By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
Boston Herald
January 29, 2010
Hollywood honey Anne Hathaway took her hazing by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatrical troupe yesterday with humor, some bad poetry and a great set of pipes!
The star of “The Princess Diaries,” “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Get Smart” was feted as the Hasties’ Woman of the Year with a snowy parade down Mass. Ave. in a red Bentley convertible followed by a theatre-of-the-absurd roasting at the New College Theatre.
Joined at the Pudding party by her parents, Gerald and Kate, and BF Adam Shulman, Hathaway, dressed in a black sequined top, black capris and six-inch stilettos, was forced to slay a dragon, arm wrestle, take a quiz from “Dame Julie Andrews” and sing, sing, sing for her pudding pot.
During the ribbing for Hathaway’s star turns in “The Princess Diaries” and its “Royal Engagement” sequel, the Pudding peeps thought it was funny to say she was “the second most famous Anne to keep a diary.”
Hathaway, not impressed, shot back, “Love that Anne Frank line.”
Awkward.
“Did I mention that I can sing? I can. Just in case you couldn’t tell that from the Oscars and the episode of ‘The Simpsons,’ ” Hathaway crooned.
She belted out a few of her “Favorite Things” for her “Princess Diaries” co-star – Dame Julie-in-drag – but neglected to mention “appearing topless in movies.”
Vintage WOTY “Liza Minnelli” also made an appearance toward the end of the skit and urged Anne to sing a song about her acting skills to the tune of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” (Hathaway is slated to star as Minnelli’s mother, Judy Garland, in a biopic called “Get Happy.”)
The former NYU English major then recited a lengthy poem thanking the Pudding peeps for the Hasty hoedown because she wasn’t going to “trust” herself to wing it.
“I heard you got Charlize (Theron) really drunk, so I wrote something,” Hathaway said of the 2008 WOTY. In the acceptance poem, Hathaway talked about how she’d love for her kid to attend Harvard.
“And I will say, if my kid is real smart, then can you give his application a tiny jumpstart?”
The actress got a little help from her friends prior to the roast, which she said was like getting “lovingly skewered.”
“I am friends with a former Hasty Pudding troupe member, so she let me know what to expect,” she said. “A lot of Harvard alumni reached out to talk to me and were really excited. I was surprised at all the e-mails I got from people.”
Also during her day at Harvard, she was treated to a tour of the Ivy League campus and lots of good food!
Prior to the parade, Anne, Adam and her parents, along with a pack of Pudding people, fortified themselves for the snowy celebration with lunch at UpStairs on the Square.
A special three-course vegetarian menu whipped up by chef Susan Regis was served in the raspberry-colored Zebra Room overlooking Winthrop Square.
We’re told Anne, a flexetarian, “relished” the salad of winter greens and Honeycrisp apples, hand-rolled fresh ricotta cannelloni stuffed with seared mushrooms, walnut pesto, cream spinach and aged gruyere and, for dessert, warm apple bread pudding with cinnamon ice cream.
“She ate everything,” said the gleeful proprietrix Mary Catherine Deibel, who was touched that Hathaway went out of her way to thank her and partner, Deborah Hughes, for the lucious lunch.
After the festivities, Anne and her entourage were treated to dinner in a private room at the Charles Hotel, where chef Peter Davis treated Anne and company to a wintry New England feast. On the menu: baby spinach salad with roasted pears, spicy pecans and Vermont goat cheese with a sweet maple vinaigrette; herb-crusted chicken with red wine demiglace or grilled salmon served with oven roasted veggies, whipped Yukon potatoes and, of course, Hasty Pudding for dessert.
Next Friday, Justin Timberlake will take his licks as Hasty Pudding Man of the Year.
“I’m thrilled to be alongside of him,” said Anne at the press conference after the roasting. “I’m a huge, huge, huge fan. I was actually very sad that our ceremonies didn’t overlap, but still, more attention for me!”
So, do you think Mr. Sexy Back’s got what it takes to be Hasties’ Man of the Year?
“He seems to be very game, very open, and very funny, so I’m sure he’s going to do great work with these guys.”
Hathaway, who spent New Year’s weekend in Boston with Shulman, said she was a big fan of Pizzeria Regina while in town filming “Bride Wars” in the Hub in spring 2008.
“It sounds really cliche, but I worked with the most wonderful crew out here. A lot of Bostonians took really great care of us. I also lived right by Boston Common, so I really enjoyed taking my dog there. I especially loved that I never got a ticket for letting my dog run off the leash.”
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