The best thing about being invited to The Task Force Leadership Awards at the Beverly Hills Hotel Sunday afternoon was chatting up the hilarious Bruce Vilanch. It feels like I've known Bruce forever since I did once date his dentist but we didn't meet until last December at a Christmas Party. I felt like saying, "Lemme see your teeth!"
Anyway, Bruce was the host of the lunch where spunky and passionate U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer was honored along with the inspiring Alice A. Huffman, president of the NAACP's California Conference, and "Quincearnera" co-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (more on them in a separate post.
Before the event began, I badgered Bruce at the pre-show mixer to tell me some jokes about alleged pedophile Mark Foley exclusively for "Out in Hollywood." He told me he was saving them for the show (by coicidence, I was seated next to Bruce's cardiologist from "Celebrity Fit Club" at the lunch. What's next? I meet his chiropractor!).
So Bruce starts off the show this way: "I was just on the phone with Mark Foley. We've been on the same page for years!" He added that he was not bothered that Foley never bothered to send him naughty emials but if "(SF Mayor) Gavin Newsom had been doing it, I would have felt left out!"
Even though the Foley scandal is revolting and it is devastating that he is claiming to be gay instead of what he really appears to be, a pedophile, it felt good to laugh at the jokes with a ballroom full of people who feel the same way.

Couldn't resist asking Bruce what he thinks of John Travolta nabbing the cross-dressing role of the mom in the feature film version of "Hairspray," a part originated by Harvey Fierstein on Broadway and played hundreds of times on tour by Bruce. "Well, he and I have been up for so many of the same parts," jokes Bruce. "You can't have a bigger flop than (Travolta film) "Battlefield Earth" so if it flops, it;s not a big deal and if it does work, he becomes Robert DeNiro."