The premiere raised $170,000 for local homeless shelters. Singer Carly Simon showed up, as did supporting actresses Carroll Baker and Margaret Whitton, to see the movie, and there was a black-tie after-party at the Hilton. Two white horses pulled a white carriage.

Searchlights pierced the frigid winter sky on suits and glittery throwback evening gowns, trailing mink stoles. Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep garnered Academy Award nominations for their starring roles as Depression-era bums seeking redemption in the hobo camps and flop houses of the hardscrabble capital city on the Hudson.īy any measure -from an estimated $60 million regional economic impact to the 2,500 people who paid $125 for a ticket to a sold-out premiere at the Palace Theatre - the event was one of the cultural highlights in the capital city's recent history. 'I felt like I was at the circus for six months,' said William Kennedy, the native son who adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel into a critically acclaimed film. Where: Page Hall, 135 Western Ave., downtown UAlbany campus What: 30th anniversary free screening of 'Ironweed' and Q&A with William Kennedy led by Marion Roach Smith

Ironweed book review