Thursday, October 22, 2009

Alec Baldwin Channels His Feminine Side

With some of Hollywood's most talented, glamorous and iconic females assembled in one room for Elle Magazine's 16th Annual Women in Hollywood tribute, it seemed next to impossible for a man to steal the show. But Alec Baldwin did just that, leaving the ladies rolling in the aisles while serving as the event's first male host.

During Baldwin's Dean Martin-esue stint at the dais, he had the largely female audience women – including Katie Holmes, RenĂ©e Zellweger, Emily Blunt, Julianne Moore, Robin Wright and Julie Andrews – shrieking with laughter as he took aim at a variety of topics.

"I want to assure you that I didn't steal this role from a more qualified woman," Baldwin joked with the crowd at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles Monday night. "There was an audition process. The audition required me to move a couch, fall asleep in front of the TV, and open a particularly stubborn jar of pickles."

He also offered a solution for balancing the salary scales between men and women, one that left Katie Holmes and her mom chuckling at their table: "If Tom Cruise would simply lower his quote by a mere $29 million, my salary would not make a difference. My annual salary is the budget for Altoids on one of Tom's movies."

But he didn't hesitate to poke fun at himself, too.

Skinny Actresses Ribbed

Noting that movie actresses are so skinny that if he had a love scene "I would crush them," Baldwin, 51, revealed that his pal Zellweger "is so tiny, but she's got a big voice. I've been to parties with her and you can hear her voice anywhere, but you can't understand a word she says."

He then proceeded to imitate her with an booming but indecipherable Southern twang that had Zellweger doubled over at her table.

He also joshed about the topics of the day, via a mild dig at the assembled press.

"Tonight the job goes to Julie Andrews," Baldwin said, turning to her. "You have three choices: You can follow Robert Pattinson into the men's room, rush the stage during a Taylor Swift concert and tell her how great Henry Mancini is, or to publicize the Blu-Ray release of The Sound of Music, [or] you can release one of your own grandchildren in a balloon into the air."

And, yes, Lindsay Lohan made an appearance, too – as the butt of a Baldwin joke about how DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg is one of most powerful men in show business.

"Even more than Lindsay Lohan's psychiatrist," the host quipped.

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