Four Tops will B’way there
Coming to Broadway — when there’s a Broadway to come to — will be the new musical “I’ll Be There.”
Only surviving bandmate Duke Fakir remembers R&B’s the Four Tops in the ’60s — with no album yet and touring the only way to make money — refusing to play the non-integrated South.
To honor Martin Luther King Day, Duke tells of being the dude who dodged a bullet for walking in a bus terminal’s wrong waiting room. “I heard, ‘Get the hell outta here [N-word].’ Terrified, I froze. Scared as hell. A gun against my skull. I didn’t know what to do. A little white lady whispered: ‘Move down the street . . . go . . . GO!’ So frightened I near peed on myself. That cold steel against your head, your whole body goes into shock.”
When he got unfrightened Duke got engaged to the Supremes’ Mary Wilson. One problem. His daughter, 6, reminded him he had another wife and family. Showing up at their door during a party, Kai asked: “When you coming home?” Duke kissed Mary goodbye. Wife Piper took him back.
Out in May his bio book, “I’ll Be There: My Life With the Four Tops,” tells that Motown, Berry Gordy and Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein offered them deals including parties with The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Petula Clark, The Who, Clive Davis. It tells of Marvin Gaye at the keyboard riffing war, civil rights, women’s issues, and Duke turning that into one of Rolling Stone mag’s 10 best songs of all time. The book, whose co-author is Kathleen McGhee-Anderson and whose activist parents were repped by Thurgood Marshall, will be the basis of B’way’s coming musical.
Uncivil service
Alvin Bragg? Manhattan’s new DA. Really? This Bragg’s nothing to brag about. Great voice for crime. He’s putting stabbing into the same criminal capacity as playing jacks. Nice that civil servants are now in-house family members. Nice. Trade one mayor’s well-paid wife for another mayor’s well-paid brother. Adams, 10 minutes into the job, and it’s already looking like we want de Blasio back.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg loves to brag about his soft-on-crime policies. Steven HirschCaine’s able sales
Everybody’s uploading files, drawers, closets, rooms. With no place to go or do or visit or dress for, people are dusting, moving and throwing out.
Michael Caine. His glasses are now for sale. Rolex watch too. He’s cleaning house. Bonhams in London hammers his haul March 2. Gold quartz watch timepiece is up for as much as $12,000. The glasses are cheaper. For how much, I don’t know. Just take a shot.
Hollering for horror
Courtney Cox, who joins ex David Arquette and Neve Campbell, in the 2022 version of “Scream”: “I remember director Wes Craven who did our 1996 horror film ‘Scream.’ In this my character’s moved to New York, works on a morning show and has become more successful and sophisticated.”
Ghost of great Wes Craven still hovers over all “Scream” movies. Cox says, “First time I had to really scream I asked, ‘What do you do when someone scares you?’ and Wes said, ‘I don’t know, it’s never happened to me.’ Then I’d be like, ‘Oh, s - - t.’
“Don’t scream alone when seeing this new one. It’s 25 years later and up to date. And even scarier.”
A familiar face
Gary Oldman: “Long time ago I was in a slew of Harry Potter movies. Fans are all ages. So are the kids. And not all fans recognize me for ‘Potter’ and I’ve since moved on. This California dentist and his son were Potter fans. So I said, ‘Hi, I’m Sirius Black,’ and another kid said, ‘No, you’re not, you’re Commissioner Gordon from “The Dark Knight.” ’ One was 2004, one a lot later.”
YOUNGSTER: “In America you can actually, to his face, tell our president of the United States: ‘I don’t like the president of the United States.’ His friend said, ‘You can do the same thing in Russia. You can go up to the party chief and say, “I don’t like the president of the United States.” ’ ”
Overheard only in New York, kids, only in New York.



