You may know Jeffrey Tambor from his character Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show. Or as George Bluth and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development. He was the announcer for the game show Hollywood Squares for a couple years. He appeared in a myriad of sitcoms including M*A*S*H, Three’s Company and The Golden Girls. Or, he may just look like someone who is supposed to be sort of famous. Like yeah, I can’t quite place him. Who is he?
In town presumably for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, last night Tambor had a majorly dickish outburst at a Creative Coalition event at STK, a “female friendly” steakhouse. Instead of behaving like a grownup, the 69-year-old threw a tantrum when his handler apparently goofed on a social introduction. In short, he found himself next to NPR’s Kitty Eisele, who edits Morning Edition, instead of whoever he was really there to meet.
As Eisele explained on her Facebook page last night in a sort of Dear Diary format: “Meet a PR friend for late dinner in DC during Correspondents’ Weekend. He has to go meet client across the room. I am eating dessert when Jeffrey Tambour pulls up a chair and says ‘hello, I’m told I’m supposed to meet you.’ Maybe he’s a client of my friend, I think, OK. ‘Hi, I’m Kitty. Nice to meet you.’ JT turns to his handler, a congressional staffer, and says, and I quote, “What the fuck? this isn’t her!! This isn’t the right fucking table!! I’m not supposed to fucking be here!!”
Eisele tells The Mirror that Tambor didn’t even try to disguise his disappointment. “Oh, this was loud,” she said.
So how’d Eisele respond to this mess of a man?
“I wasn’t very nice because I said, ‘And you are?’ Because I couldn’t quite get his name on my tongue. Maybe that’s what enraged him. He tried to say, ‘Are we ok? Sorry?’ But it was so so phony and icky.”
Eisele said the more dignified NPR way of handling things would have been as follows: “Sorry, but NPR Morning Edition would have said, hey, wrong table, but lucky me, I get to make a new friend, can I get you a drink?”
Tambor is annoying even on TV. In cameos on Entourage, in which he plays himself, his character’s mission is to bother his agent, Ari Gold.