Star Mentors

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STAR MENTORS

A chance meeting of two leaders in the performing arts led to the powerhouse philanthropic partnership of Kevin Spacey and Adrienne Arsht. >> B y J ohn A r u n d el | p hotos b y T O N Y P O W E L L A d r i e n n e A r s h t ’ s s t y l i n g b y H e a t h e r Ha n n o n WA S H I N G T O N L I F E

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t was a chance encounter last April that brought Oscar-winning The foundation expanded two years ago while Spacey was on a actor Kevin Spacey and banker-turned-philanthropist Adrienne Arsht world tour playing the role of Shakespeare’s Richard III. After Spacey together, turning a meeting of two performing arts mavens into a brought on Steve Winter as president of the foundation, the two looked full-fledged philanthropic event in support of young actors and emerg- for ways to deepen the engagement of schoolchildren in the arts and ing artists. started Master Classes led by Spacey and his team as they toured nine As the story goes, they met in April in the rehearsal room of the countries. soaring Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center in Miami, which she “It’s not lip service for Kevin,” Winter says. “I’ve known him for 10 funded in 2008 with a singular gift of $30 million after making a fortune years and he’s hugely genuine about it. We have since engaged with in South Florida banking. Spacey was preparing for his performance that nearly 1,500 emerging artists and playwrights who we found temping evening as the headliner of the annual Arsht Center Gala, and the center’s or working in bars and restaurants just to get by.We give them the financhief benefactor took a seat at rehearsal. cial freedom so they can take the time off and pursue their talents.”

“I just sat in the back and took everything in,” Arsht recalls. “WatchSpacey, 55, fell in love with Washington early in his acting career. “I ing him prepare for a performance was like a Master Class.” came to begin performances in 1982 in my first pre-Broadway tryout for The Sunday after the gala, Arsht invited Spacey and his friends to “Ibsen’s Ghosts,” he says of that year’s production starring Liv Ullmann lunch at her historic home, where they shared a and directed by John Madden, who later withdrew. like-minded passion for the performing arts, and “We played the Eisenhower Theatre at the Kennedy for young actors in need of financial support, Center.” scholarships and mentoring.

Spacey says this early exposure to the seductive “We bonded over so many ideas and issues charms of living in Washington sparked a lifelong within the arts that it was as if we’d known each love affair with the capital region. “I love using the other all our lives,” Spacey recalls. bike trails for long rides past the memorials and He told Arsht about returning to London to through Georgetown, or out to the state parks in start rehearsing for a one-man show on the 19thVirginia,” he says. century civil libertarian Clarence Darrow. Arsht His passion for Washington appears to have only was delighted, as part of her property includes the grown since 2013 when Netflix tapped him for house of William Jennings Bryan (now a national, what may be the seminal role of his career. Spacey historic landmark). She offered a tour, walking expertly portrays the crafty, conniving, paranoid Spacey through the house to give him a feeling megalomaniac Frank Underwood — a politician for the man that Clarence Darrow argued against who thinks nothing of crushing anyone in his way in the historic Scopes Trial. Shortly afterwards, of reaching the pinnacle of the power pyramid, Spacey called and asked Arsht to chair his second from pesky reporters to the president of the United CAP President Neera Tanden, Kevin Spacey, and Planned Parenthood President annual fundraiser in Washington on September 29 States.

Cecile Richards at Shakespeare Theatre’s Harman Hall.

But despite his frequent visits to the city, and his Now in its fourth year, the London-based Kevin Spacey Founda- long and deep friendships with President Bill Clinton and other political tion was founded as a means of continuing the educational initiatives of leaders, Spacey denies basing the character on anyone in particular. the Old VicTheatre “There is no doubt that part of my motivation in “I have been involved in politics for most of my life, so I’ve learned a beginning the foundation was to continue the kind of work that I have good deal from my exposure to the process, campaigns and relationships,” been doing through Old Vic/New Voices — our program at the Old Vic Spacey says. “But I mostly have relied on the brilliant writing and powTheatre for emerging artists, but also to repay the debt I owe to the many erful direction to create Frank Underwood. In addition, we have several individuals who took me under their wings and gave me opportunities key advisors who help us to maintain accuracy, even though at times we and chances early in my career,” Spacey says. will stretch the actual for the dramatic.”

When Spacey was just starting out, he was lucky enough to meet The role of Frank Underwood — a South Carolina congressman Jack Lemmon, who encouraged him to be an actor and became a great and House majority leader who plows his way through the Washington mentor in his life. “Jack had a phrase that that he used all the time that political weeds to become president — appears to have been tailor fit for I’ve now adopted as my own,” he says. “He believed that if you’ve been Spacey, who tends to be attracted to complex characters, exploring the successful in your chosen path, if you’ve been able to realize your ambi- darker sides of his character. tion, then you are obligated to ‘send the elevator back down.’”

“I enjoy the process of working on a role, trying to serve the writer Sending the elevator back down has been the foundation’s mantra. and bringing life to a part, no matter what the tone or material requires,” It has worked with Regent’s University London and Pace University in Spacey says.“With respect to ‘House of Cards,’ we all wanted season two New York to offer KSF Scholarships and funding to support rising, tal- to be better than season one and we are doing our level best to make ented applicants for the performing arts. season three better than that.”

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His two Academy Awards were awarded for such characters, with his first Oscar for best supporting actor for “The Usual Suspects” in 1995 and the second for Best Actor for “American Beauty” in 1999.

With a $100 million investment in the original series, Netflix has a lot riding on Spacey, his co-stars and creator Beau Willimon in capturing new subscribers by redefining the Hollywood medium, shaking up the traditional role of distribution for filmed entertainment. But with 17 million new subscribers added since the launch of House of Cards last year, the studio’s risky strategy appears to be panning out.

Fifty million viewers now receive on-demand streaming media in their homes and in 2013 the original production of “The Square” (2013) became the first ever Emmy Awards nomination for a Netflix original production, while Spacey received the first Emmy nomination for best actor for a streaming media site character.

“The release pattern really has nothing to do with the creative experience working on ‘House of Cards,”’ Spacey argues. “And we should never forget that the way in which audiences are devouring episodes is not unlike the way audiences have been since Gutenberg [invented the] printing press. I believe that the Netflix model has indeed been embraced and that appointment viewing is more the past than the future.”

As an actor whose three-decade career has occupied the highest levels of the mediums of television, film and theater, and who has, in two years, helped make Netflix a dominant new force in media streaming, it was almost inevitable that a person who loves the craft of acting in its purest forms would one day partner with Arsht, whose passion and support of those who perform is unbridled.

Arsht, who grew up taking piano and ballet lessons and frequently attended theatrical productions in her hometown, Wilmington, Del. and New York City. says that “the arts, visual and performing, define civilization.

“Country borders change, political leaders come and go, birds will always sing and people will always dance,” she adds, “but the arts are the one constant.”

After a brief career in Delaware law and as the first woman to work in TWA’s property,

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Scholarship recipients of the Kevin Spacey Foundation. (Photo by Beowulf Sheehan) l

cargo and government relations departments, Arhst moved to Washington in 1979 where she married the prominent Washington attorney Myer Feldman, former counsel to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Arsht initially worked with a law firm here, before starting her own title company and moving to Miami in 1996 to run the familyowned TotalBank. After 11 years as chairman of the board, a period in which it grew from four locations to 14 with $1.4 billion in assets, she sold the bank in 2007 to Banco Popular Espanol, and took up a second residence in Washington to further her philanthropic interests here.

After less than five years, Arsht’s impact on the performing arts and think tanks in Washington has become a thing of near legend.

She was named to the boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Trustees Council of the National Gallery of Art and the Blair House Restoration Fund.

Last year, she also endowed the Adrienne Arsht Latin American Center at The Atlantic Council with a $5 million gift.

“When giving to the arts, you are preserving the essence of civilization for now and for hundreds of years to come,” Arsht says. “It is thrilling to know that a gift to the arts will be shared by people in a future we can’t even imagine.”

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Spacey commends his partner’s dedication.

“Adrienne has proved to have a significant and positive influence on the arts, both from her philanthropic endeavors to her belief that the arts are not a luxury item, but a vital part of all of our lives,” he says. “I also know that we share the belief that sometimes there are things that one can say and do — culturally — that are nearly impossible to say or do politically. I can see a remarkable future in our partnering up on various ideas to forge this belief in the years ahead.”

The duo’s September 29 Washington benefit will introduce a few of Spacey’s loyal fans to a side rarely seen in public: his lifelong passion for singing.

At Harman Hall, he is set to stage a concert in which he’ll sing the American classics, before joining a post-performance reception hosted

by Arsht and her co-chairs, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer.

“I grew up in a house where music was in constant play,” Spacey says. “From 78 records of the great big bands, to Sinatra, Bennett, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bobby Darin and nearly every great jazz artists going as well as the great movie musicals. I might just dabble in many of these areas for the concert.

“Mostly” he adds, “we’re gonna have some fun.”

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