Hatcher Gets Her Nails Into a New Role

Fashion has finally caught up with Sally Bowles.

You’ve been wearing car-colored nails for the past couple of years, tops. The fraulein’s latest channeler, Teri Hatcher, was brandishing vintage Bowles green--chipped to perfection--at Wednesday’s opening of “Cabaret” at the Wilshire Theatre.

“I do it myself,” the gamine Hatcher said at the party. “I have a zillion shades of green and gold and silver, and then I mix them and I chip them, and it’s all my little project.”

Like the smash New York production of the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical, the house was transformed into the Kit Kat Klub, a sea of tables topped with red-skirted lamps that made for some strange table fellows. Howie Mandel kicked back with Barry Manilow. Who knew? Elsewhere, stars like Glenn Close, Alan Thicke and Paula Abdul literally rubbed elbows waiting for the curtain to go up.

Opening night drew a special brand of celeb--crossovers, who’ve pirouetted from screen or CD to stage and back. Manilow was there checking out the handiwork of producers Pace Theatrical Group, which is bringing his musical, “Harmony,” to Broadway next year.

And an ebullient Martin Short brought a posse of Shortians to see the handiwork of his pal Rob Marshall, the show’s co-director and choreographer, who also directed Short in “Little Me” on Broadway.

“Marty’s like the mayor of L.A. in some ways,” Marshall said. “He’s talented but he’s also the sweetest man in the world, so when he says, ‘Come see my friend’s show,’ all these people follow.”

Mayor of L.A.? The job’s already filled. But Short gets our vote for mayor of Second City, given the strong showing by Andrea Martin and Catherine O’Hara, as well as his buddies Steve Martin and Kurt Russell.

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The semi-reclusive Robert De Niro is a master at staying in character, so nobody expected him to show up at Spago Beverly Hills after he attended Monday’s premiere of the Warner Bros. comedy “Analyze This.”

But Le De Niro was certainly there in spirit. Revelers couldn’t stop talking about his comedic chops as the gangster shrunk by psychiatrist Billy Crystal. OK, they did pause for the stray hors d’oeuvre.

You weren’t thinking of De Niro as a possible headliner at the Aspen Comedy Festival? Neither were we, so we sought out a comedy expert to analyze this. Uncle Miltie?

“This was an evening of comedic heroism, for a straight actor to give a different performance,” Milton Berle told us at the party. “I think the picture’s terrific, and I’m going to see it as many times as I can, maybe to learn even at my age of 90. I’ve been in the business for 85 years, and everything I’ve known I can relearn by looking at certain things.”

Hey, De Niro’s pals always knew he was a hoot.

“He’s a very funny guy, and very few people know it,” said his producing partner, Jane Rosenthal. “It’s about time he showed it to the rest of the world.”

De Niro could have shown it eight years ago, when the project was first put on his plate, but the timing wasn’t right for him to display his comic timing.

“We weren’t willing at the time to have Bob parody the one franchisable character he has,” Rosenthal said. “So suddenly, eight years later, we thought, ‘OK, it’s time now. You can make fun of yourself.’ Before that, he still had other gangster pictures to do. Maybe [there are more], but he’s done them all.”

Fahgeddaboudit.