Southampton - Former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea hanging out Saturday night in a rundown club in Greenwich Village with Sarah Jessica Parker, Donna Karan and Nicole Kidman? To quote a famous former politico, "You betcha." They were all at the legendary Village Vanguard for a once-in-a-lifetime event, the incredible Barbra Streisand making a return to the stage and the neighborhood where her four decades long career was launched. Crowds thronged the narrow streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the music world icon - and, of course, some of her very famous pals. They weren't disappointed.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Bill Clinton attended the Streisand show.

Though she didn't get her start at the Vanguard - she auditioned as opening act there for jazz great Miles Davis but didn't make the cut - she did leap to fame at the nearby somewhat tonier The Blue Angel, now long gone.

The tiny venue - only 123 seats - was packed to the rafters with not just celebs but, at the diva's insistence, regular fans as well selected through a lottery on her official website from tens of thousands of entrants. The 74 lucky winners were gathered at the Sony building in Midtown Manhattan on Saturday afternoon and screened with metal detectors. To prevent audio or video leaks online, they were told to leave all electronic devices - including cellphones - behind or surrender their tickets. Once on board the buses, they traded 'Barbra stories' and shrugged at all the security fuss, which also included a laminated pass on a lanyard, a paper wristband and stamp in red ink. Talk about security!

After seeing Liza Minnelli perform in someone's living room, Streisand, whose stage fright is the stuff of legend, decided the time was right to get back on the stage. She decided to return to the Village Vanguard to perform the songs from "Love Is The Answer" - her new album of jazz standards and classics - in the most intimate setting possible. With its flawless acoustics and deeply comfortable vibe, The Village Vanguard - an epicenter of the New York jazz scene since 1957 - was, and is one of the most renowned musical venues in the world.

During her concert, Streisand performed songs from her new album, as well as personal favorites and some surprises, in an extraordinarily warm and powerful set (friends said her voice was as clear and powerful as it was in her heyday on Broadway), as the artist and her audience shared an evening filled with music, magic and memories.

Actress Nicole Kidman was one of the few to have a seat for the intimate performance.

According to a spokeswoman, the evening song list included such gems as "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," "Gentle Rain," "If You Go Away," "Make Someone Happy," "My Funny Valentinem" "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and of course , "Evergreen," and "The Way We Were."

Uptown, the celeb and VIP overflow was ensconced in a private suite at the Waldorf-Astoria where folks like East Hampton funny lady Joy Behar, Barry Diller and former Mayor David Dinkins watched on a closed circuit TV. With the help of two bars and a bountiful buffet, guests watched the extraordinary and mingled and chatted until post show when a very animated Barbra arrived with husband James Brolin to take her bows. Missing in all the action was self-proclaimed #1 fan, Alec Baldwin who, in an interview last week with TCM's Robert Osborne, confessed his unabashed passion for the star, claiming #1 fan status, and cites "Funny Girl" as his favorite Broadway musical. Bet you didn't know that.

Bill Clinton certainly had reason to celebrate at Barbra's concert, his annual philanthropy meeting, which was held in New York last week, raised more than $9.4 billion in philanthropic gifts and other types of charitable commitments according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Way to go Bill!

More good news for Babs, she will join Steven Spielberg, Leonard Bernstein and 15 others as the initial inductees into the National Museum of American Jewish History's Hall of Fame, which opens in Philadelphia in November 2010. The other honorees from the arts are Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer and poet Emma Lazarus.

The group also includes Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Mordecai Kaplan, Sandy Koufax, Estee Lauder, Isaac Leeser, Jonas Salk, Rose Schneiderman, Menachem Menel Schneerson, Henrietta Szold, and Isaac Mayer Wise.

The streets were packed with cheering fans hoping to get a last-minute seat and do a little celebrity spotting.

Here's an opportunity for you Battling Bickersons to snatch your 15 minutes of fame. Jerry Seinfeld is getting into the reality show biz with "The Marriage Ref." His production team has been scouting across the country for couples who "love everything about each other except for…". They are seeking folks who on the surface appear happy but can't go a day without needling or being needled by each other. Tired of the toilet seat being left up? Her hair in the sink? Sick of him not taking out the garbage? - then this might be your chance for national fame. Jerry says it will not be "therapeutic" but funny with a yet to be announced major comedian hosting. More like "Candid Camera" in the old days. You can look for the show next March.

While we're talking reality shows, the buzz all over the net is that the team behind "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" is working on an all-gay version of the moneymaking franchise. The new series is tentatively titled "Kept" and will air on Logo, the gay TV network which airs such popular, yet controversial, fare as "The L Word" and "Queer as Folk." The show has not been cast yet but will follow an elite group of fabulous Manhattan party boys who love living the high-life. No casting has been confirmed yet, but from the email sent out by Beth Bigler of True Entertainment the production that "discovered" Nene and the rest of the Atlanta gals and obtained by Gawker, they are seriously searching for fabulous party boys, Chelsea style who like the good life and are probably having the tab paid by someone else - a 'Sugar Daddy" - hence the title.

Producer Ellen Rakieten and actor/comedian Jerry Seinfeld attend a photocall for reality TV series "The Marriage Ref" at Palais des Festivals during MIPCOM in Cannes, France.

Thought you might be interested in this little bit of "OMG, I can't believe it!" casting news. Michael Douglas is ready to take on an enormous challenge in the new bio-pic about the sequined, white mink wearing "King" or should I say "Queen" of camp - Liberace. If you don't know who Liberace was ask your Grandma. For decades he thrilled little old ladies with his opulent, over the top sets that featured white jeweled pianos and glittering candelabras. Get the picture. He ruled in that bastion of bad taste, Las Vegas. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and up to his death from AIDS in 1987, he was a national institution making more money than The Beatles or Elvis. It all came crashing down however when his assistant and full-time lover, the much, much younger Scott Thorson, filed a $110 palimony suit against the man termed "Mr. Showmanship" and outed the closeted performer to the world.

Director Steven Soderbergh who helmed the current box office hit "The Informant" has signed that film's star Matt Damon to play Liberace's lover. They will work from a script by Richard Lagravense, who was responsible for "The Bridges of Madison County."

Oprah Winfrey at Bridgehampton Polo? Maybe. Guilty pleasure confession, I usually don't watch TV in the afternoon but when I heard a promo that my guy, polo player extraordinaire and face of Ralph Lauren, Nacho Figueras was slated to appear on an Oprah special about the "most famous people in the world," I set my TiVo. Sure enough Nacho was announced but the show had a different leaning than I had imagined. The featured guests included China's favorite talk show host Chen Lu Yu, an extraordinarily articulate young lady who is seen by 140 million viewers a day! Even Oprah acknowledged that she reaches out to only eight million - a fraction of that.

The next guests were equally unknown to me, the most famous husband and wife acting duo in Bollywood whose fans number some five billion - no misprint - the dashingly handsome Abishek Bachan and his gorgeous wife Aishwarya Rai (named by Vogue as one of the most beautiful women in the world). Check this, Aish gets $15 million per movie and they do an average of five to six a year. Add on her jewelry, cosmetic and fragrance endorsement deals and she beats Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone by a whole pile of coin. Yet, we never heard of her. When Nacho, so charming and self-deprecating appeared, I was a little more on home turf until I learned that to some 350 million South Americans, Nacho is as famous as Michael Jordan! There're a whole lot of other people out there beside us.

In any event, Oprah confessed that she had never seen a polo game and promised Nacho she would come out to the East End to watch him play perhaps this summer. Here's hoping she and BFF Gayle King will don their fancy straw hats and hit the VIP tents. I will even offer to show them the best local places for crabs - Oprah's fave!