‘Godfather’ Delivers a Joke or Two

Hot on the heels of a local appearance by motivational speaker Bill Clinton came motivational speaker Rudy Giuliani, sharing, on Monday night at the Kodak Theatre, “his leadership, inspiration and wisdom.” Those, it turned out, took the form of his thoughts on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks along with jokes about being Italian-American, delivered seamlessly. (With luck, Mayor Jim Hahn, who introduced the former king of New York, was taking notes.)

Giuliani strode onto the stage in “Godfather” mode. “I don’t know why I do this,” he said of his mobster shtick. He paused a beat, then gestured to his cordless mike. But “when they put a wire on me,” he indicated, it’s hard to resist. That was a segue into patter about his days fighting crime, eavesdropping on wise guys and “listening to them complain about their wives, their baseball teams,” and then suddenly, “Hey, Tony, we gotta whack that guy.”

Sept. 11 stories came next. When George W. Bush visited New York after the attacks, the former mayor said, the two drove through Manhattan in a limo, watching residents waving flags and pictures of the president. Giuliani couldn’t help himself. “You realize, Mr. President,” he remembered saying, “none of these people voted for you.” He hastened to add, “but they love you now.”

Monday night, Giuliani felt the love, too.

During a Q&A; session, a woman named Rhonda, from Temecula, asked: “Will you marry me?” The mayor looked a little put off but quickly recovered: “I’m in enough trouble already.”

When a member of the audience asked if he planned to run for office, applause erupted, and the mayor joked, “Well, the applause wasn’t good enough,” before voicing his support for the current president. “Whatever I’ll do in the future, we’ll see,” he added noncommittally.

David Gregory, a TV actor in the crowd, read more into Giuliani’s appearance. “I have a feeling he’s going to run for office,” said Gregory, “and he’s out here to get Hollywood behind him.”

At the valet line, Hollywood gave its verdict.

“He’s smooth,” said one woman before getting into her Volvo.

Breaking Out in Song and Dance

The people lining the block outside the Roxy weren’t the usual struggling young musicians and record industry types. For one thing, this crowd was better dressed. Cooing couples stood side by side with eager singles. Occasionally, flashbulbs went off and the crowd parted to make way for a rock star. Former Jane’s Addiction leader Perry Farrell paused on his way in to give a paparazzo the name of his companion. Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath arrived behind him.

The venue’s typically nondescript interior (concrete floors and a small, bare stage) had been transformed. Pink and silver curtains glittered across the stage, and on either side, two women lazed on swings that were suspended by pink feather boas. A crowd of men dressed as sailors greeted the female guests with wolf whistles and shouted into the crowd: “Who needs a drink?”

Christina Aguilera made her way to the VIP section of the theater. Nearby, Dave Navarro sat at a corner table sipping the drink of the evening: the Pink Pussycat, a powerful combination of Chambord, vodka and pineapple juice. The theater grew crowded (the performance was sold out) and event staff watched nervously as a fire marshal cleared the aisles.

It was opening night for “Pussycat Dolls Live,” a burlesque show created by choreographer Robin Antin in 1995 as an opening act at Johnny Depp’s Viper Room. Since then, the sexy musical revue has cultivated an underground following. This year, Antin expanded the performance beyond its original 20 minutes to a full hour of risque song and dance performed by a troupe of veteran dancers. (Among the favorite routines is a nearly naked woman who “bathes” in a giant martini glass.)

“I want to get into Vegas and bring it to London and eventually do some sort of touring group,” Antin said during a phone interview Monday. The show runs each remaining Thursday this month, with a possible fourth show added in June.

Every year, the cast features unbilled celebrity guests. Carmen Electra (Navarro’s steady) got top billing this year, and Charlize Theron was a surprise guest. Singer Nikka Costa is scheduled to appear in Thursday night’s show.

But Christina Applegate as emcee performed the most impressively, dancing and cracking one-liners. While sitting atop the shoulders of two sailors, she spotted Hugh Hefner with his blond harem. “Oh, Hef!” she ad-libbed, “I’m glad you brought the family!”

Quote/Unquote

”... I never expected to feel this much love. The closest I can figure is maybe the first crush you had as a child, first girlfriend. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep. You’re in some sort of vague pain all the time, because your heart is just exploding. It’s like that, like having 15 crushes when you were 13 years old. You didn’t realize how much yes you have inside of you.” --Richard Gere on fathering his son Homer James, 2, with girlfriend Carey Lowell, in W magazine, due out May 20.

City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles @latimes.com.