Boulder JFS held its fifth annual fundraiser, “Reel Hope Boulder,” on Saturday night at the Boulder JCC, and it was the most successful outing of the series.  Hollywood writer Bruce Vilanch not only entertained the crowd while being interviewed by Ron Bostwick, but did so for free, raising the net amount available for operations from the night’s take.  In addition to Vilanch, new JFS CEO Shepard Nevel addressed the audience, and JFS of Colorado Board Chair Charlie Gwirtsman was in attendance. Thanks to a match offered up by Jerry and Gail Sloat, the event raised over $90,000 for JFS of Colorado’s Boulder operation, led by Cathy Summer.

Jerry Sloat said this about why he supports JFS:

My slogan for JFS is “We are your family; you are never alone.” We all have family where we came from and many of us don’t have family here. We all need family around us and JFS represents that.

Andy Miro (event co-chair, Boulder JFS advisory committee member) supports JFS and wanted to co-chair the event because “JFS does so much for the community where the help is really needed. It’s very meaningful to be a part of it.” As event co-chair, Andy was very thankful about how well it went: “Bruce was everything I expected. He was very personal, approachable, and I felt like I’ve known him for years. He was fantastic. People stayed until the very end of the event, which is key. It was successful and I’m happy with how it went!”

Karli Sherwinter (event committee, Boulder JFS advisory committee member) said, “I like to be involved in a direct service organization where the money raised goes to directly support individuals in need.”

Here is the full album of pictures.

The post Boulder JFS Raises Over $90,000 at Reel Hope ’17 first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

For Bruce Vilanch, controversy is a laughing matter.

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The writer and comedian is bringing his one man show to The Rrazz Room in Coral Springs on Saturday and he has no plans to shy away from any of those traditionally taboo topics of polite conversation.

SFGN caught up with him on the phone while he hurried to finish up the script for the Producers Guild Awards last weekend. While the Producers Guild is incredibly diverse, he said, it’s also neither televised nor immune from the after effects of the controversy surrounding the Oscar nominations a couple of weeks ago.

“It’s Hollywood,” he said. “It’s the town industry and the city is full of people who don’t want to be branded as racist. It’s a lighting rod for publicity. Nobody understands the nominating process.”

Vilanch, who has also written 25 Oscars ceremony scripts, attributes much of the anger to “sour grapes from people who were eligible but not nominated. That makes it sound petty.”

“There’s certainly a problem in the industry and the Academy is trying to address it,” he explained. “We’re talking about art, not industry.”

He pointed out that while the 20 nominees in the acting categories were white, they were nominated by 1150 actors who are members of the Academy and still more diverse than the other branches, such as the writers and directors who also select the nominees in their professions.

“I’ve written the show 25 times and every year there’s something,” Vilanch said. “This issue just won’t go away.”

He also plans to talk politics. Not surprisingly, Vilanch is a proud Democrat:

“I’ll wind up voting for Hillary like everyone else with a brain. The Republicans are not an option,” he explained.

South Florida audiences should expect to hear Vilanch’s opinions about the current crowd of hopeful Republican candidates.

“They’re all such clowns. You don’t have to say anything, they write their own material,” he said with a hearty chuckle. “And there is Sarah Palin standing up and blaming Obama for her son being a lunatic. Imagine if Obama’s kids were as cracked out as hers.”

Of course, Vilanch will be armed with plenty of dishy Hollywood stories, too, although he warns he is not a conventional stand up comic.

“I’m a storyteller and I’ve been party to a lot of stories,” he again chuckled. “I was a child actor, you know. I never became a child star or we’d be talking from rehab. I love telling these stories about the behind the scenes in Hollywood and the ridiculous jobs I’ve had. It’s so hard to choose now.”

The Coral Springs appearance will be a homecoming of sorts. Vilanch’s grandparents lived in Miami Beach and he vacationed here as a child. Years later, his first job out of college was at the Miami Herald. His 95-year-old mother, who just passed away this year, was a snowbird in Boca Raton.

He sighed, “I’ve often thought maybe I could just pick up a little place there, but life gets in the way.”

The post Bruce Vilanch Talks Showbiz, Politics in Coral Springs first appeared on We Got Bruce!.