A Wild & Crazy Groom.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. and Mrs. Steve Martin.

Yes, that wild and crazy guy has run off and gotten married again! It seems like every time I regain consciousness, Steve Martin has gotten married. Who is he kidding? The man is 61 and this is only his second marriage. If he were a truly committed heterosexual, he'd be on at least his fifth wife. At his age, I had been married at least nine times that I know of, and bear in mind, when I was 61, I had only just turned 30, so I was really working it. That's because, to me, marriage is a sacred institution (Or is that a scarred institution?), and if I must be in an institution (And there are many who say I belong in one, though what does that idiot judge know?), I'd prefer it to be a sacred one.

As it happens, Steve's new wife is really new. She's - what? - three weeks old? All I know is that when I first saw Steve perform, in The Birdcage Theater at Knott's Berry Farm in 1964, Mrs. Steve Martin hadn't been born yet. I'm not certain her parents had even met. Now, I'm not saying that Steve is robbing the cradle. It's more of a loan. After all, it's not like he's going to out-live her.

We all know and love Steve for being a brilliant and tremendously original comedian. When one remembers all the great comic characters he created, like Ernie Bilko and Inspector Clouseau, one can't help but admire his genius,




And his amazing career in movies has enriched all our lives. Think of all the great, original movies Steve has made. Who else has made so many never-before-seen pictures? No recycling for Steve. Everything is fresh, as in these classics:

And elderly as Steve is, he's not through yet. He has three brand-new, completely original movies, all done and ready to unreel. Are you as anxious as I am to see these? I wonder what they'll be about?

But I'm here today to describe his wedding. What an event! First Steve took up his place at the alter. Then the organist hit up Here Crawls the Bride, as his gorgeous bride came down the aisle in her father's arms, dressed in beautiful white diapers. Then the minister stepped up and said, "Dearly beloved, I'm Chris Hanson, and this is Dateline NBC. Wildandcrazyguy61, I have your emails to Toddler4 right here. Do you really think this is an appropriate proposal to send a girl young enough to be your daughter?" To which Steve replied, "Well, excuuuuuse ME!"

There wasn't a dry seat in the house, at least on the bride's side.

Cheers darlings.

Rancid Prince of Bel Air

Don't panic darlings, at the sight of this softcore image above. I'm just celebrating that this is my 69th entry in this flog. Who ever knew I could take a flogging for 69 strokes? But as it happens, 69 is my lucky number. In fact, who doesn't feel lucky in a 69? Let's face it, when you're name is Morehead, "Facing It" pretty much always means 69.

Now, on to business: America's favorite Royal, Prince Fredric Von Anhalt Gabor, is at it again. On Thursday, Prince Freddie was found by the Beverly Hills police, in the backseat of his (Zsa Zsa's) Rolls Royce, naked. I hope those poor officers got special bonuses for the damage to their eyes. Poor darlings. When you're a police officer, you go to work each day knowing someone may shoot and kill you, but not that you may have to see Prince Freddie naked. These poor officers probably wished they'd been shot, or that Freddie had been.

Now let's be honest here; who hasn't spent time time naked in the back of a Rolls Royce? I've ended up naked, end up, in the back of Rolls Royces more times than I can shake your stick at, but not for the reasons given by Freddie. Here's Freddie's story of how he ended up on Bellagio Road, behind the the Bel Air Country Club, starkers:


Prince Gabor told the incredulous police that three "Hot" women in a white Chrysler convertible pulled up alongside him and said they were fans of his and wanted him to pose with them for pictures. He said he stopped, got out, posed with them, and hugged them, and then one of the women put a handgun to his neck and said, "Give us your [Zsa Zsa's] money." He said they took $1,800 in cash, along with jewelry, all his clothing, and his car keys -- but not the Rolls Royce -- and left.

Here's an image of Freddie's version of events:

Does this sound remotely plausible to anyone? First off, does anyone drive convertibles anymore? When did you last see a convertible? During your last visit to a drive-in movie theater?

But still harder to believe is the idiotic concept that Prince Freddie has "Fans". People have fans because they've done something or are someone people find admirable or entertaining. Sleazeball, overage gigolos do not have fans. What did he think these "Hot" women admired him for? His marrying a woman twice his age for her money and fame when he himself is way over the hill? His shameless publicity-seeking? His groundless claim to be a "Prince"? His absurd, now utterly disproven claim to be the father of Baby Dannalyn? His boasting of an imaginary affair with a brain dead bimbo? His announcing to the press that he'd cheated on his wife, or his threats to sue Bill O'Reilly for pointing out that it was all a crock of crap, as it was medically proven to be? Now that I see his "Accomplishments" all written down, I want his autograph too. What a pillar of society! He's hot!

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that some women did get him to pull over and pose for mug shots - I mean pictures - with them, and did pull a gun on him. Well, he says he hugged them. No wonder they pulled a gun on him. It was undoubtedly to stop his hugging them. Ew! If he'd just been earning his going-out money, that means he'd probably just made love to Zsa Zsa. She's 90 and bedridden. He probably had that Old Lady Smell, which is nothing like New Car Smell. Speaking as an old lady myself, often when I enter a room, someone inevitably asks, "Who brought the Limburger?"

What probably actually happened, if indeed anything at all did happen, and he wasn't just caught right after the hooker left, before he could redress, was most likely something like this:

As you can see, I doubt it was "Hot" women who held him up, if indeed anyone at all did. But, to be fair, when you've been married to Zsa Zsa for as long as Freddie has, any woman looks hot. If he'd been held up by Roseanne, Rosie O'Donnell, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer, he'd still have described them as hot. Given the opportunity, he'd probably chase me around the room, even after reading this flogging.

He says they took him for $1800. Where would Prince Freddie get $1800? Oh yes, Zsa Zsa.

Let's face it; would any actual hot women ever want to see Prince Freddie naked? My guess is that even Zsa Zsa insists all the lights be out. But you have got to give the sleazeball credit. He sees young upcoming sleazeballs snatching the headlines away from him everyday: Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Tom Sizemore, George Michaels, Screech, yet he knows how to grab those headlines back with originality. No boring, banal stuff like getting caught driving drunk, with pockets full of "Someone else's" cocaine for him. No, he's a victim of Hot Muggeresses and forcibly denuded, while Zsa Zsa is robbed long distance.

In other matters, if you watched tonight's episode of Doctor Who, you're probably wondering how accurate the portrayal of me was. Well, they got my hair color right, and they did portray me as a star, albeit on stage in New York in 1930, when I was actually in Hollywood that year, filming The Godawful Truth and An Affair to Forget. My voice is deeper and I don't have that accent. Also, I'm far more beautiful, but otherwise, it was right on the nose. Certainly I was always being pursued by men who were literally pigs, and those damn Daleks were every bit as obnoxious as the show portrayed them.

Of course, the cliffhanger ending, with me in peril of being exterminated by those nasty old Daleks, has all of America on the edges of their seats. Well part two next Friday should alleviate your fears. And no, I don't seduce the Daleks. You think they looked yucky when they opened up and sucked in that young man? Well they deliberately made them look less horrifying for television. Below is a cutaway I saved from back when it really happened, so you can see just what those disgusting monsters actually look like inside their giant pepperpots. Prepare yourself. It's gruesome in the extreme.

Cheers darlings.

Doctor Whom, I Presume?

Darlings, I've been fictionalized!

Little Dougie has had me watching the new Doctor Who series from the BBC Wales that's been running on the Sci-Fi channel. I am of course synonymous with science fiction. I was the star of one of the first great science fiction movies of all time, the fantastic silent movie Beyond Belief, directed by the German genius Fritz Bumsen. For a lovely look at a rare color still from the picture (It was shot in black & white of course.), scroll down to the end of my July 5th flogging. Among my other science fiction movies are THAT!, Bride of the Blob, Doctor Scary, and Frankenstein's Reason for Living. People often take one look at me in films and say, "Must be science fiction! There's no other possible explanation."

The new Doctor Who is in it's third season now, and is better than ever, which is saying something, given that the show is almost older than I am. It originally went on the air 27 minutes after TV was invented, while it was still silent. The first new Doctor, Chris Eccleston, jumped Tardis after one season, and Little Dougie decided that he should be the new Doctor, despite the fact that he is not even an alien (No really; he's not.), and I should be the new companion. Here's a photo from the audition tape we shot. Notice how Dougie uses make-up and soft-focus to try and simulate his appearance of 20 years ago. Pathetic, isn't it?

Needless to say, they were not so foolish as to hire Douglas. Little Dougie thought he had a shot since Russell T. Davies, the show-runner, is a big old homo, and the creator of the homolicious series Queer as Folk, the TV version of Dougie's life back in the 1980s.. Dougie was all-set for a casting couch session, but even Davies isn't that much of a homo. However, it must have given them ideas, as Dougie is of Scottish origin, and they did end up hiring a Scotsman, Little David Tennant, whom you can see in the picture at the top of this flogging, auditioning me to be his companion.

They begged me to do it, but I am retired. Shooting 14 hour-long shows a year when you're 110 is just too taxing. These days I can act or I can drink, but I don't have the energy for both. I believe that a person must have their priorities straight, except for Little Dougie, whose priorities are anything but straight, or I should say "Straight to any butt." My priorities are clear and sensible; drinking won.

So they did the next best thing: they wrote an episode of the show about me, and hired some little wanna-be actress named Miranda Raison to play me, in an episode called Daleks in Manhattan. I have plenty of experience working with Daleks, having worked for the great movie moguls back in Hollywood's Golden Age. Here's a lovely old picture of me with Louie B. Mayer and Jack Warner back in 1939.

So they shot a two-part story about the Daleks trying to make me their slave/concubine in New York City, back in 1939. Talk about suspense; it's one thing for the Doctor to save planets from being conquered by Cybermen or the Slitheen, but imagine the horror for mankind if the Daleks deprived the world of ME! Pure blood-curdling terror! Let me tell you, there is nothing like Dalek sex. Those plungers come with optional attachments that are amazing! When they start shrieking "COP-U-LATE! COP-U-LATE!" it's an out-of-this-world experience.

The program will air in the United States this week, on The Sci-Fi Channel. Part one will air Friday July 27, and part two will air August 3rd. Consult your local listings. Now remember, you will not be seeing the real me. You will be seeing this Miranda Raison person playing me. What a great role for a nobody actress, even though she will never be more than a pale reflection of my true glamour.

And be prepared for a BBC-TV budget. Remember, it's all shot overseas. In fact here's a look at their location shoot for Daleks in Manhattan. It looks more like The Bronx to me. Trust me; there's no clock face on the Empire State Building. But then, ask not for Doctor Whom the clock tolls. It tolls for ME!

Cheers darlings.

No Preservatives

A couple weeks ago I watched the American Film Institute give their Lifetime Achievement Award to Al Pacino. First off, I am terribly saddened to learn Al has only a few months to live, which is certainly the only reason I know to honor that showboating overactor. They only give Lifetime Achievement Awards to dying people. They are really called Lifetime Achievements Are Over Awards.



Yes I know they gave one to Tom Hanks, and I'm glad he went into an unexpected remission (I suspect he became a Christian Scientist like me, and "Knew the Truth" and was thus miraculously healed.), but we all know that his award wasn't supposed to be taken seriously. It was a practical joke that got completely out of hand, like the Supreme Court's little practical joke of declaring George Dubya Bush President when they knew perfectly well that Al Gore had won the election. It never occurred to them that anyone would take them seriously. But the damned jerk was inaugurated before they could say "December Fool."

Secondly, every time they hand one of those trinkets out, I get card and letter asking why I, the first real star of the movies, and the second oldest nearly-living member of SAG, has never received AFI's Lifetime Achievement Award. I might add that Charles Lane's family are asking the same question about him. The man had appeared in more than three times as many movies as Al, and never overacted.

The American Film Institute and I have an odd relationship. Go through their files; they like to pretend I don't even exist! If I don't exist, then how are you reading this? I couldn't write something if I wasn't real, could I? I rest my case.

The stated purpose of the American Film Institute is to preserve American Films, yet for me alone, they have set up a special team of Anti-preservationists; basically a team of film destroyers, working day and night to see that more of my films are lost.

Readers of my almost-acclaimed autobiography, My Lush Life, are aware that many of my silent films, The Human Woman, Silent Echoes, Tramp Steamer, and others, are now lost. Well, just since my book came out in 2002, several more of my films, which did still exist then, have become lost. What gives?

The lovely photo just below is from my 1932 musical Broadway Bimbos. That's adorable little Paisley Tine hugging me. Little Paisley is completely forgotten today, even by himself. He was only in four movies. Only one of those, Broadway Monotones of 1931, still exists, and it's scheduled for demolition next month! Little Paisley wasn't terribly masculine, and hugging a woman on camera, as he is doing with me in this picture, often made him physically nauseous. Shouldn't his professionalism in the face of enormous replusion be rewarded rather than eradicated?




When my book came out, you could still see Broadway Bimbos, usually on the now-defunct cable channel TCM-2, the TCM sister channel, on which "TCM" stood for "Terribly Crappy Movies." Now however, there are no known prints left. (By coincidence, TCM are my initials: Tallulah Clytemnestra Morehead.)


I suppose, in a way, it's my fault. In my book, I tell of how the demented movie hag Delores Delgado attacked the screening of my beloved debut film, Heat Crazed, at The French Academy of Cinema Art back in 1959, when I was awarded the title Commandeutrix des Arts et Lettres, recognizing me as a Genius every bit the equal of Jerry Lewis. Delores destroyed the only known print of the original ending of the movie. (This ending was never seen in America, as it's starkly dramatic depiction of Latin Lover Supreme Gilbert Rolaids making love to me right after he had strangled me to death, was considered too outré for American filmgoers in 1915.)

The AFI read this passage, and apparently said, "Why didn't we think of that?" Since then, they have devoted themselves to eradicating my remaining work from existence.

Is the little child in this picture not adorable? It's me back in 1907, a mere, fleeting century ago, when I was touring in vaudeville as "Baby Tallulah, the World's Youngest Bartender." The head of that precious doll I am clutching could unscrew, and inside was a quart flask filled with only the finest quality Scotch whisky. I called that doll Little Loopy. How I loved her. I used to refer to the liquid gift you received when you removed her noggin as her "Giving Head," until my mother overheard me.

It's a measure of how far my career eradication has progressed, that that photo, the only one I know of from my Baby Tallulah days, comes not from a theatrical flyer or playbill, but from a wanted poster. (Something to do with Child Labor Laws. Let's face it, my act never did go over in Utah.)

Do you realize how hard it is to lose all prints of a movie that is out on DVD? The AFI film "Restorers" have even tried going door-to-door, attempting to confiscate DVDs of my early movies. Further, they have laid hands on the prints and negatives of many of my movies that were transferred onto Safety Stock, and are now engaged in transferring them back onto highly flammable nitrate film stock, and then storing them in a tin shed in the middle of the Mojave Desert, doused in gasoline (As a "Preservative"), padded with oily rags, and placed between enormous canisters of oxygen, which have rather unusually been made from plastic.

If you saw the AFI TV special The 100 American Movies We'd Most Like to Lose Forever, 43 of the movies on the list were mine! It was the most TV exposure I've had since my short-lived TV quiz show I hostessed, Blotto, went off the air back in 1958, and all they did was insult me!

In recent years, several more of my films have been irretrievably lost, including Fleshpot, Illicit Plaything, Mayfair Madness, Amok, and The Naked Nudist. Below is a lovely shot of me in the delightful musical Dancing in the Drink. It's being transferred onto nitrate stock, the soundtrack being sabotaged, and scratches being added to the images at this very moment. If you ever want to see it, stop AFI immediately!

And get me my damned Lifetime Achievement Award while you're at it. It's too late for Charles Lane. Don't let it be too late for me as well.

Cheers darlings.

Oh What a Bagdad Had.

An addendum to my previous flogging on the deaths of Kerwin Matthews and Charles Lane:

First off, I keep reading how Charles Lane was "The oldest surviving member of SAG." Excuse me? May I remind everyone that I am some eight years older than Charlie, and I have been a member of SAG since back when it stood for Sophoclean Athenian Guys? Not only does my SAG card number have only a single digit, but they named the Guild "SAG" in my honor!

That's right! I am The Second Oldest Surviving Member of SAG! Charlie was Number Three; I am still Number Two. In fact, many fine critics have stated over the years that I have been Number Two for decades!

And who is Number One? I'm not allowed to tell you. Let's just say that this "Golden Girl" is still lying about her age. (And she didn't even play the oldest character on that show! She still refers to her never-ending, age-deception as a "White Lie." Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

Now to another matter. In memory of dearly departed and forever gorgeous Kerwin Matthews, I re-watched The 7th Voyage of Sinbad last night for the first time in some years. I've already mentioned that it features some of the whitest Christian people this side of Ozzie & Harriet as Islamic, Iraqi Arabs.

Well, in the plot of the movie, Sinbad has to restore his princess girlfriend, Kathryn Crosby, to life-size, after she has shrunk down to where she's smaller than his penis, thus rendering their whole relationship pointless, before Bing Crosby finds out about it, or Bagdad will go to war!

Yes, everything Sinbad does in the entire movie is done to prevent war from breaking out in Bagdad! Sort of renders the entire movie moot. He defeats a dragon, a cyclops, and a skeleton, but Dick Cheney is more evil than even Sinbad can defeat.

Bagdad in the movie doesn't resemble the one on TV very much. For one thing, there aren't any real Arabs. And everyone is alive. The buildings are gorgeous, undamaged palaces (Actually shot at The Alhambra in Spain.). There are no bombed-out ruins. Instead of torn, dirty rags and bloody bandages, everyone wears brightly colored, silk brocade. (Kerwin wears two lovely turbans that I lent him for the shoot.) You never see John McCain at the bazaar. There are no ox-cart bombs. You never learn if Sinbad is a Shi'ite or a Sunni.

Oh, and Bagdad is a seaport in the movie! After watching the picture, I am now suing Rand & McNally, who always were a lousy comedy team anyway (I HATED Rand & McNally Meet Frankenstein!) because this lousy Atlas they sold me shows Bagdad as landlocked in the middle of the Iraqi desert. I saw the seaport of Bagdad in the movie with my own eyes. Which am I suposed to believe; some published "World Atlas," or my own eyes? Imagine reputable cartographers making an error like that!

They really should show this movie as an army recruiting film. They'll have scads of innocent, healthy, young men sign up to ship over to Bagdad at once as soon as they see how colorful and sexy it is, and that the worst dangers there are evil wizards, fire-breathing dragons, two-headed giant rocs (I LOVE giant rocs myself, especially real low-hangers!), swashbuckling skeletons, and horny cyclopes. (Cyclopses? Cyclopeses? Cyclopi? Uniopts!)

Maybe they could re-title it The 7th Tour of Duty of Sinbad. And maybe, now that Kerwin has left, we should bring our own army of Sinbads home. They've had well over a 1001 Arabian Nights. Time to end this fairy tale.

Cheers darlings.

The Last Voyage of Sinbad

Just because I'm back and dictating columns again doesn't mean that Hollywood has to recommence toppling over dead at my feet once more. I do not care for mornings like this, when I'm scanning down the obituaries in the Los Angeles Times and Shopping News to see if I'm there, and I find the names of two people I considered essential to the continued existence of mankind. No more of this. If necessary, I will make a list of people whose deaths I would find acceptable. Then, if someone really must die, scan the list, and if you're on it, let her rip! Otherwise, suck it up and live. Okay? Are we all agreed at least on this?


Lovely Kerwin Matthews passed away yesterday, at the robbing-the-cradle age of 81. Kerwin appeared in literally dozens of movies - well - dozen of movies, but four stand out, beloved above all the other one: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, Jack the Giant Killer and Octaman, and Octaman sucks.


Of course 7 Faces of Dr. Sinbad is his best-known film. Oddly, although 7th Voyage is one of Ray Harryhausen's best-loved movies, the first six voyage movies in the series are now so utterly forgotten that Ray omits them even from his autobiography, and I can't find them, even on VHS!


Kerwin was a white boy from Seattle, so he was the obvious choice to play an Islamic Arab. Not until the role was perfected by Tab Hunter in Sinbad's Shore Leave with Guy Thanatos, was Kerwin topped in the role, at least onscreen. If he were 30 today instead of dead, he'd be playing Sayid on LOST.


The most famous scene in Sinbad and the 7 Voyages, is the climactic fight with the skeleton, a sequence inspired when Ray Harryhausen observed Audrey Hepburn battle Capucine for the last lettuce leaf on a buffet table. In this side-by-side comparison you can see how closely the final filmed scene resembled Ray's pre-production concept sketch. (Click on the picture to examine it in detail.)

Ray and I had just worked together on the sci-fi shocker THAT!, a black & white classic in which my tabby house-cat is subjected to a rogue dose of radiation, causing it to grow to the size of the Smithsonian Institute. In Ray's darkened workshop, he had stretched my pussy to gargantuan proportions, and then had had himself the time of his life bringing my gigantic pussy to life. It was immediately after working on my pussy for hours that Ray drew the above sketch. I must say, he outdid himself. The weird, hideous, too-ghastly-for-words, nightmarish face Ray designed for that skeleton is the most frightening visage I've ever seen. And he perfectly realized it in the animation model you can see in the photo. God, what a monstrosity!

In fact Kerwin told me later, that he was glad that when he shot his part of the scene, he couldn't actually see the finished monster, that he just acted off of empty space. He said that the first time he saw the completed scene, when he saw the skeleton's face, he screamed and passed out! And he was a grown, and fairly butch man. Imagine the terror the tiny tots experienced when they saw 7 Sinbads for 7 Voyages.


Speaking of which, I know that little Dougie had something of a crush on hairy-chested little Kerwin when Dougie was a boy. Kerwin was a doll. Look at those eyes, those lips. Sometimes, there is hope, even for the hopeless. Since retiring from acting, Kerwin has been selling antiques in San Francisco. For those of you not clued in to what "Selling Antiques in San Francisco" really means beyond selling old furniture from yard sales at an inflated price to people who must wear wool coats even in mid-summer, it also means he was gay. That sweaty, hairy, non-Arabic, dreamboat Sinbad actually liked to do many of the very same revoltingly obscene acts that Dougie was fantasizing about him doing while watching him battle dragons and cyclopes. (Cyclopses? Cyclopeses? Cyclopi?)


Kerwin's co-star in The 7 Deadly Sinbads was Kathryn Grant, later Kathryn Crosby. She was so frustrated by a leading man more interested in his hunky crew than in her that she panicked and married Bing Crosby. What a rookie mistake: marrying a man old enough to be your grandfather, and bearing him a second brood of children to emotionally abuse just because your co-star is prettier than you are and won't give you a tumble. Did I marry John Carradine when Steve Reeves refused to do me? No. I had learned the flaccid way.


Delightful as Kerwin always was in movies, sometimes retirement is wise. When you find yourself in a movie like Octaman, trust me, it's time to retire. It was a late-1960s, south-of-the-border (The Border of Sanity), monster movie; a sort of Creature From the Black Lagoon knock-off, entirely shot for what Universal spent on one of their Creature's flippers.


Poor little Dougie, back in his early career, wrote TV shows for the Los Angeles TV horror movie host Seymour! Octaman was the next-to-last movie he wrote a Seymour show around. Imagine sitting in a small, dark room, watching a 16-mm print of Octaman alone, because who would watch such a wretched film with him? Seymour was paying Dougie to watch it so that he didn't have to see it.

That's little Dougie and Seymour back in 1973, when I was just a little girl, a mere four years after I retired. Dougie hadn't seen Octaman yet, so he doesn't yet have that shell-shocked look. Below is what the titular monster in Octaman looks like. He had eight tentacles. He walked on two of them; he carried Pier Angeli in two of them, and the other four just flopped free, like they were just loose rubber. Go figure. Frankly, it's not Ray Harryhausen's best work. I'll bet that's why he had his name taken off of it. (He used the nom de effects "Rick Baker".) Octaman is not in Ray's autobiography or his The Art of Ray Harryhausen either.

For that matter, our first film together, THAT! is conspicuous by it's absence from Ray's books also. What gives?

Anyway, Kerwin was a patient, professional man, with a deep, rumbly voice that was to-die-for sexy. Ray Harryhausen praised his concentration and his ability to really make you think he saw imaginary monsters. Dougie praised his eyes, his voice, and the curly black body hair always visible through the wide-open fronts of his silk shirts. Kerwin loved opera, ballet, antiques, and a man named Tom Nicoll for 46 years.

Wait a minute! He kept the same male lover for more than 40 years? Are you sure he was gay? I don't know. A long-term monogamous relationship, and he was never married to me? Doesn't sound like any kind of gay man I've ever met. I think he may have been a closet straight man, just pretending to be gay to succeed in the cut-throat, small antique store industry. It's like the new Adam Sandler movie in reverse; you know, actually funny.

But it wasn't just Sinbad who sailed away yesterday. We lost Hollywood's most wonderful, cantankerous curmudgeon as well.

Douglas! Little Douglas! Wake up! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I wasn't referring to you. Who would call you "Wonderful"? I meant that spring chicken Charles Lane.

Little Charles was only eight years younger than me, far too young to die. Emily Perry always called him "That Old Guy." Lucille Ball fans call him "That Mean Guy," as he made a cottage career just out of being mean to Lucille Ball. You gotta love any man with the Lucille balls to be mean to Lucille Ball, the General Patton of Red-Headed actresses. (Why do you suppose they rechristened Testicles "Balls" in her honor? Lucy had a brass set of Lucilles.) Charles was up there with Frank Nelson and Gale Gordon as the Top Three Lucy Tormentors; the men known as "Vivian's Vengeance."

I've often thought that if Little Dougie had been born 10 years earlier, as much as it would have surprised his parents who hadn't met then, he could have been the next Gale Gordon.

Charles Lane's film credits include over 300 movies, though you must remember that he often played only small parts, a single scene in many, so he could knock out one film credit in the morning, and another in the afternoon, and in the 1940s, that was just what he was doing. I was starring in films, so each of my credits represents months of work.

Charlie was allegedly straight, however, he was married to the same woman for over 70 years! Have you ever heard of anyone doing that before? Me neither. I'm as straight as anyone who ever lived unless no men are available, and even I have been married over 10 times to my knowledge. Mrs. Lane and Charlie's kids sound like beards to me.

Charlie Lane was one of the very last living survivors of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Now there may just be me left. I was touring in vaudeville in my Baby Tallulah, the World's Youngest Bartender act, at the age of 8, when the San Francisco earthquake knocked me off a bar stool down in The Castro. John Barrymore was also a survivor of the quake, and the cause. He'd made a bet he could go a day without a drink, and when Johnny fell off the wagon, it triggered the Great Quake. Plus he lost the bet by more than 20 hours.

Some of my favorite Charles Lane performances?

42nd Street

20th Century

You Can't Take It With You

Blondie

Golden Boy

Buck Benny Rides Again

The Invisible Woman (Fans petitioned for me to play the title role, saying I was born to play an invisible woman, but I just couldn't see it. One adoring fan wrote me that "If only you'd been invisible in your silent movies, they would have been perfect!")

The Big Store

Ray Harryhausen's Mighty Joe Young

The Music Man.

And Charles was on every TV show ever on TV. One great performance was on St. Elsewhere, where he gave a touching performance as man dying of extreme old age on his last night alive. Charles played it 20 years ago.

Two years ago, when they celebrated his 100th birthday on the TV Land Awards, Charles announced "I just want everyone to know that I'm still available." That doesn't work, Charlie. I know. When I was given an award a couple years back from the AA, for being The World's Oldest Surviving Alcoholic, I also announced "I just want everyone to know that I'm still available." And all I got were a bunch of offers for acting roles! What a waste of time.

By the way, I am still available, but I am retired from acting.

So is Charlie. We need a new meanie in town.

Cheers darlings.

Officially in De Nile

I have NOT had an affair with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa! Is that still his name? Or is he now Mayor Villa? Or Mayor Villa(raigosa)? Or The Mayor Formerly Known as Villaraigosa? Or Mayor Villa-Formerly-Raigosa? Or Mayor Villasalinas? Anyway, I never laid a tongue on him. Although now that I look at him, I wouldn't necessarily say no.

So his hootchy-moma's name is Mirthala Salinas. Remember when this sort of thing would ruin a candidate's career? But ever since we had a divorced president, morals in high office have gone to hell. More of the Moral Rot left over from the Reagan Administration.

Mirthala: not a name you hear a lot anymore, or ever. I bet even people named Mirthala don't hear the name much. We're a pretty Mirthless society. But as a news anchor, Mirthala Salinas is a pretty pathetic failure. The Los Angeles story of the year was literally in her hands! She had irrefutable proof of the identity of the Mayor's home-wrecking slut, and she got scooped! What a lousy reporter! Lois Lane wouldn't spit on her.

On another subject; I recently alerted you to the 100th Birthday of Emily Perry, who played Madge Allsop on Dame Edna's TV shows, and asked everyone to send her birthday greetings. First off, thank you to all of you who did send her a note. Secondly, to those of you who read that column and didn't send her anything, fuck you, dickwads.

On that sentimental note: here's a picture of Emily at her 100th birthday party. 40 people attended, Commander Humphries called from Australia, and Emily was undoubtedly Slut of the Ball.

Love her.

Love you.

Cheers darlings

America Branches Out

Hello darlings, Happy 4th of July. What, Douglas? Don't interrupt me when I'm just getting started. What? It's the 5th of July? What happened to the 4th? Look at what picture? Good God, look at the size of me!




That is petit moi celebrating the 4th of July, in the back yard here at Morehead Heights, just outside my massive hedge-labyrinth, The Befuddlement, relaxing with my portable, outdoors cooler, where I keep my emergency back-up libations. The contents of that cooler can keep me alive for up to 18 hours! Honest!


First off, let me apologize to my reader for posting so few remarks in June. It wasn't my fault, which you'll see, is Our Theme for this essay, narrowly beating out "The Industrial Revolution." It was all Little Dougie's fault. He was "On deadline" with his new book, and didn't have the time to devote to Me, as though his boring new book was important. It isn't even about me? So what's the point of it?





Anyway, his new book is done now. You can see the cover in the column to the right, but you have to cover up the cover of my book above it, in order to see it through my dazzle. It's that drab, yellow thing. Hmmm. Yellow. Appropriate for something he just pissed out. I'm reminded of the annual Edith Piaf. The scoring is based on distance, force, form, spelling, and hue.

What an amazing time to be an American! The joy and pride that fills our breasts every time we hear that we're the most-hated country on earth. And as if the love and attention that the Usurper Administration faux-American Government currently still illegally running our nation has attracted to us world wide hasn't been enough, look at all we've accomplished since doing away with Election Results back in 2000. Our Appointed President Dubya has invaded and rendered into a state of permanent chaos a nation that had nothing to do with 9-11, so that Dubya could show his dad that he had bigger ones, at the cost of thousands of American lives, in addition to all the Iraqi lives, guilty and innocent. Good Job!



Meanwhile Osama Bin Liner, the actual person responsible, and family-business partner of the Bush Family, has been allowed to roam free and uncaptured, year after year. "Mission Accomplished" indeed!




Meanwhile, at home, we've had a truly educational lesson in Justice. We saw, at length, ad nauseum, a boring, blond, entitled, waste-of-flesh, rich-bitch heiress, a woman whose IQ is lower than my titties on New Years Eve, sent to jail for the crimes of drunken driving, driving on a suspended licence (must be a tight cornerer!), and violating parole. What's wrong with the little moron? Doesn't she have a chauffeur?





Then we saw Scooter Libby not sent to jail. After all, he had merely revealed the identity of a CIA undercover operative, which is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and therefore TREASON! No reason to be overly harsh with such a minor crime. Who can't understand why the fake-president wouldn't be at all bothered by a little thing like one of his staff members breaching National Security, and committing Treason, to get his president a bit of petty political revenge? Laugh it off. He was caught, wasn't he? Isn't getting caught punishment enough? It's not like he drove drunk on a suspended license, after all. Get some perspective, America.




Poor Paris. She went to jail right after attending the Grammy Awards. She probably just thought she was at a typical hip-hop after-party. When she found being locked up in a small room, away from her cell phone, depressing, she did what every woman there does, I'm sure, and got her doctor to write Sheriff Baca a note saying "Paris doesn't like it here. May she go home now please? Pretty please? Pretty Please with a check on it?", along with a courtesy check for Baca's new house in Boca, and Paris was let go home, to learn her lesson in justice while tanning by the pool, and chatting on her iPhone with other brainless people. I'm sure they do the exact same thing for every woman in that jail, which is why our jails are so underused these days.





And then they yanked her back into jail! Make up your minds! What happened? Did her check bounce? Well, at least she found God in jail, constantly having the Bible read to her. (When Paris says she's read something, she means it was read to her. She can't actually read, you know. She's illegible.) When Larry King asked her what her favorite Biblical passage was, and she couldn't even come up with ONE quote out of the whole, gigantic, overwritten book, I was relieved. I thought she was going to start reciting The Begats!



Speaking of speaking to Larry King, I see Paris was closely followed by Isaiah Washington. Larry King is Stop One on the It's-Not-My-Fault-Tour! Paris told us how it was "Unfair" for her to go to jail merely for committing crimes. Next Isaiah Washington told us how it wasn't his fault for making "Faggot" every third word out of his mouth all last year. It was TR Knight's fault for telling on him to Ellen. Of course Isaiah. How dare a gay man and a lesbian talking together on her show have the gall to discuss publicly his being defamed at work by a homophobic co-worker. The Cheek!




Plus, it was ABC's fault and his producer's fault. He did everything they told him to do. He went to "Gay Rehab" even when he says he knew there was no such thing, so we know that was sincere. He apologized when he was told to. (So not because he was actually - I don't know - sorry?) He even made a public service announcement he didn't believe in when ordered to, and they still wrote him out, despite his being pretty much despised nationally by this point.




Plus, it was Patrick Dempsey's fault! He made Isaiah attack him by being late, and by pissing him off.





Plus, it was because he's black! Everybody was afraid of a big black man on the set who didn't go around muttering "Yassah, massa." I believe he's hit the nail on the head! It was about race! True, the man who plays the head of the hospital is a big black man, but he probably does go around muttering "Yessah, massa." And then there's the black woman who is all the interns's boss, and who is mean and grouchy. But of course; she doesn't count as proof this is not a remotely racist show, because she's not a big black man. She's a big black, grouchy woman. No one is ever afraid of them.






But it is about race. Because if TR Knight had called Washington a "Nigger", he'd have been fired that day! "Faggot" took eight months to process.





Besides, Isaiah explained to Larry King that when he says "Faggot," he doesn't mean a gay person. He means "any weak person," so all gay people are weak. Larry, incisive interviewer that he is, bought this. So when a KKK Grand Wizard says "Nigger," he doesn't mean a black person; he'd be referring to all people not held in high esteem in the white South. Buy that one, Isaiah?

I see myself today, in my soaring Pride to be an American, like a great American Bald Eagletrix, only I'm not bald. The turbans are strictly a fashion choice. Or a religious one. Whichever works. Here we are, on the 231st 4th of July (Did you know that prior to 1776, there was no 4th of July?. It went right from the 3rd to the 5th, like I often still do.), and America is branching out --- constitutionally! In the year of No Lord 2007, we have added a 4th branch to the Federal Government. Up till now we have had the Judicial, the Legislative, and the Executive Branches. But now we have added The Vice-Presidential Branch. And, since the Vice-Presidential Branch is not in The Constitution, it is exempt from The Constitutional! It can, alone of our four government branches, operate free of all those tiresome checks and balances that have been tripping up Dubya's untiring efforts to make America the paradise he has been crafting. Dick Cheney is a genius!

Will Rogers (Divine man. He did me hogtied!) once said, "I knew two men; one of them went up the Amazon, while the other became Vice President of the United States. Neither was ever heard of again." Where is Will when we need him?

Dick Cheney naturally celebrated Independence Day with particular glee this year, since he is now independent of all government restraint. He bought a big box of home fireworks, and set them all off himself in an undisclosed location. (Believed to be near Lake Tahoe) 12 people were blasted in the face, but it's all right; they were all close family friends, and they have all apologized to the Vice President.

I see the American Eagle and I soaring off into The Future together, as in this vision of the Far Future: a rare color still of myself and an eagle in my 1927 silent science-fiction outer space spectacle Beyond Belief! Incidentally, the futuristic year we were trying to foresee in this picture was 1980. Spot on, as you can see.

Cheers darlings.