Children's author Maurice Sendak celebrates 80th birthday with celebrity pals

NEW YORK — Maurice Sendak, the author of "Where the Wild Things Are," has another power beyond the wild imagination that invented the freaky-looking monsters in the classic children's book.

He's also a celebrity magnet.

The prolific writer-illustrator celebrated his 80th birthday Monday night with Meryl Streep, James Gandolfini, Catherine Keener and director Spike Jonze, who has adapted 1963's "Wild Things" for a film to be released in October 2009.

Taking the stage to thunderous applause, the spry Sendak — a Brooklyn native who stayed indoors for much of his childhood because of poor health — addressed an audience of hundreds at the event held at the 92nd Street Y.

"I'm really terribly moved," he said. "Some of the problems that were mentioned in growing up in New York persist. ... Eighty solves nothing. ... So many friends were on the stage tonight and so many people I have worked with and loved — and still love. And what it did was ignite in me a feeling of wanting to continue to work."

One of Sendak's confidantes is Jonze, who directed the critically acclaimed films "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich," and showed a one-minute montage of "Wild Things" at the event. He was still editing the movie, which will blend live action and CG animation to tell the story of young Max and his gang of monster pals, one of whom is voiced by Gandolfini. Keener portrays Max's mother.

"He really wanted to just give me the book, and let me make what the book was to me," Jonze said backstage while his gal pal, actress Michelle Williams, mingled with the audience out front. "He didn't want to impose what the book was to him. He felt like he had done that ... and now it was somebody's else's turn. He just didn't want somebody to make a cookie-cutter version of his work. He wanted somebody to take it and make their own version of it."

Jonze called Sendak a major influence on his work and said he's found inspiration through other whimsical Sendak titles including "In the Night Kitchen," "Pierre: A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters and a Prologue" and "Higglety Pigglety Pop!"

He also admires Sendak's inability to make small talk.

"He will only say what he means, and if you don't say what you're feeling, he has really no patience for you whatsoever," Jonze said. "He demands honesty and yet he does it in such a humorous, self-deprecating, totally perverse and imaginative way."

The two-hour Sendak tribute included readings by Streep and Gandolfini. Streep, as expected, gave her all to an energetic performance of "The Sign on Rosie's Door," doing voices for all the characters; Gandolfini, a slightly menacing oaf, lumbered on stage to read "In the Night Kitchen" in a nasal voice as Tony Soprano might to his children.