Inside the Beltway

Four stars

The place to be Monday night was the crowded Kennedy Center Concert Hall, where D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities presented the 22nd annual Mayor’s Arts Awards, including a special-recognition honor to longtime TV theater and film critic Arch Campbell.

Upon accepting the award, Mr. Campbell thanked WJLA-TV (Channel 7) for “giving me a home” after his contract was not renewed recently by WRC-TV (Channel 4), where he had appeared for three decades. Then, Mr. Campbell told the audience how it came to be that he received the evening’s special recognition from Mr. Fenty.

The mayor, or so Mr. Campbell explained, was walking through Channel 7’s newsroom after an interview, “and I yelled out, ‘Hey, Adrian, you look like a rock star!’

“And the mayor’s office called me the next day to say I was getting an award.”

Ciao, Adrian

If you didn’t know, the mother of D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is Italian-American. All the more reason that Mr. Fenty will be guest of honor at a private party hosted by the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), to be held next week at the N Street Northwest home of Dr. James D’Orta.

In fact, Jeanette Bianchi Perno Fenty is herself an NIAF member. According to the foundation, Mrs. Fenty’s family hails from Monte San Giovanni Campano, a small town near Rome in the region of Lazio. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1920.

Mrs. Fenty and her husband, PhilFenty — a native of Buffalo, N.Y., his black roots are traced to Barbados and Panama — moved to Washington in 1967, where the city’s future mayor was born three years later.

Among those already RSVP’ing to honor the mayor are Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Jack Valenti, former president of the Motion Picture Association of America, along with other prominent Italian-American business and community leaders.

Reason to exist

Who wasn’t laughing yesterday when former “Love Boat” actor-turned-congressman Fred Grandy, now co-host of “The Grandy and Andy Morning Show” on WMAL-630 AM in Washington, told the incredible-yet-true tale of Florida Judge Lawrence Korda? Judge Korda, who recently ruled in the Anna Nicole Smith custody saga, was busted Sunday for purportedly smoking marijuana while seated beneath a tree in a public park.

At which point fellow co-host Andy Parks saw fit to ask Mr. Grandy what was his favorite park in Washington to visit whenever he got the urge to smoke marijuana?

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