La-La Land of the Giants

I should have listened to my wife. She told me to wash my car. But I’d been on the road just about every weekend for three months, covering NFL games, and a carwash didn’t register on my list of priorities.

So the other day I wheezed up to the Beverly Hills Hotel in my one-headlight Volvo that’s covered in dust and bird droppings, and filled with old newspapers, water bottles, my son’s basketball, and -- disturbingly -- my daughter’s collection of stripped-bare Barbie dolls.

I’ve come for breakfast at the posh Polo Lounge with Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants. He’s an Oscar-winning movie mogul who produced “Forrest Gump,” “Risky Business,” and some other hits.

Los Angeles hasn’t had an NFL team for almost 13 years, but I’m researching whether the Giants are now Hollywood’s team, seeing as they’re owned by an L.A. guy and they’ve made it to the NFC championship game at Green Bay on Sunday.

Steve’s friendly and very casual, so I’m only slightly alarmed to find he is there to meet me as I roll up to the valet. I’m embarrassed and apologize for my filthy car.

“That’s OK,” Steve says. “I kind of like that.”

Somehow, I believe him. Maybe it’s that he’s unshaven and wearing old jeans and a faded Giants T-shirt, making me feel overdressed in my khaki slacks and golf shirt.

On the drive over Coldwater Canyon, I’d eaten a banana. The peel is on the passenger seat. I grab it as I climb out but there’s no trash can in sight. So, flustered, I stuff it in the front pocket of my pants with one hand as I shake Steve’s hand with the other.

When we walk into the hotel, everybody knows Steve, from the doorman to the restaurant hostess to the patrons. Everyone calls him by his first name, and he knows theirs.

The moment we walk into the lounge, two heavy hitters call us to their table -- Activision chairman Bobby Kotic, whose video game company has “Call of Duty” and “Guitar Hero,” and Alan Grubman, an entertainment lawyer who represents Madonna, Elton John, Jennifer Lopez and many others. The men are huge Giants fans, and want to pore over the details of last Sunday’s upset of the Dallas Cowboys.

Kotic says there’s a big group of Giants supporters in L.A., many of them transplanted New Yorkers, who are “re-energized” by the emergence of quarterback Eli Manning and the team’s nine consecutive road victories. That Steve is a co-owner makes it even more special, he says.

As I’m furiously scribbling notes, I notice a corner of the moist banana peel is peeking out of my pocket. Terrific. I excuse myself to throw it away.

When I return, Steve is sitting alone at a table. I’ve asked him to compile a list of Giants fans in the entertainment industry, people I can call to ask about their passion for the team.

The list is long and includes power brokers Harvey Weinstein, Brian Grazer and Les Moonves; producer Bernie Brillstein, whose credits include “Ghostbusters” and “Just Shoot Me!”; Peter Berg, who directed “Friday Night Lights”; and actors such as Denzel Washington, Josh Duhamel and Tom Arnold.

“Some of them know every fact about every game, all the statistics,” Steve says. “They can tell you where Andy Robustelli played high school football. Then there’s some people you’re going to speak to who two years ago weren’t sure what the letters N-F-L stood for. I’m serious.”

He points out a direct Hollywood link: actress Kate Mara is the great-granddaughter of Giants founder Tim Mara, and the team is now owned by the Mara and Tisch families. What’s more, Kate’s mother is a member of the Rooney family, which owns the Pittsburgh Steelers.

As Steve is going over all this, a steady stream of well-wishers stop by the table, all of them saying they’re pulling for the Giants. The Polo Lounge is starting to feel like the Polo Grounds.

I’m beginning to think the Giants are truly Hollywood’s team -- but later I’ll get a reminder that’s not necessarily the case.

Jim Wiatt comes over and joins us. He’s chief executive of the William Morris Agency and Steve’s longtime pal, one of countless friends who have sat with him in the owners’ suite during a game.

“The other day after the game a bunch of us are e-mailing each other, ‘Did you see Steve on TV hugging Eli Manning?’ ” Wiatt says. “It’s just really exciting for people who know him.

“As I’ve told Steve: I inherited bunions, and he got the Giants.”

Ever since the Giants beat the Cowboys, Steve’s Blackberry has been buzzing with messages. When his jet landed in L.A. on Sunday night, there were more than 100 new e-mails awaiting him. Some were from friends who are Giants fans, some from people who just know what the team means to him, and, undoubtedly, some from those trying to nuzzle up to him, maybe for a part in one of the three upcoming movies he’s producing.

One of the notes came from Richard Lovett, president of Creative Artists Agency, a fervent Green Bay fan.

Hard to imagine, but Lovett turned down one of the most coveted deals in Hollywood -- an invitation to sit with Steve in the visiting owners’ box at Lambeau Field.

Evidently, Lovett couldn’t bring himself to do that to his beloved Packers.

And that brings us to this: As many Giants fans as there are in Hollywood, the real Hollywood story in the NFL playoffs would be 38-year-old Packers quarterback Brett Favre leading the NFL’s youngest team to a Super Bowl victory.

And that’s what actor Kevin Farley wants to see happen. We bump into him on the way out of the Polo Lounge, and he’s wearing a Packers cap. He grew up in Madison, Wis., and is the brother of late comic genius Chris Farley.

“There’s a million different fans in this town,” Farley says. “I was just having breakfast with David Spade over there, and he’s from Arizona. He’s a Cardinals fan.”

He’s right. The Hollywood crowd, like every other place in L.A., is an NFL hodgepodge. It’s filled with fans of every franchise, even the Arizona Cardinals.

Still, these are heady times for the Giants, and I think of that as I congratulate Steve and grab the check. The bill is breathtaking: two bowls of oatmeal, a bottle of water, a coffee and a tea, plus tip, comes to $71.

Good thing I had that banana on the way over.

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sam.farmer@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

No business like Giants business

The New York Giants might not be Hollywood’s only team, but they do seem to have more than their share of fervent supporters in Tinseltown. Here are a few who will be happy if a victory over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday is in the script:

“You can hear the Giants fans in this town every Sunday yelling out their windows. We’re not shy about our passion for the team. If the Cowboys are America’s team, the Giants are Hollywood’s team.”

-- Mark Canton, producer of “300”

“Forgetting Steve [Tisch] has a few more billion dollars than me, with him owning the Giants, I feel like I became more a part of the team.”

-- Bernie Brillstein, executive producer of “Ghostbusters” and “The Blues Brothers”

“My ATM number is 1156 for Phil Simms and LT -- Oops! Now I have to change it!”

-- Jack Giarraputo, producer, “The Waterboy” and “The Longest Yard”

“The Giants against the Packers in cold weather in the middle of winter is what football is supposed to be. The coldest I’ve ever been in my life was Dec. 30, 1962, in Yankee Stadium, the last time the Giants and Packers played for a championship -- Section 53, Row 5, Seat 5. And it was about 4,000 degrees below zero with the wind chill. And I still haven’t forgiven Sam Horner for fumbling a punt that turned it in the Packers’ favor.”

-- David Israel, sports columnist turned TV writer/producer, now member of the Coliseum Commission

“For me, to have a friend of mine now own my favorite football team is a bit surreal. I’ve been on the field with my father twice, and both times he started crying.”

-- Peter Berg, director of “Friday Night Lights”

“The other day I was driving to the grocery store and wearing a Giants hat. I pulled up to a stop sign and I looked at the car in front of me and the guy driving was wearing a Giants hat too. I know that sounds so simple and so stupid, but I was really excited when I saw that.”

-- Kate Mara, actress and great-granddaughter of Giants founder Tim Mara