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Variety’s A Star is Born

There was a fun, Parisian spin on Variety’s gala fundraiser hosted by Paul and Mary Glantz at their Emagine Theatre in Royal Oak late in April. Mimes, street artists and music makers (Renni Kaufmann and his daughter Esther), a flower market and décor by Gerych’s Graziella accented the atrium lobby. Many of the 400 guests devoured their selections from the gourmet buffet (crab claws, shrimp, raw oysters, beef tenderloin, chicken Florentine) at French café tables. But the star of the evening, television journalist Bob Woodruff, who was inducted into Variety’s Michigan Celebrity Hall of Fame at the theatre, seemed to be most impressed that he was “...back in Royal Oak.” The Bloomfield native noted that he was born at Royal Oak’s Beaumont Hospital and recalled his parents’ report that he slept for 12 straight hours the first night they took him home. Woodruff’s celebrity is rooted in his amazing recovery from a bomb he took in Iraq in January 2006