Photo of the Day: Lauren Bacall and President Harry Truman

Actress Lauren Bacall and President Harry Truman.

 

Legendary Golden Age actress Lauren Bacall passed away Aug. 12. Bacall, a Democrat, was politically active throughout her life. She famously supported Sen. Ted Kennedy’s 1980 presidential campaign and attended his funeral in 2009. 

Robert De Niro Defends Obama

Robert DeNiro joined Barack Obama, Caroline Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy. (Photo: Jason Reed/Reuters)

Robert De Niro defended President Barack Obama from critics in the fall issue of Du Jour magazine.

Working as an actor his entire life means that De Niro sees everything through that lens. In describing his steadfast support for Barack Obama, he compares the president’s challenges to a filmmaker’s. “He’s a good person, period,” he says. “He’s trying his best. He’s going to do things that people feel are not right or violating one right or another. But at the end of the day, he represents, I think, the best of the type of people that I would like to see running the government. He has to play that game, the political game. They all do. They make statements they can’t honor because they’re impossible to honor. Once you get into that Washington machinery, you’ve just got to figure it out and swim against the current and grab onto this rock and that, and just try to maintain your course.”

“You know, it’s one thing to be a critic,” he continues. “It’s another thing to be directly involved. It’s like directing a movie and you edit the film and then someone will give you a suggestion: ‘You could do this, you could do that.’ You look and you say, ‘Yeah, but the reason I can’t do that is because I don’t have that shot, and if I use this shot that’s better here, it impacts on this one and it’s a story point.’ In other words, it can’t be done. You have to make these choices with the government, and you’re going to be criticized. If you took the time to explain it all to the public, they’d say, ‘OK, I get it.’ Can you explain to everybody? No. You just have to say, ‘I made this choice because I felt it was the right choice.’”

De Niro has publicly supported the President in the past and endorsed him with Sen. Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy in 2007. In 2012, during a reelection fundraiser for Obama that featured First Lady Michelle Obama, the actor told a room full of donors “Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney,” De Niro said. “Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?” Republicans were none too pleased with the joke and De Niro later apologized.

More Hollywood Support for Warren

Hollywood stars are opening their wallets once again for Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will co-host a fundraiser in Santa Monica on May 21, with The Office’s John Krasinski and Lost creator J.J. Abrams. The event is entitled, “A Massachusetts Evening,”and donations to attend the fundraiser will range from $1,000 -$5,000.

Affleck, Damon and Krasinski are all natives of the Bay State.

Warren is going up against Republican Sen. Scott Brown who won the seat in the 2010 special election, after former Sen. Ted Kennedy passed away.

In recent months, Warren, a Democrat, has garnered quite a bit of support from Hollywood.  Major industry donators include: Will Ferrell, Barbra Streisand, Ron Howard, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steve Bing and Hans Zimmer. Other celebrities that have been vocally supportive of Warren are Cher and Danny DeVito.

The Brown campaign has criticized Warren’s support from the entertainment industry and painted her as “out-of-touch” and “elitist” for attending these fundraisers and mingling with celebrities.