George Takai, still known as Lt. Sulu to the gazillion "Star Trek" fans out there, is on the front page of today's L.A. Daily News (my favorite newspaper). My colleague Fred Shuster writes about how Takai and a few other original cast members are appearing in new Webisodes of the show, available for free Internet download.
To read Fred's story, click HERE and enjoy!

Meanwhile, I'm re-posting an account of meeting George this summer at an Outfest event:

I was introduced to George Takei (below), the "Star Trek" legend who came out publicly last year. "Everybody already kneeeew," he said in that distinctive voice of his." George is keeping busy these days attending 40th Anniversary "Star Trek" conventions around the world and he says fans have been great. Always out in his private life, Takei says he decided to go public after Gov. Schwarzennegar vetoed the same-sex marriage bill.

"I felt I needed to speak out on that, I felt I needed to be authentic," he said. "It feels great. Although my colleagues and the fans knew, the difference is now I get to address issue much more openly. And the conventions give me the opportunity to use 'Star Trek' as a platform for LGBT issues."

It seems that George is also pals with Howard Stern and did his second weeklong stint on Stern's radio show recently and may do it again sometime. Stern loves the way George says, "Oh myyyyyyyyyy." He says Stern won't marry his girlfriend until gays are allowed to marry as well.

"Howard could not believe that I am gay. He said, 'You're so masculine!' I said, 'So!' We have baseball players and truck drivers, all very masculine, and gay."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In my gushing coverage of the "Designing Women" reunion last month, I basically glossed over all the ugliness that resulted in Delta Burke being fired from the show after the fifth season. It made the cover of People magazine even back in 1991 but I was so swept up in all the love and bygones that it didn't seem necessary to rehash all of that.
But in today's edition of USA Today, writer William Keck does a piece that rehashes ALL OF IT. So, I share it with you and the good part is, there is a happy ending.

Other links to Designing Women entries posted on Out in Hollywood:

- A night with the Designing Women Pt. 1
- A night with the Designing Women Pt. 2
- Designing Women: All About Delta
- The Dazzling Designing Women

And here is my DAILY NEWS piece that previewed the reunion which included interviews with Dixie Carter and series creator Linda Bloddworth-Thomason.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It Woulda been loads of fun to see how Shannon Doherty (Brenda Walsh) would have interacted with her former co-stars when they gathered Friday night for the DVD launch of "Beverly Hills 90210." But Shannen didn't show and no one even talked about her (that I could hear). Oh well. The women of "90210" who did show up, Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling and Gabrielle Carteris were nothing to sneeze at.
I spoke with Gabrielle first and let's just say it didn't go very well. As she stood there looking like a million bucks, I said, "Were you upset that as Andrea Zuckerman you had to wear glasses on the show?" She said, "No. Those were MY glasses and I was proud to wear them."
Oh.
Next question.
"So, Gabrielle, how did you feel when they had Andrea get pregnant on the show? She was the smart one who was really going places."
Carteris' response: "I ASKED them to have Andrea get pregnant because I pregnant with my own baby. I wanted my baby to know I was proud."
Uh boy. "well, thanks Gabrielle, you look dazzling tonigjht!"
Sheesh, please bring on Jennie Garth, please! I'll try and not offend HER.
No worries. Jennie has that serenity of a woman who recently gave birth (she had some serious cleavage) and was enjoying her first night away from the baby. [Photos and description 'yummy mommies" courtesy of Perezhiolton.com] Jennie stayed with the show during its entire 10 year run and recently completed a three-year stinit as the star of the WB comedy "What I Like About You" on which her character, in the final season, got married to the gorgeous (and funny) Dan Cortese.
"That was an adorable show and I'm looking for another half-hour show to have time for the baby," she says.
On "90210," her characterof Kellie always had the best-looking guys and was always torn between Dylan (Luke Perry) and Brandon (Jason Priestly). So who would she have ended up with?
"Probably Brandon but she'd probably be having an affair with Dylan!" Garth said.
Tori Spelling, wearing a red dress and matching lipstick and looking very pregnant, was last on the red carpet. She said her favorite moments as Donna Martin on "90210" were the comedy bits like when during a spring fling episode when Donna wore a dress so big that she couldn't get out of the car. She said her and her bubby, Dean McDermott, have a reality show in the works.

Click HERE to read about the 90210 guys.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At the Beverly Hilton bash for the release of the "Melrose Place" DVD, there were some noteable first-season cast member absences: Heather Locklear, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Andrew Shue Josie Bisset, and Amy Lacone. I can't blame Amy since she was written out of the show fairly quickly but I thought it was really classy of Vanessa Williams - who played spunky Rhonda the first year - to show up with so much enthusiasm and positive energy.
Vanessa (no, not the former Miss America Vanessa L. Williams) told me she was excited to see fellow castmates Doug Savant, Grant Show and Daphne Zuniga, who did make the event.
"It's been great to watch everyone's career blossom and grow. We were all so young when we did the show," Vanessa said. "We are part of the pop culture of our decade. Rhonda was me. We were both bats out of hell from New York."
The "Melrose" gig was only her second showbiz job and she remembers beating out Rae Dawn Chong and others for the part. There was the other Vanessa Williams who had more fame, but this Vanessa Williams had registered with the Screen Actors Guild first so the beauty queen would have to add the "L" initial to her name when acting.
"We've never met but we have mutual friends."
Sadly, Williams was written off the show after just one season: "I was devastated," she remembers. "It really was a 'Welcome to Hollywood' experience. It was a huge sting and an absolute surprise." But the actress successfully moved on, making movies and doing television guest spots including recurring roles on "Chicago Hope" and "Murder One" and was one of the stars of the series "Soul Food."
Daphne Zuniga joined the show halfway through season one as photographer Jo, who had a serious relationship with Jake (Show). Zuniga was already a familiar face with starring roies in the feature films "The Sure Thing," "Gross Anatomy" and "Spaceballs." Most recently, she was the star of the ABC Family series "Beautul People."
"("Beautiful People") is already out on DVD and "Melrose Place" took forever!" said Zuniga, who doesn't look much different than she did 14 years ago when she started playing Jo. "I loved Jo. She started out really strong. But I think they started writing her too victimy when she started dating every loser in town."
Zuniga says her early roles still follow her around. She just retirned from a 10-day silent meditation retreat and once the silence was over, the teacher walked up to her and said, "I remember you as Jo Reynolds and from 'Spaceballs.'"

See related posts on Grant Show and Doug Savant

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So here are more highlights from the great "Designing Women" reunion at the Museum of Television and Radio last night. First off, I have to say that this had the feel of a loving reunion of people who love and respect each other and who honor what they created together. This is in contrast to a "Golden Girls" reunion I attended at the museum a few years ago when Bea Arthur seemed to not even acknowledge Betty White and Rue McClanahan sat in the middle of them almost like a referee.
"There was an amazing lack of ago," Jean Smart said of the cast. "For the first few years, every single solitary interview we'd do they'd ask, 'Do you really get along?' We didn't know what they were talking about. [Did they] ask the guys on 'Barney Miller' that?'"
Added Delta Burke: "We all got so close and talked about everything in the world. The characters became more and more of us in them and I, of course, took some of Suzanne home with me."

After the pilot episode was aired, the ladies took the stage and Delta Burke wanted everyone to know why she didn't have her Southern accent. It turns out that the network honchos didn't want the show to seem too much like "Filthy Rich," an earlier sitcom Linda Bloodworth-Thomason created that co-starred Burke and Dixie Carter.
"I was thrilled because Dixie and I had been wanting to work with Linda again," Delta said. "I was told I had to talk straight and that was as straight as I could get!"

Linda said she wanted to create a show using Dixie and Delta as well as Smart and Annie Potts, who had been standouts in an episode of the short-lived Robert Wagner series "Lime Street." She didn't quite know what she wanted the show to be about but she did know "I wanted to show women who were friends, bold in their ideas and strong in their comradrie with each other. There was no concept really - just loud-mouthed women."
"Designing Women" was initially on the ropes with CBS. It was moved around the network's schedule about nine times its first year then cancelled. Said Smart: "My mother couldn't even find us. She'd call me and say, 'What night are you on?" But the group Viewers form Quality Television, which had saved "Cagney and Lacey" from cancellation, initiated a letter-writing campaign for the sictom and it was saved, settling into a Monday night timeslot where it would stay for most of the rest of its seven-year run.
Many Funny stories were shared at the reunion. Among them, when Carter appeared in a dream sequence wearing panty hose, but no panties underneath. Says Potts: "She made the Janet Jackson thing pale. It was the ultimate costume defect." Carter's husband, Hal Holbrook told her: "They saw your pretty." At one point Smart blurted out to Burke: "Remember the episode when you drank Charlene's breast milk!?!"

Each actress was asked to pick a favorite episode.
Smart: The show when she gives birth and Dolly Parton guest-starred as her guardian movie star. Smart was pregnant in real life and told the crowd that Wednesday was her son's 17th birthday!
"I loved playing a character who was gullible and innocent and who took everything at face value. All the women were very distinct. Suzanne and Charlene were shockingly unliberated!"

Carter: The episode when Charlene wants to become a pastor and Julia gets to sing "How Great Thou Art" at the end. Carter's mother was dying and that was the last episode of the show she ever saw, her daugfhter by her side. "She got to see her little girl sing this great Methodist hymn for the whole country."

Potts: The episode when Mary Jo inherits some money and considers getting breast implants. She puts some fake ones on for a test run and asks Julia to go to a bar with her to see the reaction. Men are buying her drinkls left and right. She turn to Julia and says, "These things are POWER!" "To do a whole show about breasts. It was, at the time, pretty provocative. People will still come up to me and say: "These things are POWER!" Carter, in the scene with Potts when the line was said, remembered that she had to " turn around to keep from laughing. I just turned around and took a drink!"

Burke: "They Shoot Fat Women Don't They" was the episode in season four that focused on Suzanne's (and Delta's) noticeable weight gain. "It was out there and no one would acknowledge it, except the tabloids. All I asked was to let me have the punchlines. I didn't want to have all the punchlines be about me." (For the record, Burke is now quite slim and as gorgeous as ever.)
Smart proudly pointed out that Burke was nominated for an Emmy award for that episode (as well as one the next season) while Potts boasted that Smart had actually WON a pair of Emmys (for 'Frasier').

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You put Delta Burke, Jean Smart, Dixie Carter and Annie Potts together in a room and you are going to have magic. That's what happened Wednesday night at the Museum of Television and Radio when these four amazing actresses reunited for only the second time since "Designing Women" left the air. They inhabited four classic sitcom characters on that show but when watching them interact as themselves, it is just as interesting...and FUNNY!
They joined the show's brilliant creator and head writer Linda Bloodworth Thomason for the event which had a standing room only audience filled with serious "Designing Women" afficionados. It was nice to not be the only person in the room to be mouthing the words of dialogue as the show's classic pilot episode was screened prior to a panel discussion.

I gotta say, for a rabid "Designing Women" fan like me, this was a night I will never forget. Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, with whom I'd had a terrific interview with last week, greeted me before the show with a great big hug and introduced me to Jean Smart. Then I chatted up Annie Potts before heading into the packed theater for the program. Hmmm. Where to sit? I don't know how this happened, but next thing I know, a staff member is guiding me down to the second row. Then next thing I know, the cast is escorted in and I am directly behind Linda and Delta! Annie, Jean then Dixie filled out the row. So, not only am I stoked to be sitting so near them, I get to watch THEM as they watch the pilot episode together. They would whisper to each other, give each other a look at a particularly funny moment, Jean was cackling hard during some spots and Dixie was just in a constant state of laughter.
In the pilot, her character got the most laughs so this was a real showcase for the actress. One of my favorite lines of Dixie's is when obnoxious Ray Don Simpson ("I want to thank you...RAY DON...") tries to join the women for lunch at a sushi restaurant saying they look like they could use a little male company. Dixie puts down her chop sticks, looks at him and says: "Trust me when I say that you have completely misjudged this situation."

Anyway, there were some terrific lines during the panel portion and I'll have to share those with you later today in a separate post. But what was also cool was that when I took the microphone to ask a question, Linda introduced me to the audience! Holy cow! Love her! Harry Thomason slipped into the theater after the program was underway. After it was over, he turned around and introduced himself to me.
What a heady night.
I'll finish this later, gotta get on the freeway and head to the office.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It seems like gay men never really stop coming out of the closet about one thing or another. I've come out as a gay man time and time again but up until now, I have never come out, publicly, as a rabid fan of a show that is one of my top-five favorite sitcoms of all time: 'Designing Women." I loooooooooove that show. I've seen every episode from the first five seasons (it wasn't the same after Delta Burke and Jean Smart left) countless times and know a lot of the dialogue by heart. I think the show had some of the most brilliant writing of any show in television history.

On Wednesday, the Museum of Television and Radio is presenting a Designing Women reunion that will bring together Burke, Smart, Annie Potts and Dixie Carter together with the show's creator and head writer Linda Bloodsworth-Thomason. I preview the event in today's U section of the Daily News.

For the article, chatted with both Dixie Carter and Linda Bloodsworth Thomason and, well, we started doing lines together on the phone. Dixie did the classic: "And thaaaaaat, is when.The lights. Went out. In Georgia!" And, of course, her lines from the first show when she tells off the man called "Ray Don" and later tells her sister Suzanne (Burke) "If sex were fast food you'd have golden arches over your bed." Dixie tells me she loved doing Julia's famous speeches but after they were filmed "I'd have to drop all that information as soon as we drive off the lot in order to clear the brain for next week's script!"

One thing that "Designing Women" had from the very beginning was gay fans. "We were told right away that gay bars all over the country were showing the show and bars in Atlanta and L.A. would do the "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" speech," Dixie says.

Among the most memorable episodes were “Killing All the Right People” in which the women were asked to design the funeral home for a friend dying of AIDS. It was based on Bloodsworth-Thomason’s mother who was infected with AIDS after a blood transfusion and died in November 1986, shortly after the show was launched. A client overhears the women talking to the friend (Tony Goldwyn) and she blurts out that AIDS is God's punishment and added, "This disease has one thing going for it, it's killing all the right people." At that point, Julia throws her out but not before saying, "If God were handing out diseases for sinning then you'd be at the free clinic ALL THE TIME!"

Linda remembers being honored at the Pacific Design Center by a gay organization for the AIDS episode and when she walked onto the stage she remembers, "I left like Liza. It was a sea of gay people and it was one of the nicest nights of my life. People were so grateful for that show and for what Dixie had said."

Another far more humorous gay-themed show was when former Miss Georgia Suzanne realizes she has no other friends except for the three women at the design firm. So, she calls up a gal from her pageant days, unaware that she's a lesbain and clueless even after she comes out to her. "Well," Suzanne says, "I'm glad she came out. I don't know why she didn't do it in her teens but better late than never. Why should I care if she's the world's oldest living debutante!" Once Suzanne realizes the friend, a weathergirl at a local TV station, is gay, she freaks out and hides out from her at her health spa. The friend finds her and confronts her inside the sauna. Suzanne softens and the women decide they really can be friends, "once I get my clothes on," Suzanne says.

The glorious Delta Burke created one of the most delicious comic characters to ever grace the small screen. Suzanne Sugarbaker, with her total narcisism, was just a hoot whether she was bringing her pet pig to work, making Anthony wax her legs, showing up in black face to sing Supremes songs at a talent show, helping Mary Jo find a date at the supermarket or taking up smoking to lose weight, Burke played her to absolute perfection.
Post-"Designing Women," Burke reprised her Suzanne Sugarbaker role in the short-lived “Women of the House,” starred in the single-season sitcoms “Delta” and “DAG,” and created the memorable character of mother-from-hell Cherry Cherry on the cult hit "Popular." Burke also tackled Broadway in productions of "Steel Magnolias" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and is now on a national tour of the play "Southern Baptist Sissies."
Each of the other three original stars has also gone on to great success. Smart has been the most prominent, winning a pair of Emmys for “Frasier” and being nominated again this year for “24.” She's also been nominated for a Tony Award and had many acclaimed performances in television and films.

Carter, who was on "Designing Women" for all seven seasons, spent four years playing an attorney on the CBS drama “Family Law” and now has a juicy recurring role on “Desperate Housewives” this season with her story line beginning next month.

Potts was Emmy nominated the CBS sitcom “Love and War” then starred in the ABC drama "Dangerous Minds" in the role Michelle Pfeiffer played in the film. Potts' most memorable role after seven seasons as as Mary Jo came on the acclaimed Lifetime drama “Any Day Now” which she starred in for four years before quitting the show to spend more time with her family. She has since had a recurring role on the now-defunct CBS series "Joan of Arcadia" and starred on stage in a Los Angeles production of the play "Diva."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Oops. For readers of "Out In Hollywood" who are not regular readers of the LA Daily News Web site or newspaper, I neglected to post a DN piece I wrote last weeik on "I Love Lucy: The Movie" which was screened for an audience last Friday at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills. Here is a piece of it and a link to the entire thing.

When Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were riding high in 1953 as the stars of "I Love Lucy," they decided to capitalize on their show's popularity by signing to do the movie "The Long, Long Trailer." What is not widely known is that the release of the movie in 1954 about a couple on a rocky honeymoon meant pulling the plug on "I Love Lucy: The Movie," a feature film version of their sitcom that had already been completed.

MGM, the studio releasing "Trailer," balked because they felt that having the "Lucy" movie in theaters would interfere with the film's marketing.

"We had heard about how three episodes were adapted into a movie, and it was something we were always curious about and had been looking for," said Ron Simon, the museum's curator. "We're really fortunate that it was located. It's really one of the missing pieces of Lucy's career, and we're awfully glad to have it."

"I Love Lucy: The Movie" had a successful test screening in Bakersfield before it was shelved, then lost for many years, before being located in a CBS vault by Cahn, one of the handful of people who had been looking for it.
TThe movie was actually three episodes of the sitcom, "The Ballet," "The Benefit" and "Breaking the Lease," which were linked together with 12 minutes of specially shot footage featuring Ball, Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley — who made up the classic quartet of Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel.

The movie was a behind-the-scenes look at "I Love Lucy," which began with two audience members waiting in line for the show and then shows Arnaz warming up the studio audience and introducing the cast.

"Lucille Ball was so close to the museum and did quite a few seminars for us before she died," Simon said. "We always wanted to have as complete a "Lucy" collection as possible."

That footage as well as "I Love Lucy: The Movie" will be included in a DVD boxed set of 13 one-hour episodes of the show that aired from 1957-60. They will be released as seasons seven, eight and nine, but in a single DVD package. It is set to be released in early 2007.

And one more thing: I came across this must-see Web site for any Lucy fan (you know who you are) called Everything Lucy. Check it out!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

She was Lucy Ewing on "Dallas" for many years and last night, Charlene Tilton livened up the TV DVD Awards at the Century Plaza Hotel which she co-hosted. "I didn't even know i was doing this until yesterday!" she told me after the event. I asked her some silly questions like who was the cutest Ewing and she said her father Gary Ewing, played by Ted Shackleford, who mostly played the role on "Knots Landing." Lucy had many steamy affairs as on the prime-time soap but Charlene says her favorite was Kit Mainwaring, played by Mark Wheeler, who broke Lucy's heart when he turned out to be gay. Her uncle J.R. (Larry Hagman) had gotten them together as sort of a business merger since Kit's family had a fortune. "He came out of the closet and came out to (Lucy) and she was devastated," Tilton recalls. "This was 25 years ago and it was handled so well. They didn't use the word gay, they used homosexual. It was my favorite storyline, the best I ever had. It was so ahead of its time."
We walked down memory lane a bit and Tilton laughed at some of her character's antics over the years which included accusing her high school teacher of rape because he gave her a bad grade! "I go into the bathroom and start cutting off these expensive clothes and run out saying, 'He raped me!'"

Charlene, who has a 24 year old daughter, has kept busy since the series left the air in the last 80s with movie appearances and TV guest spots. She co-executive produced the highly-rated "Dallas Reunion: Return to Southfork" on CBS in 2004 and last year, she was on the reality show "The Farm." Next up for Tilton is an indie film she is producing on the life of Tammy Faye. Tilton will play Tammy Faye, a very vocal supporter of the gay community, who is currently fighting cancer.
"I'm honored to play her," Charlene says. "When you are in her presence, she just exudes the pure love of God. she's so non-judgmental. She came out of all that happened to her as the most loving human being."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Was introduced to "Three's Company" star Joyce DeWitt last night after the TV DVD Awards in Century City and, of course, then cornered her for an exclusive interview for Out in Hollyhwood. She could not have been nicer or looked better. Really, it was as if time had stood still since she left the airwaves as perky and loveable Janet Wood who shared her apartment with Jack Tripper (John Ritter) and Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers) and later Terri Alden (Prisilla Barnes).
With the eighth and final season of "Three's Company" just out, DeWitt told me she is ready tio give show business another try after many, many years away from the spotlight during which she traveled the world and studied different religions.
"I left and have been meditating nine hours a day for a decade," she says. "I'm in the process of going back to work.I sense it's time to participate in a larger way again. I'm not allowed to hide anymore!"
She jokes that she has a form of "organized schizophrenia" with an astrological chart that is "classical hermit" combined with showbiz leanings

The last season of "Three's Company" has DeWitt's character getting married which was how the producers worte her and Barnes out of the show which would continue on for one more season as the retitled "Three's A Crowd" with Ritter as Tripper in a new live-in relationship. "I would have had her go to law school!" DeWitt says of her character. The poor handling by producers of the transition (DeWitt and Barnes were not told they were being written off until after an episode with the new cast was already shot and it was all in motion). DeWitt was turned off acting for a long time. but whatever she was doing instead certainly has left her looking relaxed and youthful. While famously estranged from Somers ("I don't talk about that") who was fired after season five in a contract dispute, DeWitt did remain friends with Ritter who died in 2003. I told Joyce about an interview I did with Ritter about three weeks before his death for a magazine profile and he had happily told me of a dinner he had with DeWitt in New York earlier that summer. "John used to say we weren't just there to make people laugh. We were there to make them laugh so hard that they fall off their couch. We were willing to do anything to tickle your funny bone and have joy in the moment."

She is thrilled to see the success of Jason Ritter who is starring in the new CBS sitcom "The Class" and whose other roles include a role as a musician who comes out in the indie film "Happy Endings."
"Jason looks like his dad!" Dewitt says. "Then he also looks like his mom! He comes from an amazing and beautiful lineage but Jason is his own person with his own distinct talent. He marches to his own drummer. Part of what he and John enjoyed most was their adult relationship."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week marked the 55th anniversary of the day when the first episode of "I Love Lucy" was filmed -- and thank God, the show lives on and on. It has always made me so happy.

When I was in Rio last year during Carnival, two of my best friends and I would relax between parties, parades and afternoons on the beach by watching the DVD boxed set (season three) of our beloved "I Love Lucy." We know the lines by heart, laughed as hard as we ever did. We are absolute scholars on the show, just as legions of other gay men are for some reason.

Still, I'm not sure if "Lucy" lines like "I like buttered grass!" "Speeeeeeed it up a little!" "I smell cheese!" "Is it hot in here to you Joe?" "DRAT the luck!" "IIIIIIIIIIII gotta have it!" and "I'm from JAMESTOWN!" are cleverly incorporated into other people's conversations -- gay or straight -- but we never fail to crack ourselves up.

I think Lucille Desiree Ball is a comic genius, and her on-screen chemistry with the great Vivian Vance is second to none. My favorite episodes are not necessarily the iconic ones everyone thinks about like the chocolate factory, grape stomping or Vitametavegemin.

I absolutely love the episode when Lucy and Ethel lose their train tickets to Florida and have to catch a ride with a bizarre women played by Elsa Lanchester. Watch it again and look for these lines: "Hatchet!" "I like buttered grass!" "I'd like another HELPing!" "Y'all must be from the North" and a classic line reading of Lucy's when she looks at Ethel as they are changing a flat tire and says: "No kiddin."

The Hollywood episodes are gems, especially the fashion show (Ethel: "Ooooh Mr. Loper, Hello!") and the one where Lucy tries to pick a grapefruit from Richard Widmark's backyard. In that episode, my favorite part is early on in the tour bus when Lucy spars with the bus driver, and a rather large lady sits on her. When I was a kid and so starstruck, I always felt that I would have behaved much like Lucy when she was in Hollywood. I might not have stolen John Wayne's footprints from Grauman's, but I probably would have at least lit my nose on fire in front of William Holden.

I could go on and on and on, obviously. There are the episodes in Europe, of course, then the move to the country where Ethel becomes jealous of Lucy's new friend Betty Ramsey and is so deliciously snarky ("I have sufficient") during a lunch with Lucy and Betty.

I'd love to hear from some of the readers of this blog and have them share their favorite Lucy moment or episode. She's been such a wonderful part of our lives, even if most of us never met her.

My friend Frank Groff, a PR guru, was such a fan that as a kid, he called up Lucille Ball's later show ("Here's Lucy") with suggestions for plots and a few times just popped up at her house on Roxbury Drive (scary, I know, but funny) only to be turned away by her housekeeper. Finally, late in her life, Frank met Lucy at some Hollywood event and yelled out "Hi Lucy!" She looked over her shoulder and said in her by-then-gravely voice, "Hey kid." Frank loves telling that story, and so do I!

Anyway, in today's Daily News, I have a story about the ongoing business phenomenon "I Love Lucy" is on DVD and have a scoop for y'all: The 13 one-hour episodes of the show will be released in early 2007 with some terrific extras! Also, try your hand at the online Lucy quiz that I put together (with the help of a friend far, far away) and see what level of expertise you have. I'm sure Frank will ace it.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After listing the top 10 female movie kisses as chosen by AfterEllen.com, thought it would be a lot of fun to compile a list of the "Out In Hollywood" top 10 male movie kisses (That's Colin Farrell, right). The main criteria: choosing kisses that really looked like how men kiss! That eliminated such well-known scenes as Kevin Kline and Tom Selleck in "In & Out" (Grandpa and Grandma Walton generated more heat, Val Kilmer (still the best lips in Hollywood) and Robert Downey Jr. in "Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang"
and even Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean in "Making Love." They looked like two straight men kissing in this breakthrough film. Surprisingly, so did Craig Chester and Malcom Gets in "Adam & Steve" which is disappointing since both actors are gay! And while Seann William Scott and Jason Biggs won the "best on-screen kiss" prize at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards for their kiss in "American Pie 2," kisses performed on a dare just do not cut it. But read on, the studly Seann William Scott does make the list in the end.

So, here are the picks:

1. Thomas Jane and Vincent D'Onofrio in "The Velocity of Gary." This is a little seen film and may not be for all tastes but there is no denying that the first hungry, passionate kiss between the two leading men is a scorcher. They go for it and it is a beautiful cinematic thing. There is a video link to this kiss at the bottom of this post.

2. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain" Their technique doesn't come close to D'Onofrio and Jane, but they more than make up for it in passion and heart. When the two cowboy lovers see each other for the first time in several years, they kiss so intensely, they aren't even aware that the wife of Ledger's character (Michelle Williams) is watching. A well-deserved winner of the 2006 MTV Movie Award for best on-screen kiss.

3. Rupert Graves and James Wilby in "Maurice" (left) After Graves' character is emotionally-tortured for so long by his repressed and closeted love (Hugh Grant), he falls for the gardener on Grant's family estate and they kiss with reckless abandon and even end up together in the end!

4. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in "Y Tu Mama Tambien." This movie is so sexy anyway including sexy three-way dancing between the two teenaged guys and an older woman. At the end, she leads them to a night of passion where they finally express their attraction to each other.

5. Brad Hallowell and Gregory J. Lucas in "Vacationland" (below, right) Not seen much outside the festival curcuit, this gem will be on DVD this fall. The first kiss is during a daydream Halloway has an it is very sensual but a later one, after the high school football game, all their feelings go into it. There are many make-out scenes between the two so you have your pick of best kiss. As a bonus, Hallowell shares a real scorcher with his French teacher (Nathan Johnson).

6. Steve Sandvoss and Wes Ramsey in "Latter Days" The forbidden kiss is always appealing so the first one between the Morman missionary and the party boy is nice. But things kick in to an other gear entirely later on when Sandvoss' closeted character throws caution to the wind.

7. Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warneke in "My Beautiful Launderette." Late in the film, after they prepare the launderette for its grand opening, these two secret lovers have some champagne in the back room and share some very romantic kisses which includes Warneke pouring champagne down Day-Lewis' throat.

8. Ben Silverstone and Brad Gorton in "Get Real" (pictured, left) It is so heartbreaking when Gorton's character, the closeted high school jock, shows up at his not-so-closeted classmate's house drunk after the high school dance where they stared at each other, longingly, on the dance floor as they dance with their female dates. Gorton is tortured about it but less so after that first kiss.

9. Colin Farrell and Dallas Roberts in "a Home at the End of the World" (pictured at top of page) We all would have liked to see how Farrell and Jared Leto would have done locking lips in "Alexander" but as with everything else about that movie, we were sorely disappointed. But Farrell doesn't disappoint in "Home" where he has more than one kiss with Roberts. But my favorite is after they dance on the porch of their house, they lovingly kiss.

10. Seann William Scott and Ashton Kutcher in "Dude, Where My Car?" Who woulda thunk it? These two guys, playing girl crazy slackers, unexpectedly give moviegoers one of the best on-screen kisses between two men ever. They end up at a red light next to Fabio and his hot girlfriend and begin a game of one-upmanship. Fabio revves his car, Kutcher revves their car. Fabio puts his arm around the girl, Kutcher puts his arm around Scott. Fabio makes out with the girl, Kutcher makes out with Scott!

Some of these guy-guy kisses are featured on this terrific video I found on UTube that I suggest you all check out. It's heavy on the kissing scene from "Velocity" and you will see for youself why it ranked number one!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I think this item will be of particular interest to the Lesbian readers but also might get me a few more straight male readers as well. After all, we know how they love to see two women lockin' lips! I was glad to see my all-time favorite such scene included: Susan Sarandon and Catherine Denueve in "The Hunger."

AfterEllen.com has compiled a dandy top 10 list of the best lesbian kisses in film history topped off by Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon's sexy smooches (pictured,right) in 1996's "Bound." In the opening scene, Violet (Tilly) openly cruises Corky (Gershon) while riding in an elevator with her oblivious mafia boyfriend and a cat-and-mouse seduction ensues.

Rounding out the top five are: 2. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring in "Mulholland Dr.; 3. Ellen Degeneres and Sharon Stone in " If These Walls Could Talk 2" 4. Joan Chen and Anne Heche (pre-Ellen days) in "Wild Side" and 5. Ali Sheedy and Radha Mitchell in "High Art."

Maria de Medeiros and Uma Thurman's kiss in "Henry and June" was number six while Sarandon and Denueve only ranked seventh (Maybe I'll have more to say if I do an male kiss list). Rounding out the top 10:
8. Michelle Williams and Chloe Sevigny in "If These Walls Could Talk 2," 9. Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau in " Desert Hearts" and 10. Debra Winger and Glenn Headly (below) in "Eulogy."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)