The prostitutes in Colombia have real talent — as actresses.
Bestselling author Ian Halperin wrote and directed “Don’t F With Pablo!” about Pablito, the illegitimate Jewish son of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Pablito treks from Miami to Medellin, Colombia, determined to trace his ancestral roots and ends up starting the first kosher drug cartel.
“You wouldn’t believe how much the Colombian cartels were into this movie,” Halperin told me.
“They offered us protection with one condition — that I use real Medellin hookers as actors in the film to give them a chance to do something substantial with their lives.”
Halperin agreed, and now he’s happy he did.
“The hookers we used were actually better than most of the real actors we had in the film,” he laughed. “In fact, they were so good on camera that one of them has already landed a role in an upcoming soap opera there based on her performance in our film.”
Halperin also revealed the real life brother of Pablo Escobar, who goes by the name Roberto, actually gave his movie crew advice on how to stay safe while filming in Colombia.
“He was a piece of work,” Halperin laughed. “He joked with everyone on my crew that if we made any wrong moves while filming ‘we’d all end up with flowers growing on top of us.’ Nice guy!”
“Don’t F With Pablo” is available on TGi123.com. A sequel is fully financed and will be filmed in this summer.
Halperin has already signed up four of the prostitutes used in the first film for the sequel.
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Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, turned down the endorsement of the Black Panthers when she ran for president in 1972.
In “Shirley” premiering on Netflix on March 22, the congresswoman from Bedford-Stuyvesant, played by Regina King, meets with Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panthers, played by Brad James.
Garrett, Jim / New York Daily News Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm.
James, a former U.S. Marine, said, “[Chisholm] sat down and went toe-to-toe with a person a lot of people couldn’t go toe-to-toe with. It ended up being a monumental moment.”
The scene was shot at the Beverly Hills home of Diahann Carroll, where the protagonists actually met in 1972.
The leatherneck has been busy with his wife Keshia Knight Pulliam co-hosting “Married at First Sight” on Lifetime.
The couple met on the set of “Pride and Prejudice: Atlanta” in 2019, and welcomed a son last spring.
James also was in Disney’s “Dancing Through the Snow.” “The kids were very upset when I beat up Santa,” he said.
As Chisholm once said, “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining.”
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Professional gambler R.J. Cipriani rejected Mark Wahlberg’s company when he was asked to be in “California Kid,” a documentary about the rise and fall of USC football player Owen Hanson.
“I refused to be in the docuseries without an executive producer credit or fee,” Cipriani told me.
Next thing he knew, producers were searching for photos or videos of Cipriani.
Cipriani was copied on an email the “archival producer” for Piece of Work Productions sent out that read, “There is a subplot in this story that involves RJ Cipriani. We are interested in viewing your photos of RJ for possible use in our documentary.”
Cipriani, hired by Hanson to launder millions of dollars at casino games, turned the drug dealer over to the feds.
Hanson, originally sentenced to 21 years in prison, is now set for release next year, after shaving nine years off his sentence.
“I personally reached out to Mark Wahlberg and his agent Ari Emanuel,” Cipriani said. “I let them both know I am the ‘secret sauce’ for this project and without me, this docuseries will be just a nothing-Wahlburger.”
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Rupert Murdoch is a conservative, but he has a weakness for women from communist countries.
The Australian-born media mogul’s third wife is Wendi Deng, who was translating for him in Hong Kong.
Now, after a marriage with Mick Jagger’s ex Jerry Hall, he is engaged to a Russian, Elena Zhukova, the mother of Dasha Zhukova, who was married to one of Russia’s most famous oligarchs, Roman Abramovich.
Abramovich lives in various countries, but never for too long. His huge yachts are in Turkey where they avoid EU sanctions. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the timing for this union could be problematic.
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Savannah Jaine Radcliffe nearly didn’t make it to her performance at Berlin on E. 2nd St. on Tuesday.
A fire had broken out in her apartment building in Marble Hill at 3 a.m.
“I was asleep. There was no fire alarm. The smoke came in so quickly. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced,” Radcliffe said.
Everyone escaped unharmed, and Radcliffe got her cat out too.
After the sun came up, she was helped by eight firefighters, who climbed up and retrieved her guitar.
“The show went really, really well,” she said. “I didn’t want to call it off.”
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You probably have never heard of Nancy Haberman, who has been working for 45 years at Rubenstein Public Relations.
Though she helped lead the fight against AIDS, launched George magazine, and publicized the New Years Eve ball drop in Times Square, she stayed behind the scenes.
At her retirement party at the Chelsea Hotel, her husband Clyde Haberman and offspring Maggie Haberman and Zach Haberman, all journalists, gathered with dozens of reporters to raise a glass.
“I was very lucky,” Nancy said. “Howard [Rubenstein] hired me. He shouldn’t have. Everybody here helped me.”
Nancy had one golden rule — broken so often — never lie to a reporter. She never did.
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R&B singer and producer Babyface — who has won 13 Grammys working with everyone from Usher and Janet Jackson to Ariana Grande and Whitney Houston — has discovered a new star.
Babyface has snapped up early work by 16-year-old painter Henri Reed, who was dubbed “Baby Basquiat” because of the influence the iconic artist has had on Reed.
Henri is painting a car-themed piece for the New York International Auto Show at the Javits Center opening March 29. The wunderkind will paint the piece live for ABC’s program “In the Fast Lane” that will air on March 30.
The show will exhibit celebrity rides including Elvis Presley’s 1971 Stutz Blackhawk, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 1948 Packard and Princess Grace’s 1958 Mercedes-Benz.
LA-based Reed will have his first solo show April 18 at Emanuel Friedman’s Lux Contemporary, a gallery adjacent to Rolls Royce NY in Chelsea.
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Out & About … Dionne Warwick and Tommy Hilfiger’s wife Dee Hilfiger were honored at an AmfAR benefit. Tom Ford, Kris Jenner, Peter Thomas Roth, and Leonard and Aerin Lauder led the applause … Jean-George’s vegan restaurant abcV, whose regulars include John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, got a surprise order from celebrity hairdresser Chaz Dean, who literally took home a doggie bag to his four yellow retrievers Bella, Riley, Ryver and Rayne. The restaurant will open a new outpost in the Emory Hotel on April 4 … Suzanne Somers’ husband Alan Hamel was disappointed the Oscar telecast did not include Somers in the “In Memoriam” segment. The actress started her career as “the blonde in the Thunderbird” in “American Graffiti” along with Harrison Ford and Richard Dreyfuss.
