IAs roasts go, Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ annual rite of merry celebrity bashing ranks near the top of headline-grabbing smackdowns of the famous. It’s become a media lodestone even as the venues have shrunk this year because alternate theaters had to be used while the original, antique theater (c. 1888) on Holyoke St., Cambridge undergoes an extreme make-over. Fact is the Pudding’s “Woman and Man of the Year” has become a media plum in the doldrums of winter, much like Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue is. But, hey, if superstars are more than willing to shed their poise and dignity and show their just-like-us humanness, why not enjoy the fun and join in the laughter?

The Pudding bestows the dubious honor to performers who have made a “lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment.” This year’s honorees, Halle Berry and Richard Gere, certainly fulfill the criteria. They follow a trail of notable entertainers (and personages)—among women, Katherine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, and Goldie Hawn (Mamie Eisenhower ’53, too); among men, Tom Cruise, Robert DeNiro, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and Steven Spielberg. Not a bad A-list for a college theatrical troupe. But then, not many theatrical troupes can boast a former club secretary, Theodore Roosevelt, as well as a few other presidents and other notables as members. After all, this is the oldest college campus theatrical company in the nation.

With satire as its raison d’etre, club members set their mission, sighting in their collective crosshairs their chosen one’s vulnerabilities, and let it rip. Halle Berry’s journey to her roasting began under clear February skies and temps in the fifties. She basked, literally and figuratively, in the spring-like warmth and sunny adoration of the curious who lined Massachusetts Avenue several deep for her parade. Between a phalanx of Harvard student bodyguards and Cambridge police, she waved, smiled, and threw kisses to the crowd.

Once in the Agassiz Theater, Berry shed her fur coat and was ready to rock. To “prove” her worthiness for the prize as a great actor superstar, she submitted to four skits drummed up by the Theatricals. She had to pass a “security check” involving racial profiling, demonstrate her superiority dancing with Dogman (she played in CATWOMAN), and use her wits to talk her way into a stranger’s car like she did in MONSTER’S BALL. Berry grabbed the moment from an unsuspecting player and showed the audience who’s boss, swooning backward at its conclusion in a kind of reverse bow. And in the fourth skit, she had to prove she was just not another pretty face in a Q & A for a pseudo Miss Hasty Pudding pageant. She accepted her Pudding Pot with grace and a smile.

In her press conference, Berry said: “If you gave me a blade of grass, I would feel completely honored to see the love of the craft that these students have, and to think that they have chosen me to be honored is definitely one of the highlights of my career. I think I will put the Pudding Pot next to the Oscar. It’s one of those moments that really touched my heart today.”

Asked about what is most fun about acting, she replied, “Every three months or so I get to take on a new adventure, and I get to meet a whole new cast of characters, a director, producers, actors, a new screenplay to play with. And that’s really the fun of it. I’ve always lived fantasy. Even as a child I did. And to step into different skins all the time and stretch my limits, to make believe—that’s the classic part of being an actor. Work feels like play. And I get a check on top of that. That’s fun.”

A week later at the Man of the Year ceremony at Zero Arrow Street Theater, Harvard’s newest theater and site of this year’s theatrical, “Some Like it Yacht,” Richard Gere stood bewildered on stage after women’s lingerie—bras and panties—landed at his feet. “Tom Jones gets 100,” the actor said. “I get seven.” Gere, whose screen credits include a host of films including AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, AMERICAN GIGOLO, RUNAWAY BRIDE, and PRETTY WOMAN, to name a few. More than once he called to his wife, actress Carey Lowell seated in the audience, for moral support. He’d been prepped beforehand to expect the unexpected, swinging in the wind solo, awaiting the slings and arrows and barbs of his Pudding hosts while before a houseful of admirers. 

To prove his Pudding Pot worthiness, Gere had to play doctor (DR.T AND THE WOMEN) to a fake birth, a courtroom lawyer defending his manliness (he was the first man to be a Vogue cover-guy), a knight with armor (FIRST KNIGHT), a dance partner (SHALL WE DANCE) to a Halle Berry look-alike drag queen, and finally as a cross-dresser, replete with blonde wig and oversized bra. When the skits were over, Gere humbly accepted the playful jibing and said, “We’re all Bozos… I accept my position as Major Bozo today.”

Afterward, before the press, Gere admitted that he had talked to previous recipients for advice. “I was terrified, too. I came here as a babe in the woods and didn’t know what was going to happen.” Asked who were his real-life woman and man of the year, Gere ranked at the top Suniti Solomon, a leading HIV/AIDS physician in India who in 1986 identified that country’s first case of HIV and who now runs a clinic there. Bill Gates was his choice for his humanitarianism. “He uses a business sense in his charitable works.”

Gere accepted his Pudding Pot and toasted it with pride to the audience.

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Writer-photographer Robert Pushkar’s features and photos appear in IMAGINE and in local, regional, and national publications. Currently, he is marketing his romantic comedy screenplay. He may be contacted at rgp@robertpushkar.com