Breakfast w/Greg: Chita Rivera honored; Baby Stewie is gay; Brad Pitt for mayor?

Good grief, I want you to have breakfast with my morning column and here I am posting it near lunchtime!

So sorry.

The great Broadway star Chita Rivera, who I was so thrilled to meet and interview a few months back, was among the 16 people honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom at The White House yesterday which I think is really cool! [I’ve already posted about Billie Jean King and Harvey Milk].

Here is what President Barack Obama had to say about this legendary two-time Tony winner who has been one of the brightest lights on Broadway for five decades:

Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero — (applause) — knows the adversity that comes with a difficult name.  (Laughter.)  I can relate.  (Laughter.)  Known to the world by the name that has lit up Broadway marquees, Chita Rivera’s career had an improbable start.  Accompanying a nervous classmate on an audition, she decided to audition herself, and impressed the choreographer, Jerome Robbins, who would make her famous as Anita in West Side Story.  Sassy, electric — that rare performer who can sing, dance, and act — Chita Rivera revealed that still rarer ability to overcome when she recovered from a car accident that shattered her leg.  She ended up retaking the stage, won a Tony for Kiss of the Spider Woman.  And like her unforgettable Anita, Chita Rivera has shown that life can indeed be bright in America.

From stage to screen, Chita Rivera has captured America’s imagination with her magnetic presence and radiant voice. Over a career that has spanned a half-century, she has received numerous accolades for her performances, including two Tony Awards, six additional Tony nominations, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award. As fearless as Anita in “West Side Story,” and as self-reliant as Aurora in “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” she has broken barriers under Broadway’s lights and inspired a generation of women to follow in her remarkable footsteps. The United States honors Chita Rivera for her lifetime of achievement as one of America’s great artists.

STEWIE IS GAY! Over the weekend, my 36-year-old nephew was visiting from Henderson, Nev. and we were talking about favorite TV shows. He was going on and on about Family Guy and I remember him saying at one point: “I love Stewie.”

I don’t watch the show but thought of that conversation this morning when reading that Family Guy creator Seth Macfarlane has revealed in a Playboy interview that Stewie is gay.

“We had an episode that went all the way to the script phase in which Stewie does come out,” MacFarlane says in the September issue of Playboy magazine. “It had to do with the harassment he took from other kids at school. He ends up going back in time to prevent a passage in Leviticus from being written: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is an abomination.’

“But we decided it’s better to keep it vague, which makes more sense because he’s a 1-year-old. Ultimately, Stewie will be gay or a very unhappy repressed heterosexual. It also explains why he’s so hellbent on killing [his mother, Lois] and taking over the world: He has a lot of aggression, which comes from confusion and uncertainty about his orientation.”

I’D SO VOTE FOR HIM: Brad Pitt is doing all kinds of press in advance of the Aug. 21 release of his latest film Inglourious Basterds.

The gay-friendly father of six was interviewed by NBC’s Ann Curry on The Today Show this morning responded to talk that he should run for mayor of New Orleans where he has participated in post-Katrina rebuilding. Some locals have even taken to wearing “Brad Pitt for Mayor” T-shirts.

“I don’t have a chance,” Pitt told Curry. “I’m running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform.”

Brad has said on several occasions that he and Angelina Jolie will not get married until it is legal for everyone to get married.