After calling CBS a “family business” on Monday night, LL Cool J issued a split decision on the family’s patriarch, Les Moonves.
“Sometimes he’s the loving dad, sometime’s he’s ‘the Godfather,” he said.
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Moonves, the Venice Family Clinic’s 2015 honoree, had already turned his metaphoric ring towards the packed room of industry donors inside the Regent Beverly Wilshire.
“To all the actors who are out there, the writers, and agents and producers, I want to congratulate the Venice Family Clinic,” Moonves said. “It was very smart to time this event in the middle of pilot season, when we are giving out favors or not.”
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But of all the CBS Corp. beneficiaries in the room, and there were many, from “Odd Couple” actors Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon, to Pauley Perrette and Gina Rodriguez, and even Kat Denning’s boyfriend Josh Groban, one super producer did not have to pucker up.
“I have enough money to say whatever the hell I want about Les Moonves,” Chuck Lorre cracked to the crowd.
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An ardent clinic supporter, Lorre brought Moonves in to the organization and on to the stage, helping raise $1.5 million on Monday night.
A room full of industry faces like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jerry Bruckheimer, Kevin Tsujihara, Brian Grazer and Rob Friedman listened as Lorre recalled the time Moonves took the then young staff writer to a power lunch at Bob’s Big Boy on Riverside Drive in 1991.
Later, Moonves introduced Josh Groban‘s set by revealing that Groban’s dynamic on-the-spot understudy stand-in performance with Celine Dion at a Grammy rehearsal years ago spooked intended duet partner Andrea Bocelli back in to line.
Bocelli could be difficult, Moonves revealed.
Brian Grazer and Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara. (Getty Images)
The Venice Family clinic draws consistent top-level industry support from those will never need it, like host of the night LL Cool J.
“He is CBS’s and the Moonves’ go-to guy,” Moonves said. “I wish I knew him way back when. He would have come to do my kids Bat Mitzvahs and I could have saved a couple of bucks.”
“The Godfather”, or as Lorre called him, “the most successful stagehand of all time,” referencing Moonves’ early career path. (Getty Images)
The clinic gives family-focused medical services for low income and uninsured westside communities throughout its nine locations, with a 10th opening this year.
Past honorees include Chris Silbermann, Judd Apatow, and Jeff Nathanson, who wrote the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” currently in production.
WME agent Richard Weitz, who reps both LL and Groban, cut through the front tables on Monday night, chatting with Netflix’s Ted Sarandos.
The Netflix chief’s chair may have placed his back to the stage, but in every aspect of the business, Sarandos has the power seat with a new hit show over the weekend, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”
In publicly available information, #UnbreakableKimmySchmidt was still trending on Twitter late on Sunday night.
In private metrics, Sarandos is one of the only ones who knows how big of a hit he has, considering the company’s perpetually sequestered ratings info.
It’s “doing great everywhere…even international,” he told me, while talking up the Martin Short episode. (I have no idea (yet) if the “Martin Short” should have been flagged as a spoiler alert.)
In other positioning news, APA client Peter and wife Parky Fonda got moved over to table 30, a center table in the room, despite it being a heavy ICM table.
Well aware of everyone’s need to reposition and evacuate the hotel quickly on a school night in light of the Reg Bev Wilshire’s well deserved reputation for a valet lubricated with molasses, they auctioned off the privilege to have your car brought up first in the valet line after the event.
It was going for $150 just before the close, which would have gotten the winner out in time to catch LL’s 1o p.m. airing of “NCIS: Los Angeles”.
Oscar Week Party Report in Pictures: Oprah, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and More (Updating)
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