Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen recently spent a memorable day on Coney Island taking in New York's finest sights, sounds and food. Their adventure has been captured and printed on three Coney Island t-shirts that are now being auctioned to help raise money for City Harvest.
City Harvest helps feed the nearly two million New Yorkers facing hunger each year in more than 500 community food programs. The organization has been serving New York for 30 years and is the world's first food rescue organization dedicated to feeding the city's hungry men, women and children. It is anticipated that City Harvest will collect 46 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers and farms.
Stewart and McKellen returned to Broadway for the production of two plays in repertory--No Man's Land by
Harold Pinter, and Waiting for Godot by
Samuel Beckett. During rehearsals in September of 2013, the two spent some of their days off visiting famous New York City landmarks including the Empire State building, the Brooklyn Bridge, McSorley's Ale House, the Wall Street Bull, Katz's Delicatessen, and Madame Tussaud's.
On one day off, the pair visited Coney Island and as they left the fairground area they stopped at a souvenir vendor's booth and posed for a portrait that they impulsively had printed up onto three t-shirts.
"The quality of these garments is what you might expect from a Coney Island vendor, but I assure you they are a souvenir of what was a truly memorable day that Ian and I shared," said Stewart. "We've decided to auction them, in honor of our characters, Gogo and Didi, to benefit the remarkable New York City-based charity City Harvest, an organization dedicated to feeding the most needy New Yorkers."
To bid on these rare t-shirts, visit:
http://www.ebay.com/rpp/givingworks/Gogo-Didi-Do-NYC/. The auction ends April 3 at approximately 4pm PST.
ABOUT SIR PATRICK STEWART: Sir
Patrick Stewart is an English film, television and stage actor, who is most widely known for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and its successor films, as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men film series, and for his prolific stage roles with the
Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1993, TV Guide named him the best dramatic television actor of the 1980s. Stewart was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2001 New Year Honours list, and was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to drama.
ABOUT SIR IAN MCKELLEN: Sir Ian Murray McKellen is an English actor. He is the recipient of six
Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and two Critics' Choice Awards. He has also received two Academy Award nominations, eight BAFTA film and TV nominations and five Emmy Award nominations. McKellen's work spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. His notable film roles include Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies and Magneto in the X-Men films. McKellen was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and was made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality, in the 2008 New Year Honours.
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