Recently in Out in Books Category
When someone like Howard Bragman - who has worked intimately with everyone from Frank Sinatra to O.J. Simpson to Monica Lewinsky to Martina Navratilova - decides to write a book, you just rub your hands together with anticipation.
That book, "Where's My Fifteen Minutes?" is just out and Bragman, often been referred to as the best publicist in the business, does do some dishing in a book that aims to be a how-to guide on managing your own public image.
"We live in a society where 10 years ago celebrities had public images," he said during our recent interview. "We live in a society where a lot of people have public images now - a reporter, a lawyer, an activist, a politician - by virtue of Google, by virtue of blogs, by virtue of Facebook, more people than ever have a public image."
"Even if you just read the book, you get a little insight into PR works. I wanted to empower the average person to work on their public image," he added. "For 100 years, Hollywood has been the Olympics of image management. I'm taking our skills, our secrets and our insights from more than two decades and I'm showing how they apply to somebody in daily life. It's tough out there. It's a very, very, very challenging economy. If you want to keep your job, if you want to get a new job, if you want to run for president of the PTA, whatever you want to do, you have to do it on a public image basis. As John Kerry can tell you, if you don't define yourself, somebody else is going to define you and you probably aren't going to be as happy about the way they define you as you would about the way you define yourself."
"I'm proud of the way it's written, it's an easy read, it's a fun read with some great Hollywood anecdotes in it. It's got red ,meat, okay?"
Okay, on to some of that red meat:
O.J. Simpson: "I was in Chicago and my client was a financial printer and they were doing a golf tournament. This was about 25 years ago and O.J. was at the height of his popularity. They flew O.J. in to be at this tournament."
Bragman prepped Simpson for a television interview and stressed the importance of mentioning the sponsor that had paid thousands of dollars to fly him in.
"He didn't do it and he started yelling at me: "They didn't ask me about that!' He was just arrogant and a grumpy, nasty man which was at odds with his public image at the time."
Monica Lewinsky: A few weeks after the scandal broke, Bragman was hired to help and gave Lewinsky some advice and prepared them for interviews.
"You talk about being in the eye of the storm, it was amazing. What I told Monica recently was, 'As bad as it was, can you imagine today with the blog, the paparazzi and the agressiveness that's out there?' I didn't think it was fair that this young lady, who had made a mistake, was having to pay this heavy, heavy price."
"There were a lot of people who wanted to pay her a lot of money to do a lot of unseamly things and it was really tempting. Monica chose dignity over dollars and I have nothing but dignity and respect for her to this day. She showed a shocking amount of courage."
Doug Savant:: Bragman repped Doug Savant in the early 90s when had landed the role of a gay man on "Melrose Place."
"Most actors, when they're straight playing a gay role, they seem to go out of their way to say, 'Yeah, I play gay but I'm really straight. Here's my wife and my kids'" Bragman said. "Doug (pictured with wife Laura Leighton) played a gay guy very convincingly on 'Melrose Place' and there was a lot of buzz about 'Is he really gay?' I think it's a tribute to his acting more than anything. He wouldn't address his personal life because he felt it was insulting and by pushing his hetersexuality, he was being disrespectful to the gay community and somehow making it lesser so we joke that we kept his heterosexuality in the closet."
Paula Abdul:: "How do I put this nicely? I have a lot of respect for Paula. I think she's a survivor. She became the most famous Laker Girl ever, she became one of the most famous choreographers ever, she was number one as a pop star and now she's on the number one TV show in the world. She's got something. But I think it would be fair to say Paula is high maintenance."
He and Abdul "mutually agreed" to end their relationship and she hired a new PR person a few years back and it made headlines.
"She had a conference call that got recorded on a phone answering machine and it was leaked to Page Six of the New York Post and in it, she was criticising me. She said I called her a crying, whiny (expletive).'"
I interrupted Bragman and asked: "Did you?"
He replied: "No. It was her translation. I told her if she didn't burst into tears every 15 minutes that we could probably get more done at our meetings."
When he was contacted by Page Six, Bragman initially didn't want to comment but decided that since he wouldn't let a client get away without a reponse, he said only: "I'll stand by my reputation if she stands by hers."
"She's a good person. She has a good heart at her core. I don't like to burn bridges because listen, Paula's probably got a fifth or a sixth life."
Later, he sent her an email which said, "I'm sorry the way this ended, I'm sorry the tape was leaked. It's a small town and we're going to see each other. Next time I see you out in public, I'll give you a hug and we'll be kind and we'll get beyond this."
This is the first of a four-part series continuing Sunday (about repping Isaiah Washington during the "Grey's Anatomy" controversy), Monday (about clients Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Sargent) and Tuesday (on handling the coming out of John Amaechi and other athletes).
I received a copy of this book from author Mike Pingel lsst week and want to let you all know about a signing he has tonight (Nov. 29) @ 7:30pm
Location: Different Light Bookstore, 8853 Santa Monica Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90069
"The Q Guide to Wonder Woman"
Take a spin back to the seventies with the hit TV show and superhero Wonder Woman which starred the beautiful Lynda Carter. Learn everything you ever wanted to know about the show's history and costume design. Also featuring new interviews and the first-ever series episode guide. Author Mike Pingel wraps himself with the lasso of truth to gather and uncover everything on TV's Wonder Woman!
The Q Guide to Wonder Woman includes new and exclusive interviews with producer Douglas S. Cramer and actors S. Pearl Sharp, Stella Stevens, Joan Van Ark, Clark Brandon and Charlene Tilton.
This Q guide also includes the very first-ever complete Wonder Woman episode guide. It looks at all sixty episodes of the series. The guide uncovers little known episode tips, celebrity guest stars and Wonder Woman's super toys! Pingel also gives well-known gay celebrities his Wonder Woman survey.
Pingel also released his second book, The Q Guide to Charlies Angels this past July.
We all know that Debbie Reynolds played Grace Adler's eccentirc mother on "will & Grace" (remember the 'I Told You So' dance?). It seems that off-screen, she's just about as eccentric! I just finished reading a delicious excerpt of the new memior ("Wishful Drinking") by her daughter, Carrie Fisher, on Huffingtion Post and want to share some of my favorite parts:
I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.
I was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California. My father, Eddie Fisher, was a famous singer. My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was a movie star. Her best-known role was in Singin' In The Rain.
In the Fifties, my parents were known as 'America's sweethearts'. Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers. They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day.
When I was born, my mother was given an anaesthetic because they didn't have epidurals in those days. Consequently, she was unconscious.
Now, my mother is a beautiful woman - she's beautiful today in her 70s, so at 24 she looked like a Christmas morning. All the doctors were buzzing round her pretty head, saying: 'Oh, look at Debbie Reynolds asleep - how pretty.'
And my father, upon seeing me start to arrive, fainted. So all the nurses ran over saying: 'Oh look, there's Eddie Fisher, the crooner, on the ground. Let's go look at him.'
So when I arrived I was virtually unattended. And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since.
My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like muscle with blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents' attention, an audience.
Mom and Dad were great friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd. Mike died in a plane crash in 1958, when I was two, and my dad flew to Elizabeth's side, making his way slowly to her front. He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her by sleeping with her.
This made marriage to my mother awkward, so he was gone within the week. If Mom and Dad were Jennifer and Brad, then Elizabeth Taylor was Angelina Jolie. I saw more of Dad on television than in real life.
He later wrote his autobiography, Been There, Done That - well, he called it an autobiography, but I thought of it more as a novel. I like to call it Been There, Done Them, because it really was just about the women he'd slept with and how the sex was and what their bodies were like (so it is a feelgood read).
But after I read it, I wanted to get my DNA fumigated.
Periodically, my mother used to rent the Palm Springs house out to some people who, after one of their stays, left behind a bag of marijuana.
My mother came to me and said: 'Dear, I thought instead of you smoking pot where you might get caught and get in trouble - I thought you and I might experiment with it together.'
At the time, and let's face it - even now - I couldn't imagine anything weirder. But my mother got swept back up in the whirlwind of her life and forgot about the idea.
Once it became obvious our proposed experiment had slipped her mind, I snuck into her underwear drawer and stole the pot, subsequently experimenting my brains out in my tree house.
I must have enjoyed it because I ended up experimenting with marijuana for the next six years until it suddenly turned on me. Where at the onset it was all giggles and floating in a friendly haze, it suddenly became creepy, dark and scary.
I needed to find a replacement drug. This was when I was about 19, while I was filming Star Wars. So, after carefully casting about for a substitute substance, I finally settled on hallucinogens and painkillers. You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously.
At a certain point in my early 20s, my mother started to worry about my obviously ever-increasing drug ingestion. So she ended up doing what any concerned parent would do. She called Cary Grant
.
In the Sixties, Mr Grant famously did a course of LSD while under a doctor's supervision. So my concerned and caring mother told him that her daughter had a problem with acid and asked him to call me.
Asking a fellow star to intervene in my life seemed normal to my mother.
Some years later, I was in London en route to my mother's wedding to Richard Hamlett, her third husband (I don't like to miss any of my parents' weddings). She called me at my hotel, and when I didn't answer she became concerned.
So she let the phone ring and ring - until finally she panicked. She knew I was in the room so, in her mind, probably the only reason I wasn't answering the phone was that I had overdosed.
So she did what any normal concerned mother might do when troubled about her daughter's well-being. She called Ava Gardner. And she asked Ava to make sure I was not dead.
I live next door to my mom now. She is still a little eccentric. Whenever she calls she says: 'Hello, dear, this is your mother, Debbie.' (As opposed to my mother Vladimir or Jean-Jacques.) My brother and I talk this way to each other now: 'Hello dear, this is your brother, Todd.'
Another example of her eccentricity: she suggested several times that I should have a child with her last husband, Richard, because 'it would have nice eyes'. It hadn't occurred to her this might be odd. I think she just thought, you know, my womb was free and we're family.
A consequence of being the child of celebrities is that 'real life' is this other thing - we were always trying to determine what was going on in this distant, incomprehensible place. 'Surreal life' would have been a more appropriate description.
After my second husband, Bryan Lourd, left me, I was invited to go to a psychiatric hospital, and you don't want to be rude, so you go. My diagnosis was manic depression - today they call it bipolar disorder. In many situations you can hardly tell there's anything wrong with me - I just have too much personality for one person and not quite enough for two.
Self-described "70s gay geek author" Mike Pingel has taken his passion for 70s TV with his current release "The Q Guide to Wonder Woman" out in stores this month. Mike also recently authored "The Q Guide to Charlie's Angels," a series I know a lot more about but there are plenty of devotees of this Lynda Carter series from the 70s.
Mike tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the show's history and costume design. The book also features new interviews with producer Douglas S. Cramer and actors S. Pearl Sharp, Stella Stevens, Joan Van Ark, Clark Brandon and Charlene Tilton. This Q guide also includes the very first-ever complete Wonder Woman episode guide looking at all 60 episodes.
Mike is doing a coupla book signings in the coming days:
Golden Apple Comic Store
Saturday, November 22 @ 2:00pm
Different Light Bookstore
Saturday, November 29 @ 7:30pm
Doug Savant is such a raging hetersexual on ABC's "Desperate Housewives" that it's hard to believe there was a time when people wondered about the actor's sexuality. The reason was because Doug spent six seasons on "Melrose Place" playing the gay character of Matt. During the early part of the show's run, he didn't want viewers to know anything about his personal life.
I have an advance copy of publicist Howard Bragman's upcoming book, "Where's My Fifteen Minutes?" and in it, he shares this story: "As Doug's publicist, people were always asking about his personal sexual orientation. He is in fact heterosexual, married, and has numerous children. But Doug thought it would be insulting to the gay community if he went out of his way to say he was straight, so we kept his embarrassing heterosexuality in the closet for a long time."
Earlier posts:
-- Doug Savant proud of his gay Melrose Place role...
-- Melrose Place comes out...of the vaults!
Spent Sunday afternoon at the West Hollywood Book Festival meeting some authors and buying their books. I look forward to reading all of them and I hope I get to them sometime soon! One of them I'm half-finished with: "Robert Wagner: Pieces of My Heart." The handsome star was at the festival and participated in a one-hour Q&A before signing books - including mine. We chatted a bit about Elizabeth Taylor and I mentioned Holland Taylor who told me she wants his "Two and a Half Men" character to be brought back from the dead. "Ah, Holland Taylor," he said. "Now there's a woman."
I left the festival and headed over to Java Detour (next door to The Abbey) and ended up reading about half of the book! It was very candid and he pulled no punches. He decided he didn't want to work with his "Hart to Hart" co-star Stefanie Powers anymore after she bailed on continuing their wildly successful "Hart" TV movies after the series ended; he bluntly shares that he did not believe Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright were a love match and that she was not caring enough to him in his later years; and the ghastly behavior of Natalie's sister, Lana Wood, after her sister's death. Also, there were the ugly money battles with producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg.
He goes into detail about his life with Natalie Wood and their two marriages then her tragic death. There had been much speculation over what really happened the night of her drowning death off Catalina and R.J. gives his account here for the first time. He stayed in bed for eight days after her funeral and shares in detail the pain of her losing her.
The book details his many close friendships with the likes of David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Fred Astaire, Bette Davis Elizabeth Taylor, and many, many more.
I can't wait to read the rest!
I hate to judge but I don't understand how anyone can write a tell-all book about another family member - even if that family member is Madonna. I only give a pass to Christina Crawford who deserved to let Joan Crawford have it after the hell "Mommie Dearest" put her through (I believe every word of Christina's book).
Anyway, The Advocate has just released an excerpt from Christopher Ciccone's book "Life With My Sister Madonna" and discusses the interview Madonna gave with The Advocate in 1991 in which he says she outed him to the entire world. I guess he started taking notes for his book then.
Payback is a bitch!
The interview was in the May 7, 1991 issue, just as her movie "Truth or Dare" was about to be released and she says in part: "My brother Christopher's gay, and he and I have always been the closest members of our family."
He writes:
I was incensed. From my point of view, my sister evidently decided that outing me to the readers of the Advocate is the perfect promotional tool for the movie. Let's face it, Truth or Dare deals directly or indirectly--with sadomasochism, lesbianism, rape, a hint of incest, a dead mother, so why not a gay brother as well?
After all, Madonna used my mother's grave as a movie location, so why not use my sexuality as a publicity opportunity? I realize another reason. The gay community had been her original fan base in the eighties. Now, though, some gay fans were starting to feel that she had become too mainstream, too hetero. Her answer? Her way of winning them back? "My brother Christopher is gay."
Go to Advocate.com to read the entire excerpt.
It's been 32 years since Farrah Fawcett, Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson made their debut as TV's "Charlie's Angels."
And we can't stop talking about them! Or writing about them! I think they, and their show, remind us so much of our youth. Or maybe it's just the hair. These ladies had - and have - terrific hair. Jaclyn's hair is still so lovely that she was picked to host the Bravo reality show "Shear Genius" and Kate will be making a guest appearance this season.
Jaclyn - queen of TV movies and of a hugely successful line of Kmart clothing and other goods - said in a recent interview that the reason she was offered the hosting gig was probably because of the Emmy night appearance the three ladies made in 2007 during a tribute to Aaron Spelling. It was a surprise reunion that was, by far, the highlight of the entire show and overshadowed the fact that Tori Spelling and her mother were feuding and seated far away from each other at the Shrine Auditorium.
And all three still look sensational.
Anyway, today marks the release of a new book that looks like a lotta fun: "The Q Guide to Charlie's Angels." Author Mike Pingel (pictured with the three original Angels plus Cheryl Ladd) takes a fun "gay" look at the series which ran on ABC from 1976-81 and has forever lived on through reruns, DVDs and feature film remakes.
The female detective show was an absolute 70s phenomenon with the leads making the cover of countless magazines, including the cover of Time! Farrah was at the center of most the attention initially but she left after the first season and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd who was immediately accepted by the show's fans.
Cheryl, Kate and Jaclyn made a nice trio for two seasons before Kate - no doubt annoyed at not being allowed to accept the part that won Meryl Streep an Oscar in "Kramer vs. Kramer" - left the show.
Kate was replaced by Shelly Hack at the start of season four and the show just never recovered. Shelly, who until then was best known for her "Charlie" perfume commercials, went over so badly that she was given the boot after just one season and replaced by Tanya Roberts who was an improvement because she had some of Kate's spunk and humor.
The the show was cancelled after five seasons. In the end, Jaclyn was the only Angel to last all five years, Cheryl did four and Farrah - after being sued by producers for quitting - returned for six guest spots during seasons three and four. She, of course, went on to give Emmy nominated performances in "The Burning Bed" and "Small Sacrifices" and won acclaim for her performances in the stage and film versions of "Extremities" and in the feature "The Apostle."
OK, back to the book. I have so much "Charlie's Angels" trivia inside of me that it just spilled onto the screen before I could stop myself. So Mike Pingel, the author who you see in all these pictures, landed new interviews for the book with Farrah, Jaclyn, Kate, Cheryl and Tanya. Tanya even wrote the forward to the book!
I really don't blame Shelly for not wanting to talk about it.
"The Q Guide to Charlie's Angels" includes the history of the show, highlighted episode breakdowns hundreds of other facts on the series and interviews with guest stars. Mike will have a book signing at The Different Light Bookstore in West Hollywood, CA on July 11 at 7:30pm.
He is writing two more Q Guides for Alyson Publication, The Q Guide to: TVs Wonder Woman and The Q Guide to The Brady Bunch.
Johnny's Diaz's second book, "Miami Manhunt" is now out!
He is a terrific storyteller which he showed in his debut novel "Boston Boys Club." I like this second book even better and I think it's because Johnny changes the locale from his to his hometown of Miami Beach (He was a writer for the Miami Herald).
This book is set specifically in South Beach on the ever-hot Lincoln Road at a club called Score (anyone who's been to Lincoln Road knows about Score).
So here's a synopsis of the book and the characters Johnny has created: Ray Martinez, the resident movie critic at the Miami Chronicle, is tired of hooking up with sculpted, shallow hunks. He would give the Miami dating scene a one-star review. Ted Williams, host of a popular Miami version of Entertainment Tonight, enjoys the perks of his celebrity status but a reckless move could cost him everything. While Brian Andrews lives the life of leisure with his fabulously wealthy older boyfriend, but can't seem to shake his attraction to a Puerto Rican love god named Eros.
The book, on sale now, follows these three friends over the course of one wild year when love gets crazy, hearts get broken and mended, and the only thing to count on is the fact that life will never be the same again.
Johnny is a writer for The Boston Globe and has become a friend of mine and he, Kenneth Walsh (Kennethinthe212) became so inseparable at last year's National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Assn. convention that Johnny nicknamed us "Los tres Blogeros."
He's the only gay Latino writer in the US currently writing contemporary gay Hispanic fiction, is a Living/Arts writer for The Boston Globe, where he writes about pop culture, style trends and Hispanic-related stories. Previously, Diaz was a reporter for The Miami Herald where he shared in the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the federal seizure of Elian Gonzales and its aftermath. MTV Real World fans will remember him as the "gay guy's boyfriend" from the Miami season. Readers can visit his website at www.beantowncuban.com.
The chapter on her being cruelly passed over for the Broadway production of "Sunset Boulevard" after originating the role in London will be worth the price of the book alone! Glenn Close, who starred in the LA production, got the Broadway gig and Patti LuPone - who was contracted to do it in New York - was said to have been devastated - and completely furious. I think things from her dressing room were thrown out a window. She got back on her feet though, like any true diva, and used to $1 million-plus settlement from Andrew Lloyd Webber to build a swimming pool I seem to recall.
Patti, fresh off winning her second Tony Award Sunday for "Gypsy" (her first was for "Evita"), is working on a memoir, tentatively scheduled to be released in 2010 by Harmony Books, an imprint of Random House Inc. The book is currently untitled. I've got some ideas: "Don't Cry for Patti LuPone" or "Patti's Turn" or how 'bout "Life Went On."
The AP reports that according to the publisher, the actress will write about her whole life, "From her beginnings in Northport, Long Island, where she discovered that being onstage was the one place she couldn't get into trouble, she takes us on the roller-coaster of professional highs ... and emotional lows (her humiliating firing from 'Sunset Boulevard,' nightclub work in the Catskills to pay the bills)."
Patti;s other stage credits include the original London company of "Les Miserables" and Broadway revivals of "Sweeney Todd" and "Anything Goes." She has also appeared in such films as "Witness," "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Summer of Sam," as well as four seasons as Libby on the ABC series "Life Goes On."
Here is Patti's bring down the house performance pf "Everything's Coming Up Roses" on Sunday night's Tony Awards. Gives you a good indication of why she won!
He was television's "Perry Mason" and "Ironside" and told the world he was too busy working to get married again. Raymond Burr had long maintained that he had been married and had a wife and son who died. Unlike Rock Hudson, who actually did get married briefly to try and cover his homosexuality, Burr made the whole thing up!
In the new book, "Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret Life of Raymond Burr", the actor once lectured a reporter during an interview when he was asked why he had not remarried: "I am an unmarried man, as opposed to a single man. A bachelor, according to the dictionary, is a man who has never been married. An unmarried man is not married at the moment. Many of these terms have fallen into disuse."
It's true, he was an unmarried man. But he was also a man who had a partner named Robert Benevides for 35 years that was secret to most of the world except for a handful of close friends.
The author of the book, Michael Starr, was on "Good Morning America" this week and interviewed by the extremely hot Chris Cuomo. The show's site has an excerpt from the book posted.
It is sad that he felt forced to lie about his private life. As the star of a top-rated show, there was scrutiny and being gay would have been a career killer. You gotta figure there are plenty of actors still hiding for cover today but let's hope that such out actors as Ian McKellen, John Barrowman, Neil Patrick Harris, Robert Gant, Chad Allen, T.R. Knight, Luke MacFarlane, Alec Mapa, Wilson Cruz, Charlie David and others are showing that you can be out and proud and still have a successful career.
I write a "Whatever Happened To..." column each week for my newspaper and thought Cindy Birdsong, the singer who joined Diana Ross and Mary Wilson in 1967 (replacing Florence Ballard) would be an ideal subject since she has mostly kept a low-profile in recent decades.
I sent a note to her via her MySpace page and received this prompt reply:
Dear Greg,
My name is Jim (Alias Motown Jim) here on MySoace and am managing Cindy's page for her. I spoke with her last night and she told me she wants to hold back for a while with anymore interviews, as she is still busy writing her final chapters to her book."
Jim said she would get in touch when the time is right. While I was disappointed to not snag an interview with this Motown legend, I'm so intrigued about her writing a book! What a story she could tell from being a member of Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells then being plucked from that group to become a member of the most successful female singing group of all time.
Cindy, Mary and Diana performed and recorded together for three years before Diana left for a solo career. The group went on with replacement singers and Cindy, I believe, ended up being a Supreme longer than anyone other than Mary who stayed with the group in its various incarnations for close to 20 years.
I hope she will dish although I don't expect her to settle scores the way Mary did in her 1986 best seller "Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme." But, you never know! Cindy was on the stage 25 years ago at the group's first reunion in 14 years and Diana ended up shoving Mary and their medly of songs was cut short halfway into "Someday We'll Be Together."
The drama!
Then in 2000, there was the scintillating possibility of Diana, Mary and Cindy reuniting again for a concert tour but negotiations fell apart over money. Diana and Mary gave dueling interviews to Barbara Walters while Cindy stayed above the fray it seemed. Diana went on tour with two later Supremes who she had never performed with and her "Return to Love" tour was such a disaster that it had to be cancelled midway through leaving ticketholders (like me!) majorly disappointed.
Anyway. good luck with the book Miss Birdsong!
Here are a few clips of Cindy performing as one of the Supremes. The first is Diana's final TV appearance with the Supremes in 1970 on Ed Sullivan singing "Someday We'll Be Together" and the second clip is a post-Ross hit "Stoned Love" with her replacement, Jean Terrell, in the lead. It's terrific!
Don't you just love sitting by the pool reading a good, dishy book. I'm reading Julie Andrews' "Home" right now, am looking forward to Barbara Walters' "Audition" out next week and most of all, John Barrowman's new book: "Anything Goes." Love, love , love John Barrowman whose book has been excerpted on Out.com.
Here is part of a story John tells about being invited by The Royal Air Force to be part of the Tattoo launch partly because Captain Jack is in the RAF:
I eventually emerged from the Hawk as if I'd been doing this all my life, which in Captain Jack's world, of course, I had. In my world, though, this was the experience of a lifetime. In fact, I was so high from the adrenalin rush and so in awe of the Hawk itself, I was almost speechless.4
Despite my best intentions, I did finally crash that day. After all the interviews were completed, I changed back into my civvies, climbed in to my car, and collapsed. I was physically a wreck. My equilibrium was shot. I couldn't hold my head up without tidal waves of nausea washing over me. My complexion turned Daz white with a hint of Palmolive green under my eyes, and because of the G-forces my chest and legs felt as if they'd been pummeled with a baseball bat. To make matters worse, the drive back to Cardiff was through narrow, winding country roads, where trying to keep perfectly still was like asking George Michael to stay out of public toilets. Not going to happen.
Yet if I was ever asked to do this again--in fact, if I was ever asked to repeat any of my experiences--I'd have to say, fuck it, bring them on. I've no regrets.
This is what it means to be alive.
Monica Seles showed on Tuesday night's "Dancing With the Stars" that she's a far better tennis player than she is a dancer.
But one thing Monica has in spades is courage and heart. On Wednesday, the former top-ranked female player in the world announced that she is working on a memoir.
Monica officially retired from the sport this year but has not played for several years due to a bad foot. She had won three French Opens titles in a row, three Australian Opens and two U.S. Opens by the age of 19 when a madman stabbed her in the back with a knife during a match in Germany.
It took Monica more than two years to recover physically and emotionally and she returned to win many more titles. In a statement, she said that in her book, she wants "to share how I found balance, strength and happiness in my life after a rollercoaster ride of exhilarating accomplishment and sometimes overwhelming tragedy."
Whatever happens on "Dancing," this woman is a winner.
Was at the Barnes & Noble at The Grove this morning doing a post-breakfast browse and spotted on the bookshelf "The Q Guide to Designing Women" by Allen Crowe. Regular readers of this blog know that this is one of my favbrite shows of all time . I had written a series of newspaper articles and blog posts about a "Designing Women" reunion that took place in the fall of 2006. It gave me the opportunity to interview star Dixie Carter and creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason before the event. At the event, I got a second-row seat directly behind Delta Burke and met all four of the main leads: Burke, Carter, Jean Smart and Annie Potts. It was heaven.
A short time later, the author had called me to interview me for the book. I didn't give it another thought until I saw the book this morning. I saw my name in the acknowledgments and as I leafed through it, found myself quoted in Chapter 12 ("The Cast's Favorite Episodes") on pages 124 and 135).
The episode he writes about is "They Shoot Fat Women, Don't They?" Here's the excerpt: In addition to "Dash Goff, the Writer," the episode when Delta first met Gerald McRaney, her favorite show was the one dealing with her weight issues. Los Angeles Daily News entertainment journalist Greg Hernandez also picked this as his favorite episode. He was very moved by a conversation between Julia and Suzanne the morning after Suzanne's high school reuniin: "Julia told Suzanne, 'In the end all that matters is what was true and truly felt.' As a closeted gay man (at the time), it really resonated with me. It was something to go on and try to live by."
A few pages later, the author provides the entirety of what Julia said to Suzanne - words that have stuck with me forever: "In the end it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about you. You have to be exactly who and what you want to be. Most everyone is floating along on phony public relations. People who say being beautiful or rich or thin makes them happy. People who are trying to make their marriages and their children seem better than they actually are. And for what?! Appearances. Appearances don't count for diddly! In the end, all the really matter is what was true and truly felt and how we treated one another."
THE EMMY THAT GOT AWAY: Delta Burke was nominated for her first Emmy Award for her performance in the episode but had the misfortune of going up against Candice Bergen who won her second (of five overall) Emmy that year for "Murphy Brown."
Related posts:
- A Night with the Designing Women: Part One
- A Night with the Designing Women: Part Two
- The Dazzling Designing Women
Rosie's book, "Celebrity Detox," hasn't even come out yet but little tidbits are being "leaked." According to "The Insider," Rosie reveals a painful childhood secret that is much worse than the time Oprah smashed her glasses then made it look like her house had been broken into to cover up her deed.
She writes that as a child, she used to break her own limbs with "a baseball bat" or a "wooden hanger." "My hands and fingers usually. No one knew. My secret." Why? "Proof," she writes, "that I had some value, enough to be fixed." And later, Rosie cryptically adds, "There were many benefits to having a cast. In the middle of the night, it was a weapon."
OK, I have no idea why she needed a weapon in the middle of the night but it can't be good. Anyway, Rosie's book comes out on Oct. 9.
Who needs her on "Hot Topics" when we have Rosie O'Donnell's memoir "Celebrity Dextox."
Yesterday, I posted about her and Trump with much glee but I'm disappointed in some of the things Rosie wrote about Barbara Walters.
“At some point, a person gets tired. It’s inevitable,” O’Donnell writes, "Barbara Walters is almost twice my age ... at some point it becomes necessary to step back....Everyone has to go. Going is part of the gig.”
Walters may be 77, but she is a pro. She looks terrific, she shows up and she has much to contribute not just to "The View" but as part of ABC News where she has worked for 30 years. Walters report on transgendered children earlier this year was one of the most important pieces of journalism on the topic - ever.
So Rosie, I don't agree and think what you wrote was off-the-mark. I'm still a fan, but maybe a little less.
Walters, who has read the book, expressed her reaction to it in a statement to “Access Hollywood”:
“Rosie has written a sad book, but I choose to focus on the happier times that we had and the happy times that we hope to have in the future.”
When Rosie O'Donnell goofed on Donald Trump last year on "The View," he went on a rampage, going on various shows to call her fat and to say Barbara Walters wants her off the show etc. In my opinion, he made a big jackass of himself.
Rosie writes about it some in her forthcoming memoir "Celebrity Detox" ...
"It is Trump's falseness that angers me more than anything . . . I spoke my mind. People found it funny. I honestly did not anticipate the malice of his response...I assumed Donald believed he had money. I did not assume Donald believed he was money. But apparently he does...The stuffing of his self spilled out - think of a torn scarecrow, only instead of hay, it's crisp $100 bills blowing through the cornfields."
Rosie also said Trump reminds her of "garden slugs. I could write one small comment on my blog, and Donald would predictably distend, flowing forth with a torrent of insults...Then he'd appear on some talk show looking wrinkled, old and empty, with a Jell-O orange combover. I did not anticipate that he would be cruel enough to do what he did to Barbara [Walters - whom he called a liar]. She should have been left alone."
Well put.
I found this blog entry on Rosie.com amusing:
so i just got my first hard copy of my new book
CELEBRITY DETOX
there on the front flap
in print
“when rosie odonnells mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1968, ten year old rosie thought fame could cure her”
i was born in 1962
my mother got sick in 1973
WTF !!!!!!!!!!
i feel like jeff lewis right now
i want to scream
NO ONIONS at every one
Rosie later reported that the book flap issue had been resolved. Can't wait to read it!
This is the cover of Lance Bass' forthcoming book which he posted for fans on his MySpace page (would Elton approve?) I love how Lance continues to grow as an out gay man and come so far from a year ago when he was a self-proclaimed S.A.G. (Straight Acting Gay) and didn't think he'd become some kind of gay spokesman. He is evolving and it only seems to be making him happier (well, that and the hot Brazillian boyfriend).
He writes: "... I just want to say I do not want my book to flop! One funny night I decided to "jokingly" say "oh it will probably flop" to a TMZ "reporter". (like all my quotes?) Again it was a joke. Im not an idiot-- I wrote this book so that it might help those out there interested in the music industry, space, and/or coming out story. "
He also shares this: "Rehearsal is going great for Hairspray and I am having the best time ever!! I hope you all get to see it, because it really is an amazing show and the cast is incredible!"
He starts his Broadway run August 14 and will be with the show through Jan. 6, 2008. "But, remember I am taking 2 weeks off to do book tour mid October. Made a photo album just for the book tour-- so every city I can post all the pics of you all!"
Lance also throws out some props to his great pal and fellow NSYNC bandmate Joey Fatone: "How great is Joey doing on NBC's The Singing Bee?!! Such a great show!!"
On Wednesday night, after the Outfest party at The Abbey, I decided to head over to A Different Light Bookstore on Santa Monica Boulevard. I could barely get in the door!
No, NOT because I had drank two vodkas with pink grapefruit juice at The Abbey, it was hard to get in because there was this huge crowd listening to readings from a intriguing new book "Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust, and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men." I quickly made my way to the front (pushy reporters just know how to do that I guess) and settled in. Glad I did. These essays look beyond the Will & Grace cliches these gay man-straight female relationships that have also been prominent in such shows as "Sex and the City" and the books and miniseries from "Tales of the City." Through 28 personal essays, the book delves deeper look into the complexity and varieties of straight woman/gay man relationships in the real world.
After the readings had ended and the book signings began, I gabbed with Melissa de la Cruz (pictured, right) who is one of the editors (along with Tom Dolby) of the just-published anthology. She was very excited by the turnout and the response from the crowd. You could hear a pin drop during the readings by several of the authors who showed up to share their stories. She herself is a contributor to the anthology with "A Manhattan Love Story" which details the intensely intimate relationship she had during and post-college with her gay friend, Morgan. She has commented that straight women and gay men seek each other out because they are natural allies since both have both been marginalized. They can be honest with each other without the sexual tension.
Of course, the experiences shared in the book vary. Theater director Philip Himberg wrote moving story of his high school girlfriend, who is now the mother of his child, and read it Wednesday night for the crowd. (That picture is Himberg and his daughter at the reading) His essay alone is worth the price of the book it is so good, so well told, and so real. It took me back to high school and to a time when gay boys like me really could hurt the girls who loved us and didn't understand why we didn't love them back...at least romantically.
For more information about the book and to buy it, here is a link to AMAZON.com.
About Out
in Hollywood
Greg Hernandez authored Out In Hollywood for the Daily News from June 2006 to February 2009. He can now be found at Greg In Hollywood: www.greginhollywood.com
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