A current great actor is filming with his former food schlepper.
We’re talking Robert De Niro and Sebastian Maniscalco.
Italian American funnyman Maniscalco wrote the movie “About My Father.” Before he was a writer he was a waiter.
Maniscalco: “2005, I waited tables at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills and met De Niro there. Then I worked with him once, on ‘The Irishman.’ I had his number. I called him. I never thought this thing would get made. I was nervous. There was no goofing around. I said ‘You want to play my dad?’
“He actually read it and he loved it.”
De Niro: “It’s personal for Sebastian. Not like we’re off on some stupid cliche silly thing. His father was a great character.”
When it comes out see it with your dad. On Father’s Day.
Eyy, they’re drivin’ heeeh!
Classic 1970s movie “The French Connection” did high-speed chases filmed guerilla-style. No permits. Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Sonny Grosso, Tony Lo Bianco learned the streets by hanging out with New York’s Finest.
Lo Bianco: “The grittiness was real. We had to break Gene Hackman in because he’s not from this culture. We were actually targets on the PD’s back. Black Panthers in Harlem threw bricks at us. The chases were risky.
“It won five Oscars. They don’t make movies like that anymore. Today they make junk.”
Lo Bianco’s next in Ray Romano’s “Somewhere in Queens” June 10.
Below the belt
National Institute for Reproductive Health luncheon. Amy Schumer rattled off lines she called “too mean” to burp at the Academy Awards. Like:
“Always good to be with the corpse of Nicole Kidman.” And: “Her favorite day to have sex with her husband: tomorrow.”
The wrong person at the Oscars got slapped.
Inside scoop
Saturday’s unreported Correspondents’ Dinner BS: Kim K and pet collie Davidson — off his leash — arrived late with an entourage and elbowed through seated guests. Not near Caitlyn Jenner, three tables behind … CNN’S Dana Bash, off to the side alone looking like she’d prefer covering a funeral … I know more but perish anyone thinking I’m unkind.
True story. Park Avenue lady, sparkling in spangles, sprinkles and major diamonds after a black tie event, is in a rented Lexus. Heading upstate. Alone. The non-pro driver, not knowing his way, gets lost plowing through The Bronx.
Believe this or not — the nice shiny Lexus gets a flat. Call who? Do what? Run where? Choose which?
She: shivering in the back seat. He: outside for a half-hour changing the tire.
Eventually, after reaching her destination safely, friends asked: “The diamonds: Take them off? Stuff them in your purse?”
She said: “No. I kept them on so I could hand them over easily.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.