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Producer Walter Afanasieff built Hollywood’s hot new Kookaburra Lounge for his partner, comic Katie Cazorla.
By Seth Abramovitch
Senior Writer
Katie Cazorla and Walter Afanasieff met 24 years ago, introduced at Afanasieff’s birthday party by mutual friend Darren Hayes, frontman of the band Savage Garden. Cazorla, a bombshell comedian with a quick wit and apparently no self-censor mechanism, had moved to L.A. in 1998 and was hosting karaoke nights around town. Afanasieff is a Grammy-winning music producer and songwriter with a string of smash hits under his belt — including several early Mariah Carey No. 1s such as “Hero,” “One Sweet Day” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Cazorla was “the life of the party,” recalls Afanasieff, who was instantly smitten. He was married at the time — but love eventually found a way, and Cazorla and Afanasieff, who married in 2017, have been together ever since.
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Cazorla has spent the ensuing years launching various businesses, like a nail salon that became the setting of her own TV Guide Network reality show, Nail Files. That led to her participation in Second Wives Club, a short-lived reality series on E! Afanasieff — whose nickname for Cazorla is Trouble — put his foot down when she was approached by The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. “I’ve known people who have done it,” he says. “David Foster and Harry Hamlin are my friends. It really doesn’t help in your personal life.”
A couple of years ago, Cazorla confessed her one true dream was to own and manage her own comedy club — just like her hero, the late Mitzi Shore, had done with The Comedy Store. (Shore discovered Cazorla early on and booked her in the club’s Belly Room.) “Mitzi told me that I reminded her of Roseanne Barr, and I was like, ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,’ ” Cazorla recalls.
Afanasieff set about making Cazorla’s dream come true. Having co-written a song as successful as “All I Want for Christmas,” which has hit the peak position on the Billboard Hot 100 every Christmas since 2017, he had the means to do so. He and Cazorla found an abandoned steakhouse in the former Hollywood & Highland (now Ovation) shopping center and transformed it into the Kookaburra Lounge. A throwback to 1950s Havana, it’s the poshest comedy club in L.A. — not a high hurdle to clear, granted — replete with vintage bird wallpaper, velvet booths and tropical cocktails.
The club has drawn a wide array of A-list talent since its September opening — Tiffany Haddish, Craig Robinson and Nikki Glaser among them. (Glaser worked out her upcoming Golden Globes monologue there recently. “The jokes were really good,” says Cazorla. “Like, really good.”) In the meantime, Cazorla has been decorating the couple’s Sunset Plaza home for the holidays. “We have a warehouse filled with decorations,” she says. “It looks like a Michaels art supply store blew up in there.” Afanasieff, meanwhile, is winding his way through the awards circuit for Barbra Streisand’s “Love Will Survive,” the Grammy- and Emmy-nominated song he produced for the Peacock miniseries The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Says Cazorla: “This has been a good year.”
This story appeared in the Dec. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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