Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines Takes to the Felt for Charity
You probably know her from Curb Your Enthusiasm as Larry David’s wife, or maybe you know her as Dallas Royce on Suburgatory. However, this past Saturday Cheryl Hines set her acting career aside to co-host the One Step Closer Foundation’s (OSCF) Raising the Stakes for CP charity event at Planet Hollywood.
Founded in 2007 by Jacob Zalewski, the OSCF raises funds to benefit the lives of those who suffer from Cerebral Palsy. His annual charity bash has become a staple on the summer poker schedule and this year's edition raised more than $40,000.
“Jacob is quite an inspiration,” Hines told PokerNews. “I have a nephew who has Cerebral Palsy, he’s been in a wheelchair since he was born, and I know what a challenge that is, not only for the individual but for all the loved ones that support them. For Jacob to create an organization to help other people with CP is just amazing.”
She continued: “I met Jacob while playing poker here in Vegas and we were kindred spirits. He kept texting me about the event and now we’ve been doing it together of four or five years. He’s become a really great friend of mine.”
Hines: "Once you start playing poker you meet other people with similar interests and you connect with them."
Joining Hines at the event were former NFL stud Lawyer Milloy, Breaking Bad’s RJ Mitte and comic artist David Roman, as well as poker notables like poker commentators Joe Stapleton and Norman Chad, Noah Schwartz, 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event winner Jamie Gold and reigning champ Scott Blumstein.
Hines is no stranger to poker having played for well over a decade and amassing $50,000 in live tournament earnings. So how did she learn the game?
“Truth be told, when I was pregnant I didn’t have much to do and I wasn’t feeling that great, so I learned to play poker,” said Hines, who is now married to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “I was playing a lot of video poker then because there was not much else to do. Once I had my baby I could actually go play with real people. It was very exciting. Once you start playing poker you meet other people with similar interests and you connect with them. You find your poker friends.”
During the poker boom, Hines appeared on several episodes of Celebrity Poker Showdown alongside the likes of Tony Hawk, Dennis Rodman and Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek. Eventually, her love for the game led her to Zak Penn’s 2007 film The Grand where she starred as Lainie Schwartzman, a character seemingly based on Annie Duke.
“When I shot the movie The Grand, we were all poker players except Chris Parnell, which was funny because his character was supposed to be the one that knew everything about the game,” Hines reminisced. “It was a really fun movie. I met Ray Romano, I’d met him before but it’s different when you’re shooting a movie about poker in Vegas together. We all played a lot of poker together.”
Spoiler alert – at the end of the film Hines’ character defeats Woody Harrelson’s “One Eyed Jack Faro” to win the big poker tournament.
“Zak Penn wrote the movie outline, so the film was improvised,” she explained. “It would’ve made more sense for Woody Harrelson’s character to win the tournament. We all started the final table with a different amount of chips. I had sort of a medium stack, some people were short and others big stacks. We just played in real time and people busted when they busted. When it got down to Woody and me, I talked to the director. I asked if it’d be bad if my character won, and he said, ‘No, just play it. Whatever happens will happen.’”
Despite winning in the film, Hines felt the need to rabbit hunt.
“I actually thought Woody was trying to bully me when we were playing,” she said. “I thought there was no way he had good cards every time. I kept calling him and I would get lucky on the river or something. After we were done shooting I asked Zak if I could watch some of the footage because I wanted to see what Woody was up to. He really did have good cards. That’s how neurotic I am about poker, I’m so curious to know all those hands.”
As far as the future is concerned, Hines revealed that fans can expect more Curb.
“There should be another season coming up. We haven’t shot it yet, but we have every intention of shooting it in the fall perhaps.”
Regarding the role of poker in her life, she summed it up best when she said: “Once you start playing I guess you either love it or you leave it. I seem to love it.”
Lead photo courtesy of One Step Closer Foundation
