Actors, athletes, pols
| Courtesy Abby Greenawalt/Park Hyatt Washington |
Recent Emmy winner Robert Duvall talked horses and cowboys. Russell Crowe passed through, clad in a baseball cap, black sunglasses and workout shorts. Argentinean tennis legend Gabriela Sabatini mixed and mingled with the likes of “Monday Night Football” mouth Tony Kornheiser and wowed partygoers with her slinky white dress. Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, now a Senate candidate, retreated to a quiet table in the bar for three hours.
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The setting: the Park Hyatt hotel. The excuse: the “Masters of Food and Wine Argentina” reception Wednesday night.
The 200-strong crowd, spread over three levels, went through cases of wine, but most conversation centered around “Body of Lies,” which is wrapping up filming in the nation’s capital. Word quickly spread that most of the cast and crew was staying at the hotel, including director Ridley Scott and Crowe, who had hurt his back during filming.
British character actor Simon McBurney worked the room, clutching a script for a scene he said he was shooting with Crowe’s co-star Leonardo DiCaprio on Thursday. “I’m still brushing up,” he confessed.
After sipping and spitting for a couple of hours, many of the VIPs sat down to a spread at the chef’s table in the hotel’s Blue Duck Tavern restaurant. Joining them were Microsoft lobbyist Marland Buckner, Argentinean soprano Fabian Bravo, Gallup Organization CEO Jim Clifton and renowned New York restaurateur Drew Nieporent.
Noticeably absent was DiCaprio himself. The free-spirited actor has largely eschewed hanging with the other principals on the film, hanging his hat at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown after flying in on a private jet. In fact, on Wednesday, he was spotted dining at Georgetown saloon J. Paul’s. According to a source, DiCaprio largely ignored the gawking hordes in Georgetown as he made the two-block trek with a bodyguard. His bodyguard even managed to knock a kid’s camera to the ground.
