Leo DiCaprio made headlines Sunday night for bringing model girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti to the Oscars ceremony, but one of his other guests didn’t steal the show.
I heard that Todd Graves – the self-made millionaire who starred in “Raising Cane” – attended the Academy Awards with DiCaprio. The Chicken Finger mogul would only say that he attended the awards ceremony with a friend, but comic Matt Friend interviewed Graves on the red carpet and hinted, “If I could mention this person, I think it would be with an actor, and I think that actor would be like… ‘I want to thank Marty Scorsese. I want to thank Alejandro Iñárritu. Climate change is real!'” Graves did not mention DiCaprio’s name, but responded cautiously: “I hope he wins tonight.”
By Wednesday, Graves was out of his tuxedo and wearing a Raising Cane T-shirt, just feet from the red carpet arrival point on Hollywood Boulevard. He was giving a preview of his chain’s 1,000th store, which happens to be in the same Ovation complex as Oscar.
“I wish we were open that night,” Graves told me at a recent job. “Because I wanted everyone to come here.”
Graves’ story would definitely make for an Oscar-worthy film. A Louisiana entrepreneur recalled how he made a living at his new Hollywood base before making his fortune as a “boilermaker” operating equipment at an oil refinery 90 to 100 hours a week or more. “I worked at a refinery in El Segundo, I worked at a refinery in Torrance,” he said, adding that he lived in motels that “we could rent by the month or by the hour.”
A battered helmet from an old job was also lying nearby.
Graves was given the nickname “Hollywood” at the refinery when he took a leave after seven weeks to see the sights along the Walk of Fame. He then worked on a fishing boat in Alaska and opened the first Raising Cane’s (named after his dog) in Baton Rouge around 1996.
He is now reportedly worth $22 billion and lives next door to his partner DiCaprio in a $23 million mansion in the Hollywood Hills.
Mr. Graves told us that he plans to write a book when the time is right. As for making it into a movie, “If someone wanted to try it, I’d probably get DiCaprio to play the role.”
He has appeared as himself on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” and sales of two of the businesses he has invested in have soared by 1,000% and 600%.
A Hollywood store will open soon.
