that LuPone learned something from this whole episode — though again, those comments about the Kennedy Center still do need clearing up asap. We could all of us, of course, be less eager to pounce and readier to forgive. The many ageist comments about Patti, who is 76, by those Audra fans who aren't ready to let this go, and say they never will be, aren't OK, either. Unfortunately, art doesn't always bring even the relatively like-minded together. As always, that's up to us. UPDATE: I thought McDonald would win her 7th Tony tonight for the same role that LuPone won for in 2008, but no, the award for leading actress in a musical went to Nicole Scherzinger for her Broadway debut in a revival of 'Sunset Boulevard.' Pretty sure LuPone would not have wanted to be at the awards show, since it was Glenn Close who introduced Scherzinger singing, 'It's As If We Never Said Goodbye.' And Oprah Winfrey, who presented the award to Scherzinger, made some interesting faces as she made the show's only veiled reference to the controversy, but she did not mention LuPone by name.
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
The best photos from the 2025 Tony Awards
The best of Broadway was recognized Sunday night at the annual Tony Awards, held at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The show was hosted by "Wicked" star Cynthia Erivo. 'Purpose' won the Tony for best play and 'Maybe Happy Ending,' one of the most nominated productions heading into Sunday's show, won best musical. Nicole Scherzinger also won her first-ever Tony Award for her best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical for her role as Norma Desmond in the revival of 'Sunset Blvd,' which also won in the best musical revival category.
