These Broadway portraits were stolen from Sardi's restaurant

New York Post

16 hours ago

It's not easy being green.
Of the nearly 1,000 celebrity caricatures on the walls of iconic theater-district institution Sardi's, the one pilfered the most, oddly, is Kermit the Frog.
'Kermit was stolen three times. And then we screwed him up to the wall,' Johnny Felidi, longtime maître d' at the 100-year-old eatery, told The Post ahead of Sunday's Tony Awards.
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Another celebrity who had to be screwed at the beloved West 44th Street eatery: Barbra Streisand.
After her original 1963 portrait was purloined, it took the 'Funny Girl' 55 years to agree to another caricature.
8 Kermit the Frog, who filmed a scene at Sardi's for 'The Muppets Take Manhattan,' had his caricature stolen three times.
J.C. Rice
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'And you're gonna love what she wrote on it — 'Don't steal this one,'' said Felidi, who has worked at Sardi's for 26 years.
'Julie Andrews was another one that went missing for a long time and then it was allegedly found at an auction,' added receptionist Lydia DeLuca, who spent last summer updating the binder that lists every celeb's name and their location on three floors of the four-story restaurant.
8 Barbra Streisand also had her caricature taken off the wall, so she wrote 'Don't steal this one!' on her second portrait.
Jeremy Wagner
Bob Hope's was looted as well — and his thief, who was drinking at the bar, was captured on their security cameras.
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'So we got their credit card information, called them up . . . and of course they get belligerent. And we said, 'We don't want to have law enforcement involved, so just return the caricature.' And they did,' recalled Felidi, a native of Parma, Italy, who grew up in the Bronx.
8 Maître d Johnny Felidi has been at Sardi's for 26 years.
J.C. Rice
Due to all the star-snatching, the priceless portraits adorning the walls of Sardi's — where the idea for the Tonys was conceived over lunch — are now duplicates of the originals, which are stored in a safe.
It wasn't until 1986, after the death of James Cagney, that founder Vincent Sardi decided to start using dupes.
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'The night he died, they stole his caricature, never to be seen again,' said Felidi.
8 George Clooney, who made his Broadway debut this year in 'Good Night, and Good Luck' had his Sardi's portrait unveiled in April.
J.C. Rice
The time-honored tradition started when Sardi hired Russian immigrant Alex Gard to create the portraits in the fledgling restaurant in exchange for meals in an attempt to 'drum up business.'
Brooklyn native Richard Baratz, a former engraver for the treasury department, is now the artist behind the boldfaced names.
'That's why now you see tiny little lines in his work,' Felidi noted.
8 Denzel Washington, pictured here with his 'Othello' co-star Jake Gyllenhaal, had his Sardi's portrait revealed right before the Tony Awards.
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This season, Baratz sketched the portraits of Broadway A-listers Nick Jonas, Jake Gyllenhaal, Denzel Washington and George Clooney — nominated for a Tony for his debut on the Great White Way in 'Good Night, and Good Luck.'
Legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who has six Tonys and is nominated for another for 'Sunset Boulevard,' also went up this year, after a decade-long wait.
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'We've had his caricature ready and drawn. It was scheduling conflicts and so we never had our paths crossed enough to do it until recently,' DeLuca explained.
8 Sardi's receptionist Lydia DeLuca spent last summer updating the binder that contains every celeb's name and their portrait's location.
J.C. Rice
To make room for the newcomers, current owner Max Klimavicius chooses which ones to remove and puts them into their storage facility, which contains around 500 portraits. About 230 others have been donated to the New York Public Library.
Many of the famous faces are purposefully placed — and celebrity couples such as Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are nestled side by side.
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'We have Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster together — they're dating,' Felidi said of Broadway's newest it couple.
'When Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith got divorced, we separated them. We have Richard Burton up there, we have Liz Taylor down here so they don't fight.'
When Tony Danza starred in 'Chicago,' he got his portrait done — but only agreed to it under one condition.
'He said, 'Please put me next to Sammy Davis Jr. And never take me away.''
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8 Celebrity couples, like Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman, are placed side by side.
J.C. Rice
Two former employees — who worked at Sardi's before they got famous — also had their images drawn.
'Martin Sheen worked here as a busboy in the 1960s,' Felidi said, pointing to the image of Sheen on the back wall of the first-floor dining room.
However, Chevy Chase, who worked there as a doorman in the '70s, still hasn't gotten his hung.
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8 Sardi's, located at 234 West 44th Street, opened in 1927.
J.C. Rice
'Every time he comes here he goes, 'Where's my caricature?' And I tell him, 'Chevy, it's in the office, we're waiting for you to sign it.' And he says, 'Okay, after I finish my meal, I'm gonna sign it.' And he always forgets.'