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Byrne, baby, Byrne!
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Oct. 25, 1999 |
When I called ahead (well, two hours ahead) to see about getting into the Irish embassy's fete for actor Gabriel Byrne on Thursday night, the fellow on the phone sounded as stony as his lovely Irish lilt would allow. "It's not a press event," he informed me, ice crackling over the wire. "It's a social event. It's an opportunity for friends of the embassy to get together and to welcome Mr. Byrne." No prob, I said. "I just want to soak in the ambience." Reluctantly, he relented. The embassy lobby was brightly lit -- if sparsely populated -- when I arrived. A man was selling Byrne's 1997 book "Pictures in My Head," from which the actor would be reading. Following everyone else's lead (when in the Irish embassy ...), I bought one and ascended a long staircase into a smallish round room where -- paperbacks tucked snugly under arms -- folks were drinking and mingling beneath a sparkling crystal chandelier. After I paid the bartender a little visit -- eyed the Guinness, opted for the OJ -- a dignified-yet-jovial-looking man came up and introduced himself as being "with the embassy." I said I was "with Salon." "Are you a fan of Mr. Byrne?" he asked. He had me pegged (incorrectly) as a groupie. "Sure," I said. "Well, there are a lot of young women like you here tonight," he winked, proudly adding that one gal in attendance had turned down a trip to Paris for the chance to breathe the same air as the Dublin-born actor, if only for a few precious minutes. Declining to point her out, the friendly fellow disappeared into the crowd, which was, in fact, heavily female. Byrne, clad in a stylish black jacket and an eye-enhancing azure shirt, made his entrance only after partygoers had filed into an adjoining room and, beverages a-clinkin', seated themselves in neat rows of folding chairs. Amy Reiter Amy Reiter's column appears daily on the People site, Monday through Friday.
Got a hot tip? Tell Amy! During the Irish ambassador's long introduction -- Byrne is "sardonic," "hilarious" and generously willing to "return to the mode" of his early career by working for "drinks and a packet of chips" -- the actor looked uncomfortable, but once he took the podium, he turned on his celebrity glow. "Years ago, I actually wanted to be in foreign affairs," he told the crowd. "Thank God for diplomats everywhere, I didn't succeed." Byrne said he found it "touching that people come out" to hear him and explained that if he seemed "a little dry-mouthed," it was because he hadn't read from his memoirs in some time. What's more, he said, to the audience's delight, "I'm terrified of turning it into a poor man's 'Gabriel's Ashes.'" His stories, as it turns out, are sweeter and folksier than Frank McCourt's mega-bestseller. And not as dark -- for at least part of his childhood, his father held a job, his family had a house, there was money left over to give charity. The revelers sat rooted in their seats listening politely until Byrne turned to tales of hitchhiking through Ireland back in 1969, from a new book due out in April. As Byrne the actor loosened up and brought Byrne the writer's quirky characters to life, images from his travels across Ireland's open highways and into its homey pubs quickly flickered past. Here was a large-bottomed bed-and-breakfast proprietress refusing a refund after her drunken relative bedded down with Byrne; "But that's only Seamus," she explained. There was a priest noting primly to Byrne's miniskirted traveling companion, "Our blessed lady, when she was on Earth, was not got up in a short skirt." There was a bartender whose Woolworth's-worthy paintings were not appreciated by the "gobshites" in his small town. After reciting a prayer for his daughter (with ex-wife Ellen Barkin), Byrne took a few questions and spoke at some length about the difficulties of leaving one country for another and finding himself at home in neither. "I've learned to live inside my own head," he said. Then he made his way back to the ambassador's wooden desk to sign books. I lucked into a spot near the front of the line. His halogen smile hadn't yet faded as he thanked me for coming. Then he signed my book, "To Amy. Love Gabriel ... X." And as I slipped (yes, a bit flush-faced) past the crowds of book-clutching young women, I thought, if you had to be someone's groupie, you could do worse than Gabriel Byrne.
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