Honorary Knighthood for Spielberg
As a recognition for his contribution towards international filmmaking, director Steven Spielberg was awarded an honorary knighthood.

Spielberg’s list of films include the hits like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List. The knighthood was awarded to him after a private dinner for his family and friends, in a brief but festive ceremony, at the British Embassy in Washington.

The beaming director said he was surprised by the honor — which he believed was reserved for only British subjects — and initially thought it was an elaborate ruse by someone trying to get him to read a movie script. “The truth is, I stand before you now and I’m — a knight”, he said. “This is the stuff that all of our childhood fantasies come from. You know, courtliness, civility and honor.”

The British Ambassador, Meyer, said Britain gave Spielberg, an American citizen, the honorary knighthood because of his great impact on Britain’s film industry over the past 25 years.

“The award of an honorary knighthood to Steven Allan Spielberg is in recognition of his unique and outstanding contribution to international film, and in particular, his services to the entertainment industry of the United Kingdom”, Meyer said.

“Spielberg’s career has had a global impact. But the impact in the United Kingdom stands out”, Meyer added, noting that Spielberg’s films, which also include ET and Saving Private Ryan had helped double cinema admissions in Britain since the early 1980s.

He lauded Spielberg for using British actors, technicians and other artists in his films, as well as bringing significant U.S. investment to Britain by producing and directing Saving Private Ryan there.

A tuxedo-clad Spielberg came to the festive event with his actress wife Kate Capshaw, and guests included Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady and new Democratic senator from New York; actress Holly Hunter and Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican. Spielberg joins Secretary of State Colin Powell, former President George Bush and entertainer Bob Hope as other Americans who have received Britain’s honorary knighthood.

In a brief acceptance speech, Spielberg paid homage to British filmmakers who have influenced his work, including Alfred Hitchcock, Lord Attenborough and Carol Reed.

Spielberg is also due to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame sometime in the next year.

Mayor of New York city goes Hollywood
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has hired a powerful Hollywood dealmaker to negotiate a lucrative book deal, as well as TV opportunities he will exploit when he leaves office at year’s end.

Brad Grey, who manages such stars as Adam Sandler and Brad Pitt in his capacity as chairman and CEO of Brillstein-Gray Entertainment, is personally guiding Giuliani’s showbusiness forays.

First order of business will be the book deal. Gray and Giuliani recently held a series of meetings with publishers and, after narrowing their choices to a few major houses, are down to the dealmaking stage. They expect to announce a book pact shortly; sources said it will fetch a sum in the mid- to high-seven figures.

Such a sum would put him in league with the $8 million that Simon & Schuster paid Hillary Clinton, Giuliani’s rival for the U.S. Senate seat before the mayor withdrew due to prostate cancer.

Wonder for Sarah
Sarah Jessica Parker is in talks to star in David Lindsay-Abaire’s new play, Wonder of the World, at the Manhattan Theater Club this summer. “She is interested in doing the play”, MTC spokesman Chris Boneau said, “and the producers are interested in her starring in it.”

A major snag in the negotiations is Parker’s commitment to the HBO series Sex and the City, which is on hiatus but resumes shooting in early March. The show films up to 18 episodes at a stretch, and such a schedule would book the actress through June 29, the cutoff date for all TV/screen thespian work if the impending actors strike materializes. Last fall, MTC announced that Wonder of the World, a Gotham premiere, would begin previews May 1 and open May 22. Boneau, however, said the schedule could be pushed back to allow for Parker’s TV commitment.

If dates can be worked out, Parker would play Cass in Wonder, a comedy in which a married woman flees her marriage to Niagara Falls, where she meets with a suicidal alcoholic who’s mulling a ride over the falls in a huge jar of peanut butter.

Who Do You Trust returns to TV
The game show that led directly to Johnny Carson’s being tapped as host of the Tonight show, Who Do You Trust, is coming back to TV in a new form 38 years after it vanished from ABC’s daytime schedule. The format features two couples who chat with the host for a while. Each couple then decides whether the male or the female should answer the quiz questions.

David Stanley, one of the producers of the update, said that back in the early ’60s, “The male was entrusted to answer the questions 90% of the time. That’s one of the first things we’re going to change in the year 2001.” He added the producers were in talks to hire ‘a major personality’ as host. “We want it to be more of a talk show than a game show”, he added. Stone Stanley Entertainment, which Stanley runs with Scott Stone, teamed up with Sid & Marty Krofft Picture Corp. to buy the rights to the series from Don Fedderson Prods.

Stone said he’s looking for a larger-than-life performer like Rosie O’Donnell to turn the series into a vehicle, enhancing the humor of the byplay between the host and the guest couples and downplaying the game, just as Carson did when he hosted the series between 1958 and 1962. Carson and his Trust sidekick Ed McMahon went directly from Trust to Tonight in 1962.

Once the host comes on board and tapes a pilot, the partners will pitch it as a five-day-a-week project in syndication or basic cable, Stanley said. Depending on the marquee value of the personality, the show also could get a hearing from one of the broadcast networks as a weekly primetime vehicle, Stone said.