College football fans invade Hollywood hotspots
The hottest ticket in Hollywood this week wasn’t Tuesday’s Golden Globes, but Monday night’s college football playoff national championship game.
At lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s famed Polo Lounge on Monday, fans in red Georgia Bulldogs and purple TCU Horned Frogs — who descended on Los Angeles for the game at SoFi Stadium — vastly outnumbered the usual number of agents and of entertainment executives in chic black.
Anyway, among the football jerseys, Jeffrey Katzenberg dined in a corner seat with a friend, and “SNL” guru Lorne Michaels arrived in a faded baseball cap (whose dress code requires civilians to “refrain from wearing casual hats, ripped denim, crop tops, sleepwear, swimwear, and men’s sleeveless shirts.”)
Michaels was heard telling his friends that he had scored a ticket for the college game.
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WME co-chairmen Richard Weitz and Christian Muirhead, producer John Davis and Apple TV+ boss Zack Van Amburg were also spotted having lunch amid the sea of football fans.
To top off the surreal scene of college football boosters in LA’s upscale haunt, the hotspot’s resident pianist launched into the theme of “Succession” as a young woman dined nearby with a French Bulldog at her sides.
When another diner approached the table, the gremlin-like dog sunk its teeth into the man’s umbrella and wouldn’t let go.
Usually the Globes would be the city’s main attraction, but the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is on shaky ground after it pulled out of television last year amid accusations of lack of diversity and unfair voting practices. ‘ethics.
An executive was heard this week saying his company is taking a cautious approach to the Globes as some pros stay home even though their projects have nominations.
The show is trying to make a comeback on NBC this year, including with the Cecil B. DeMille Honorary Award given to Eddie Murphy.