At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, an employee of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington was growing frantic, because funeral services for Jack Valenti, scheduled at that hour, had yet to begin. “They’re late,” he said. “It’s 10:00.”
“It’s Hollywood,” came the response from the photographers.
Indeed it was. Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sandra Bullock all turned up at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle to pay tribute to the former Motion Picture Association of America chief.
Steven Spielberg, sporting a grey driving cap over his long grey hair, strolled up the steps, as did Martin Scorsese and a bevy of studio heads, including Peter Chernin (News Corp.), Brad Grey (Paramount), Ron Meyer (Universal), Michael Lynton (Sony) and Michael Eisner (formerly of Disney).
Also among the thousand or so mourners, most of whom wore white roses on their lapels: John and Teresa Kerry, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Rumsfeld, Mike Wallace and son Chris, Bob Schieffer, Al Hunt and Judy Woodruff, former Sens. Tom Daschle and Don Nickles, Sens. Ted Kennedy and Ted Stevens, and Reps. John Dingell and Henry Waxman.
“I always said I could imagine Jack giving his own eulogy, and in fact he did,” said Tom Quinn, a lobbyist with Venable LLP who has been plying his trade in Washington nearly as long as Valenti. Sen. Daniel Inouye, LBJ aide Lloyd Hand, Valenti’s son John, and Warner Bros. chief Barry Meyer all read from Valenti’s as-yet-unreleased memoir, “This Time. This Place.”
“It was one of the few Washington events that people actually affectionately came,” added Quinn. “It wasn’t business, they were here because they cared for Jack.”
SEE THE LOCAL PHOTO BLOG ON WHO ATTENDED
Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin cover people, power and politics inside the beltway each weekday in their “Yeas & Nays“ column. Email them at [email protected].
