BY MARIANNE GARVEY, BRIAN NIEMIETZ AND OLI COLEMAN
Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 2:00 AM
Mike Coppola
Kate Mulgrew’s dishes are hot stuff at charity auctions.
“Orange Is the New Black” actress Kate Mulgrew nearly had a prison riot on her hands Monday night when she surprised guests at the Gingold Theatical Group’s Golden Shamrock Gala and auctioned off a home-cooked meal in her Upper West Side apartment. “I have an idea, may I do it?” Mulgrew asked a friendwhen she took the podium at the end of the evening as the auction’s guest of honor. That’s when Mulgrew, known to “OITNB” fans as prison chef Galina “Red” Reznikov, started the bidding at $ 600 on a dinner for four. A well-heeled gentleman quickly raised his hand to get things going.
“How many people?” called out a female bidder on the opposite side of the room, not seeming to notice that her interest was being interpreted as bidding. All the back and forth, which at times included a third bidder, drove the price up to $ 3,000 before Mulgrew finally asked the confused woman, “Are you bidding or are you not bidding?” Mulgrew then called the second “bidder” to the podium, where they chatted for a moment before the sprightly host awarded the dinner to the initial solicitor, who gamely agreed to pay three G’s for the privilege of dining Chez Mulgrew.
FERRELL VOTE: EXPECT A LAUGHER
Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush impersonation won over “Saturday Night Live” viewers, but the funnyman has yet to endorse a 2016 presidential candidate for a future imitation. “I have to wait till Iowa (the caucus next February) before I go, ‘Oh this guy’s good,” Ferrell told The News’ Ethan Sacks in an interview that will run Sunday. “I’m not trying to be political, but it always seems the right has just a plethora of just amazing characters,” he said. “The left is kind of boring.”
ACE/INFphoto.com
Shailene Woodley at the “The Divergent Series: Insurgent” premiere at the Ziegfeld Theatre.
SHAILENE IN ACTION
If this acting thing doesn’t work out for Shailene Woodley, she can always get a gig writing those inspirational quotes your aunt posts on Instagram. At Monday’s premiere of the action movie “Insurgent,” we asked the star if she’s as daring as her character in the film. “I think any day you wake up and are committed to being yourself,” she replied, “that’s the most courageous act you can do.”
RADIO CITY LOSS OF LIBERTY
Bring us your tired, your poor and a good technician. Radio City’s “Spring Spectacular” opens next week and insiders say the animatronic Statue of Liberty — voiced by Whoopi Goldberg — has been acting up in previews. The voice track “didn’t go on as expected in a key scene and had to be replaced by a stage manager,” we’re told. “A cast member looked up and said, ‘Oh dear, your voice has changed.’ ” On another night, an insider says the show was delayed because Lady Liberty was “leaning” off her pedestal.
Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
Kelly Rowland will face off with pollen in a Claritin concert for NYC sanitation workers.
ROWLAND NOSES AROUND
Former “Destiny’s Child” singer Kelly Rowland is hoping to earn a little street cred when she entertains city sanitation workers at noon this Friday at Houston Hall. The concert, sponsored by Claritin, will take place around “blooming greenery” that would normally have Rowland sneezing and wheezing. As the concert invite says, the 34-year-old singer is an “allergy sufferer and Grammy Award-winning multiplatinum superstar” — in that order.
Splash News
Prince William and Kate Middleton suit up for St. Patrick’s Day Parade at Mons Barracks in Aldershot, the U.K.
ROYALS GO GREEN
Sláinte! The Duke of Cambridge sipped a Guinness while the pregnant duchess celebrated St. Paddy’s with a glass of water at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade at Mons Barracks in Aldershot in Hampshire, U.K. Prince William attended in full uniform as a colonel of the regiment, while Kate Middleton presented sprigs and shamrocks to guardsmen.
Ian Gavan/Getty Images
Orlando Bloom sold his Tribeca pad after seeing neighbor Taylor Swift’s paparazzi fan base.
BLOOM’S SWIFT EXIT
Orlando Bloom has shaken off Taylor Swift as a neighbor. The “Lord of the Rings” star has unloaded his $ 5.5 million Tribeca apartment next door to Swift’s less than 20 days after putting it on the market, reports News real estate editor Katherine Clarke. Bloom bought the three-bedroom pad for $ 4.88 million early last fall, but the 25-year-old pop star’s paparazzi swarm apparently became too much to swat away. The broker was Robert De Niro’s son Raphael, who declined to comment on the sale.
Ellen von Unwerth/Playboy Magazine
Azealia Banks is fierce in a shot for Playboy magazine’s April issue, and put out some fierce comments about the U.S. as well.
TROUBLING BANKS STATEMENT
This kitty has claws. In a cover story for the April issue of Playboy, rapper Azealia Banks goes on a rant against America. “I hate everything about this country,” she says. “Like, I hate fat white Americans. All the people who are crunched into the middle of America, the real fat and meat of America, are these racist conservative white people who live on their farms.” The singer, who was reared in Harlem, also says she wants a career like Jay Z’s. Good luck!
SEEN AND HEARD
Philanthropist Jean Shafiroff will host a benefit for Surgeons of Hope. … Anjelica Huston and Emily Blunt will join Tina Brown at the Women in the World summit in L.A. on Wednesday. … During SXSW, Yahoo Travel whisked tech execs away from downtown Austin, Tex., to Lake Austin Spa and Resort for a hike, and confiscated their phones so they would talk to one another. … Metropolis Nights was named Jersey’s best nightlife magazine. … Narcisco Rodriguez will be honored by the Opportunity Network at its gala April 13.
Splash News
Gwen Stefani talks to the police in L.A., who searched for someone stalking her.
GWEN DOES A GETAWAY
She made a sweet escape. After Gwen Stefani arrived at her acupuncture clinic in L.A. on Tuesday, she called the cops after supposedly seeing a stalker. A source tells us that officers talked to Stefani inside the clinic for 10 minutes and “started looking for a guy in the near business stores.” After an hour, we’re told two undercover cops arrived and talked to Stefani as well. A security guard on the premises told our insider, “she has a stalker.”
THEY SAID IT:
“I love reality TV. I’m so bad.”
— Rihanna in Grazia magazine
“She didn’t have to tweet 11 times and try to humiliate me.”
— Amber Rose tells “ET” about her feud with Khloe Kardashian
Got some hot gossip for us?
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Randy Quaid uploads series of sex tapes with wife Evi
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Free rocker Andy Fraser dead at 62
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‘Spectre’ teaser poster shows a more casual side of 007
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Pauly D buys Dan Bilzerian’s $ 500K Lamborghini
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