Broadway Salutes Hillary
When it comes to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's birthday, what do you get her?
The answer this year, reports CBS News Correspondent Diana Olick, seems to be a seat in the United States Senate - or at least the money to campaign for it.
Mrs. Clinton's exploratory committee threw its potential candidate a birthday bash in New York Monday night.
It was a star-studded extravaganza, hosted by talk show host Rosie O'Donnell. Performers included Lauren Bacall, Chita Rivera, Bebe Neuwirth, Joel Grey and Savion Glover, to name a few.
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| Mrs. Clinton blows out the candles, as Lauren Bacall and Sen. Charles Schumer look on. |
President Clinton nearly stole the show with a tribute acknowledging he will soon be out of the spotlight.
"Y'all just relax while I get used to my new role, somewhere between...the straight man for Rosie and the warm-up for Hillary. I'll figure out something to do," the president said as he took the stage with his wife at the end of the Monday evening extravaganza."I am so grateful that now my wife has a chance to do what I thought she ought to do 26 years ago, when we finished law school."
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The show opened with a Hillary look-alike in blonde wig, black pantsuit and practical pumps, singing, "I'll take Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, too."
The performer, Christine Pedi, from the cast of Forbidden Broadway, a spoof of Broadway shows, then launched into a rewritten New York, New York, accompanied by a chorus of 12 guys in New York Yankees uniforms.
"These Washington blues are washing away, she'll make a brand new start of it, in old New York," they sang.
Actress Mia Farrow, who has 14 children, 10 othem adopted, read aloud from Mrs. Clinton's book, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us.
"Each of us plays a part in every child's life: It takes a village to raise a child," she read.
Later, after Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wished Mrs. Clinton "many more happy birthdays right here in New York," Mrs. Clinton said: "I hope that I will have a chance sometime to work with Chuck Schumer, to be a voice for the children of New York, all of the children."
Between acts, O'Donnell poked fun at Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Mrs. Clinton's likely opponent in the Senate race.
"Giuliani is very jealous," the comedian quipped. "He's going to write his own book: 'It Takes a Village Idiot.'"
At another point, she said: "The cast of (the musical) Smokey Joe's Café wanted to be here, but the mayor had them arrested outside the theater for loitering."
Giuliani's press secretary, Sunny Mindel, later snapped back that while Mrs. Clinton was hobnobbing with celebrities, the mayor was at a town hall meeting with Staten Island residents. "Hollywood's for Hillary, while New Yorkers are with the mayor," said Mindel.
Judith Light, who stars in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, read from the writings of Eleanor Roosevelt, one of Mrs. Clinton's muses, then added: "The concerns of Eleanor Roosevelt are the concerns of Hillary Clinton."
Marc Kudisch, who stars in The Scarlet Pimpernel, saluted the first lady with "My Gal Hill," a rewrite of the song My Boy Bill from the old musical Carousel.
"She'll travel on until she's Senator Hillary, but if it ever gets lonely on the hill, then Hill comes home to me," Kudisch sang.
Giuliani's campaign is selling tickets to a special performance of the Broadway show Saturday Night Fever in hopes of raising $500,000.
Politicians using the performing arts to raise money is nothing new. The 1962 bash at Madison Square Garden at which Marilyn Monroe breathily crooned Happy Birthday to President Kennedy raised $1 million for the Democratic Party.
In 1996, a 50th birthday bash for President Clinton at Radio City Music Hall raised $10 million for his party.
The last time Mrs. Clinton threw a major birthday party was two years ago, when she turned 50. That party was in her home state of Illinois, and she billed it as a return to her roots.