Nathan Lane

RORY: Hey Brad, good to have you back. How was Broadway?
BRAD: It was great, but Nathan Lane is a very bitter man.

Nathan Lane (born Joseph Lane in 1956), actor. In a career spanning over 40 years he has been seen on stage and screen in roles both comedic and dramatic. Lane has received numerous awards including three Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Lane received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2008.

I’m not sure how Brad would have met Nathan Lane in 2002, as he wasn’t doing Broadway that year – three of his films were released that year, and he was in an episode of Sex and the City. Maybe he heard a lot of theatre gossip.

Mary Martin

BRAD: Thank you. It’s good to be back.
PARIS: Sit down, Mary Martin.

Mary Martin (1913-1990), actress and singer. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles on stage over her career, including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific (1949), the title character in Peter Pan (1954), and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1959). She was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1973, and named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was the mother of actor Larry Hagman.

Hirschfeld

LORELAI: Why’d you get new menus?
LUKE: It was time.
LORELAI: But I had made little doodles with my name hidden in them on each one of the old ones just like Hirschfeld.

Albert “Al” Hirschfeld (1903-2003), caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars, in a career spanning nearly eight decades.

Hirschfeld had a daughter named Nina, born in 1945. Hirschfeld is known for hiding Nina’s name, written in capital letters (“NINA”), in most of the drawings he produced after her birth. The name would appear in a sleeve, in a hairdo, or somewhere in the background. The number of NINAs concealed is shown by the number written to the right of his signature. Generally, if no number is to be found, either NINA appears once, or the drawing was completed before she was born. Originally done to amuse his friends, the public quickly noticed and became obsessed with this little gimmick, sending angry letters when he tried stopping it.

Al Hirschfeld had died not long before this episode aired, so this mention feels like a little tribute to him.

Cobain

LANE: It’s getting frustrating. I mean, there’s so many great songs that have been written post-Cobain, but try and convince Zach of that. I mean, he’s impossible, stubborn, and just a tad intellectually challenged, in case you haven’t noticed.

Rock star Kurt Cobain, previously discussed. Kurt Cobain died in 1994, so Zach apparently isn’t interested in any music after that date. Lane complains about Zach being stubborn and stupid; later she marries him.

Daniel Day-Lewis

RORY: Guess I’ve got time to tie my shoes.
LORELAI: Yes, well, cobble yourself a new pair, Daniel Day Lewis.

Sir Daniel Day-Lewis (born 1957), English retired actor. Often described as one of the preeminent actors of his generation, he received numerous accolades throughout his career which spanned over four decades, including three Academy Awards for Best Actor, making him the first and only actor to have three wins in that category. He has also received four BAFTAs, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2014, Day-Lewis received a knighthood for services to drama.

In 1997, Daniel Day-Lewis retired from acting for three years, taking up a new profession as an apprentice shoe-maker in Florence, Italy. He returned to acting in 2000.

Moliere

RICHARD: Oh, if only I could’ve seen Emily hiding in the bushes. It’s like a play by Moliere.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622-1673), known by his stage name Molière, French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world literature. His works include comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright.

Richard may be thinking of his 1665 comedy Don Juan, where Don Juan’s servant hides in the bushes, claiming that he needed to relieve himself there.

Miss Manners

LORELAI: You’re seriously telling me that you’re gonna be the one to go out there and humiliate Gran in front of her friends, in front of her family. Just think about it, Mom. What would Miss Manners do?

Etiquette expert Miss Manners, previously discussed.

Despite Lorelai’s sound advice and Emily’s good intentions, she almost immediately snaps, and tells everyone she saw Trix kissing a man.

Picasso

MRS. VAN WYCK: Then Picasso is obscene … It has six breasts.
TRIX: You cannot be sure if those are breasts. They could be cannons. He was quite obsessed with the Spanish Civil War for awhile.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.

Picasso painted a number of female nudes that Mrs Van Wyck might be looking at. Nude Woman With Necklace is one possibility, as at my first glance, I also was unsure how many breasts the figure has. On closer examination, some of them are her stomach and thighs. Remember that Mrs Van Wyck is peering at a tiny piece of transparent celluloid to view the painting.

One of Picasso’s most famous works is Guernica, a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans and Convertible Rabbit

EMILY: I sound like a spoiled high school girl.
LORELAI: Not quite. You still haven’t asked for the Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and the convertible Rabbit.

Heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, previously discussed, brought out her own line of designer jeans in the 1970s. More tightly fitted than other jeans of the time, they were an immediate success with customers.

The Volkswagen Golf Mark 1 [pictured] was marketed in North America as the Rabbit (the name was brought back for the Mark 5 model in 2006). It stayed on the market from 1974 to 1983, but it seems that for many Americans, the original name stuck.

It seems very likely that Gloria Vanderbilt designer jeans and a VW convertible were things that the spoiled teenage Lorelai asked for herself.

Michael Moore

LORELAI: And you couldn’t have taken two seconds at work to call and tell her that?
JESS: No.
LORELAI: Really? You don’t get breaks? Do you get food, water? Should I get Michael Moore on the phone?

Michael Moore (born 1954), filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His documentaries frequently address the topics of globalisation and capitalism.