Another of his talents is writing plays. Although hesitant to discuss this up-and-coming aspect of his career, Moriarty finally admits that one of his plays was recently read dramatically at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, under the direction of Ben Levit. "It was none of my doing. I sat back, and it all happened before my very eyes. I was astonished, and pleased, and proud, and in no great hurry to see it produced except by this director — if he wants to."
Long a devotee of Shakespeare, Moriarty founded his own non-profit
Shakespearean company, Potter's Field, in 1977. He and his group
perform free each Sunday in Central Park near the statue of Sir Walter
Scott, weather permitting.
In response to a question about the West Side, where he has lived for the past five years, Moriarty says that "you can walk one block and encounter everything the world should either be proud of or ashamed of." His favorite local restaurants include Coq du Vin on 8th Avenue and O'Neal's Balloon at 6th Avenue and 57th Street. "Pat O'Neal and I crack jokes about my career as a waiter. I worked at O'Neal's off and on for about four years. I was terrible! They kept me on out of sheer compassion. I guess I became an endearing lunkhead."
Other goals? "None that I'd care to mention," says Moriarty, smiling softly. "All the other ones are neurotic, and I don't want to expose them. I've done it too often. In my neuroses, I think, 'Gee, I'd like to do that or this.' But in my higher self, I have no unfulfilled needs."
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WESTSIDER LeROY NEIMAN
America's greatest popular artist
1-27-79
Like Norman Rockwell before him, LeRoy Neiman has the distinction of being one of the very few American artists whose work is familiar to practically everybody in the country — rich and poor, black and white, urban and rural, educated and illiterate.
This is as far as their similarity goes, however. Rockwell, who died in November, 1978 at the age of 84, was known for his meticulously detailed, placid portraits of American family life, while Neiman has built his reputation on action-filled scenes composed of bold splashes of color. Rockwell's career started and ended at the Saturday Evening Post; Neiman's began at Playboy and has reached its zenith in an entirely new medium — television. His televised mural of the 1976 Olympic Games was seen by an estimated 170 million people.
One of the most commercially successful artists in the world, LeRoy Neiman has spent the last 18 years living and working in a huge apartment/studio just off Central Park West. His original paintings command up to $50,000 each, but the larger portion of his work comes out in the form of limited-edition serigraphs (silkscreen prints). A single piece of silkscreen art generally yields some 300 prints, each of which sells for about $1,500.