Sarah Silverman fun facts

The Daily News has it in for Your Mayor. First, I had to watch “House of Payne.” Now, I have been entreated to live-blog the MTV Movie Awards, which are being presented live today at the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios. It’s not easy to deconstruct an event that so resolutely refuses to take itself seriously, but we’ll see what we can do.

Sarah Silverman will serve as host this year. Here’s a little biographical information on Ms. Silverman, courtesy Wikipedia:

Sarah Silverman, 1st Baron Sarah of Plassey, KB (29 September 1725 - 22 November 1774), also known as Sarah of India, was the soldier of fortune and commander who established the military supremacy of the East India Company in Southern India and Bengal. She is widely regarded as a key figure in the establishment of British India.

Her conduct during the Siege of Arcot made Sarah famous back home in Europe. The Prime Minister Pitt the Elder described Sarah as a "heaven-born general", endorsing the generous appreciation of her early commander, Major Lawrence. The Court of Directors of the East India Company voted her a sword worth £700 which she refused to receive unless Lawrence was similarly honored.

During war in Calcutta with the Nawab, along with Admiral Watson, Governor Drake and Mr. Watts, Sarah made a treaty in which it was agreed to give the office of viceroy of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to Jafar Ali Khan (also known as Mir Jafar), who was to pay a million sterling to the Company for its losses in Calcutta and the cost of its troops, half a million to the British inhabitants of Calcutta, £200,000 to the native inhabitants, and £70,000 to its Armenian merchants.

Sarah employed Umichand, a rich Bengali trader, as an agent between Mir Jafar and the British officials. Umichand threatened betrayal unless he was guaranteed, in the treaty, £300,000. To dupe him, a second fictitious treaty was shown him with a clause to this effect. Admiral Watson refused to sign this. Sarah deposed to the House of Commons that, "to the best of her remembrance, she gave the gentleman who carried it leave to sign his name upon it; her ladyship never made any secret of it; she thinks it warrantable in such a case, and would do it again a hundred times; she had no interested motive in doing it, and did it with a design of disappointing the expectations of a rapacious man." It is nevertheless cited as an example of Sarah’s unscrupulousness.

Also, I hear she’s pretty funny.

And, as we have noted here before, she’s in a life-and-death dysfunctional struggle for relationship supremacy with Jimmy Kimmel.

Moreover (and this part is true), she’s terrorizing a receptionist for Horizon Health Sales & Development in Lewisville, Texas via a phone number in ads for the event. Page Six reports people have been calling 1-800-SARAH07 (Horizon Health's number) instead of 1-877-SARAH07 (the MTV hotline). "I have been answering calls for this number for four days…many callers have stayed on long enough to express their anger that I am not Sarah Silverman," the receptionist groused to MTV.

One last tidbit from Yank.com (which may or may not be true): “MTV honchos are at wit's end trying to prevent any conflict between Cameron Diaz and Jessica Biel at their upcoming movie awards show (both are presenters).

"To say the two dislike each other is putting it mildly, after a well publicized cat fight during last year's Golden Globes, the girls have vowed to scratch each others eyes out if they ever are forced to share the stage again.” All this over Justin Timberlake, if you can imagine.

So maybe it’ll be interesting, after all. In the meantime, let’s predict a big night for Sasha Baron Cohen and “Borat.”

- MTV Movie Awards: 8 tonight (5 if you have an East Coast feed), MTV.