Publication Day

Today is the official publication date for Little Douglas's new book, The Q Guide to Classic Monster Movies, which is on sale now everywhere in the English-Slurring World, or by just clicking on the link.


Little Douglas seems to think it's a Big Deal. "A second book," he trumpets to me when I could be drinking, "I've beaten Harper Lee! I win, Harper you bitch, I WIN! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!" I was forced to slap him, yet again. The Headless Indian Brave has been avoiding him for weeks, pretending to have a head (No mean feat in itself.) whenever he encounters Dougie in hallways, so Dougie won't recognize him, as if Douglas's attention ever wandered above the Headless Indian Brave's loin cloth bulge. All this because Dougie has been talking his neck-stump off about this pointless new book.



I can't stress this point enough; this book is not about me! Why on earth would anyone want to read it? I'm going to show you just how not-about-me it is. I have reluctantly allowed Douglas to reprint below a piece from the new book, to give you a taste of the bilious poop he's trying to peddle to you. However, I selected Dougie's biographical profile of Boris Karloff. Boris Karloff, as my rabid fans all know, was my fourth husband. [No, he wasn't. - Ed. note] Yet Douglas recounts the man's life and work, and never mentions our marriage, the movies we made together (Fu Manchu's Blessed Event & Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Pussy.), nor indeed does my name appear anywhere in the whole profile! He treats me as though I am a - a - a fictional character! The Cheek! As if he's so fucking real. There was exactly one interesting fact about Boris Karloff in his whole life, and that was that he was married to me for two years, and Douglas omits it! How utterly pointless is this whole book?



Here's proof of our marriage; a shot from 1933 of Jack Pierce, his assistant, and myself (Bottom of photo), all helping, in our different ways, to prepare Boris for a performance of his beloved one-man stage show, Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. I was an essential part of getting Boris up for the show.


Anyway, here's a bit of the book. Buy it if you like it. It's your money.


Cheers Darlings.

Q Profile

The King of Blood.

Boris Karloff
1887-1969

Q Quote: "He nothing common did, or mean,
upon that memorable scene."

The words of the above Q Quote are inscribed on a plaque in St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, in London, in memory of a British actor who was both a gentleman and a gentle man, and who achieved undying worldwide fame and affection under the self-created stage name Boris Karloff.

Of the seven supreme iconic horror stars, The Chaneys, Karloff, Lugosi, Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee, Karloff is unquestionably Number One, "The King of Blood" as he refers to himself in Targets.

In the amazingly ongoing Karloff vs. Lugosi acting debate, the attentive reader will have long since worked out that I fall squarely into the Karloff Camp. I favor Karloff over Lugosi because, based on my own viewing of a large number of their respective movies, Karloff seems to me, by far, the better actor. I have never seen him run riotously, over-the-top, out-of-control, on camera, as Lugosi so often did.

Not that Boris Karloff always give a great performance. In 1958, Boris shot ten episodes of an anthology fantasy TV series for Hal Roach, called The Veil. Like his great later series Thriller, Boris hosted all the episodes, and acted in some of them. The series was never sold, never broadcast, and Boris was never paid, a fact he never forgot. It has, however, come out on DVD. In one episode, The Crystal Ball, Boris plays André Giraud, a charming French roué. Imagine Boris playing Maurice Chevalier’s role in Gigi, and you have his André Giraud. He’s ghastly in the part. It’s a laughable embarrassment. And he was also terrible in … ah … I’m sorry. I can’t come up with a second example.

Boris was born William Henry Pratt, the youngest of nine siblings, on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, a suburb of London. Boris’s great-aunt, the sister of his mother’s mother, was Anna Leonowens, the Anna in Anna and The King of Siam and Rogers & Hammerstein’s The King and I.

Boris’s mother was half-Indian, and his Asian heritage showed in his perpetual tan. Out of make-up, Boris had very dark skin, too dark for a pleasant boyhood in conservative, 19th Century England. His father deserting his family when Boris was five didn’t help either. His mother’s death, two years later, made matters still worse.

Billy Pratt, as he was known, was groomed for a diplomatic career, but he was infected with the acting bug very young, so at 21 he sailed to Canada to seek a theatrical career.

His earliest known film performance was in a 1919 Douglas Fairbanks film called His Majesty, the American. He worked off and on in films thereafter, his swarthy complexion often getting him cast as American Indians, Indian Indians, and Arabs. He was befriended by Lon Chaney, who told him, "The secret of success in Hollywood lies in being different from everyone else. Find something no one else can or will do, and they’ll begin to take notice of you." Karloff certainly took this advice. So, apparently, has Johnny Knoxville.

It was roles in two early classic crime melodramas, Scarface and The Criminal Code, that led to Whale casting him as the monster in Frankenstein, and catapulting him to major stardom. Prior to November 1931, he was unknown. In 1932 he played the mute brute butler in Whale’s hilarious black comedy, The Old Dark House, Sax Rohmer’s Chinese super-villain in the incredibly camp, racist, MGM thriller The Mask of Fu Manchu, and the austere, elderly Imhotep in The Mummy, an unprecedented display of versatility that cemented him as Hollywood’s Head bogeyman.

A classic Hollywood liberal, Boris was one of the original founders of the Screen Actors Guild, holding early planning meetings in intense secrecy in his own home at, make no mistake, great personal and professional risk. His SAG Membership card number had only a single digit.

Boris, like Lugosi, was married five times. In a TV interview, his only child, the charming and intelligent Sarah Jane Karloff, said in reference to the end of her parent’s marriage, "I don’t have the faintest clue what went wrong. But at the same time, he married my stepmother the day after the divorce was final." No, she doesn’t have the faintest clue. That clue glares as bright as the Sun.

Boris was a homebody who loved doggies, gardening, and cricket. By all accounts he was a kindly, gentle, generous man. No one who knew him ever had a bad word to say about him, except perhaps Bela Lugosi when he was in a foul mood, and Lugosi’s son disputes even that. (But does one show one’s nastier side to one’s own son? Many a Lugosi co-star testifies to Bela’s bitter assessment of Karloff.)

Along with maintaining a career as a major movie star, he regularly returned to the Broadway stage, giving acclaimed performances in Arsenic and Old Lace, The Lark, The Linden Tree, On Borrowed Time, and as Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

By the time I fell in love with Boris, he was in his final years. Fortunately, millions of my fellow baby boomers were also falling for him at the time, thanks to the release of his Universal pictures to television, so his career was in it’s last, incandescent resurgence. He was on TV a great deal, guest starring on variety and dramatic TV shows, and hosting the aforementioned Thriller, in one episode of which he co-starred with Caroline Kearney, the mother of my friend, composer and actor Charles Bloom. Much as I loved Caroline simply for being the terrific person she was, the fact that Caroline had co-starred with Boris Karloff lifted her into my Firmament of the Awesome.

Karloff’s career resurgence also resulted in fresh movies: the delightful comedies The Raven and The Comedy of Terrors, both with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, the incoherent mess The Terror, The terrible H. P. Lovecraft adaptation Die Monster, Die!, the idiotic beach movie, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, the Man From UNCLE rip-off The Venetian Affair, the quite interesting British thriller The Sorcerers, and a role co-starring with his London neighbor and most-famous successor in the role of the Monster, Christopher Lee, in The Curse of the Crimson Altar.

Two roles that stand out on the final page of his resume are narrating the animated TV version of Dr. Suess’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a vastly better treatment of the material than the wretched Jim Carrey movie, and as horror actor Byron Orlock in Peter Bogdanovich’s directoral debut Targets.

In Targets, Boris essentially played himself, a horror star at the end of his career, feeling that the horrors of the day-to-day headlines now far eclipsed his elegant literary terrors, only to confront a psychotic sniper-killer at a drive-in playing his lame movie The Terror. It’s a well-written, first-rate thriller, a fine, respectful coda for his career.

Only the body of Boris Karloff died on February 2, 1969. His work and his spirit will never die. In Son of Frankenstein, Lugosi’s Ygor says to Basil Rathbone’s Wolf Von Frankenstein of Karloff’s monster, "He cannot be destroyed, cannot die. Your father made him live for always." Bela never spoke truer words.

Speechless

FRENCH ART NEWS (TP): It was announced today by the French Ministry of Arty Pretentious Stuff, that noted mime Marcel Marceau, famed for de-popularizing the annoying craft, and the man whose motto was "I'm not dumb, I just act that way", today finally commenced performing the final stage in his famous, 84-year long "Short Piece" Youth, Maturity, Old Age, Death, after performing stage 3 for over 40 years. He is expected to perform the final stage until the collapse of the Universe. Professional colleagues said: "___________", but we may not have been able to hear them through their invisible boxes.

That little chatterbox Marcel Marceau finally let me get a word in edgewise today. People think, "Oh a mime. He must be quiet as a mouse." Wrong! Those hands never stopped! He was always running his mouth off at the wrists. He couldn't keep quiet long enough to put on a pair of gloves!

Worst of all, he gestured exclusively in French! I could never understand a word he was miming! Did you know that the gesture for Chapeau and the gesture for Chateau are almost identical? I could never figure out why that blabbermouth Bip would always put his house on his head before going to work, which was always upwind. (And while we're on the subject, how much time have you spent trapped in an invisible box? I don't know about you, but I like to be able to see the boxes I'm trapped in, except for that one time when it was Marjorie Main's. Ugh! Light's out, please!)

Eventually, I had to hire Shields & Yarnell to come in and interpret Marcel for me, so you know I was desperate. Only desperate people ever hired Shields & Yarnell! Marcy would gesture in French. Shields & Yarnell would then translate his gestures, and mime them for me in English. I would then flail meaninglessly back at them using random movements and facial expressions, and Shields & Yarnell would then translate my message for Marcy, from Mindless Drunken Thrashing into French Mime. Just asking for the time could take hours! And then Yarnell got all huffy about being expected to stand around my gigantic swan boat bed and try to figure out how to mime "Ram me harder, you beretted beast!" into French gestures. ("Beret" was easy, but there is no French gesture for "Good Sex".) It became a nasty kerfuffle, that resulted eventually in the split-up of Shields & Yarnell, so at least some good came out of it.

Where was I? Oh yes, the death of Marcel "All-Hands" Marceau. It seems that Little Douglas met him years ago, back when Little Dougie was in high school, so we're talking before The Flood. There are no written records or survivors. Little Dougie went and saw Marcy perform live from the second row at the Huntington Hartford Theater (Now called the Crisco Kid Theater or the Pepe LePew Theater, or something like that.) when Dougie was a mere 16, and only half as depraved as he now is. Dougie even stood in line to get Marcy's autograph on his theater program. This tells you everything you need to know about Little Dougie. Other 16 year old boys stood in line to meet baseball players or rock stars, and get signatures on baseballs or record albums. Little Dougie stood in line to meet a French Mime! I can see him showing it off proudly to his parents, and they saying, "I think we can write off having grandchildren."

For those of you who believe in astrology; what's wrong with you? Marceau's birthday was March 22, the same birthday as Stephen Sondheim and Little Dougie's mother, yet he never wrote Sweeney Todd, or even A Little Night Music, and he never gave birth. However, he was heard to say "Send in the Mimes." so maybe there is something to it after all.

And was Marcy vain? Darlings, he wore more make up than I did. Hell, he wore more make up than I do now! The man packed it on with a trowel, and he still never had a speck of color. Get some Sun, Marcy.

So au revoir to Marcel Marceau; The Man Who Never Realized Silent Movies Were Over. You and me both, mon ami.

The rest is mime.

Cheers darlings.

Emmy Filth.

I love that they give little awards to TV performers, like pretend Oscars. I think that's just too cute for words. As though TV was anything other than an industry full of movie-wannabes and used-to-bes. Mind you, I abhor all awards, which is why I have refused to win, or even be nominated for, any awards throughout my long career. Still, you have to be amused when TV thinks it's as important as The Oscars.


Of course their self-loathing betrays itself in so many ways. Would an industry with any real pride in itself, or an Academy that thought their awards were anything more than a joke, hire Ryan Seacrest to host? Of course not. They'd hire someone with talent, maybe even someone funny. When you put Seacrest on as your host, you're just admitting that you're too pathetic to deserve a good host.

And then there was the venue; a few months ago, back on March 6th, I posted a flogging titled My Peter Panned, in which I discussed my performances in Peter Pan out at a tacky theater-in-the-round called Melodyland, across the street from Disneyland in Anaheim. Theater-in-the-round is overwhelmingly egalitarian; every seat is a bad seat! What could be more democratic?


Well the Emmy Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (I think they develop new remote controls, things like that.) obviously read that column and thought to themselves, "If it's good enough for Tallulah, it's good enough for us." and decided to hold the Emmy show this year at Melodyland. It really took me back, to the world of lousy theater. They missed two important points:

1. If it's good enough for Tallulah, it's too good for the Emmys. And
2. Theater-in-the-round was not good enough for Tallulah. I was slumming.



At times it was hard to tell if you were watching The Emmys or a circus. But then Ryan would come out again and you'd remember; it's the circus.

But even worse tonight, was Sally Field's filthy mouth. Honestly Sally, do you eat with that mouth? Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Do you go down on men with that mouth? Fortunately Fox Television wisely saved all of us from having to hear her salacious and revolting comments, since their broadcast, under some sort of Free Speech thingy, would have ended all civilization as we know it. Do you know what happened in the theater? When the filth flowed from Sally's lips, the heads of everyone in the first ten rows exploded, everyone in the next 20 rows committed suicide, and the people in the remaining rows all went violently insane, and are now running amok in Anaheim, killing and terrorizing tourists and minimum wage workers dressed as Mickey Mouse and Goofy. The brave network censor who heard what she said and hit the BLEEP-OUT button, did so at the sacrifice of his own life, as hearing Sally's uncensored speech caused his brain to liquefy, and flow out his ears. I know many people think that censors are flagrant flaming assholes who think themselves qualified to judge what you may or may not hear, but they are really brave heroes, taking the verbal bullets of Free Speech so you don't have to. Thank God for censors.

Because without Fox Censors, you would have heard Sally say, "I'm proud to be one of those women, and let's face it, if mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamned wars in the first place,"

It's not enough that she used such foul fucking language to couch her traitor's remarks in, but the revolting idea she was expressing, that mothers prefer their sons to live, rather than to die for George Bush's failed foreign policy, is an insult to all American Mothers everywhere. We all know that Good American Mothers give birth to and raise sons hoping that they will die in useless foreign wars in support of the greed and evil of such Satanic men as George W. Bush and Vice President Voldemort Cheney. Real Mothers, and I speak as a former mother myself, pray each night for pointless wars and avaricious Republican "leaders," in order to ensure that their sons will have the glorious deaths in battle that is every mother's most fervent wish. How dare that Sally Fields bitch imply otherwise. Hunt that trash down and beat her to death with her Emmy. Let her last words be "You hate me. You really, really hate me." No one will hear them anyway, as Fox will just bleep them out.

And what a coincidence that the network that bleeped out her disloyal, pro-peace statement is owned by the same folks that own the Fox News Channel, which is the Official White House Propaganda Outlet. Imagine, she just happened to have her remarks critical of the Bush Administration censored by a network owned by the same people who daily play White House Toady-to-the-World. What are the odds? It was a good night for Rupert Murdgoebbles.

It's a scientific fact that if your kids ever hear Sally Field say "Goddamned," they will become communist serial-killers. You all had a narrow escape. BTW, do kids actually watch the Emmys?

I noticed that Charlie Sheen was nominated for Best Actor in Comedy Series. That's funny; sneaking a joke nomination in with the real ones.

You have to love the level of crassness involved when the cartoon dog and the cartoon creepy dwarf sang a joke about Isaiah Washington's bigotry, and they cut directly to a shot of TR Knight in the audience, looking uncomfortable. Too bad he wasn't wearing a T-Shirt saying, "Yes, I'm the Faggot who got Isaiah canned." Speaking of Isaiah, he's taking lessons in gender-preference sensitivity from Jerry Lewis. From Jerry he has learned The Great Lesson: If you're going to call someone a faggot, do it on the air, not off.

Does Ryan Seacrest actually think he's funny? Jon Stewart has released farts funnier than anything Ryan said on the show last night. Although at least he doesn't have a potty-mouth like Sally, and like Ray Romano. What did Ray say about Kelsey Grammar that was so ghastly it had to be bleeped? Well, he probably didn't call him a faggot. They would have left that in. And he was talking about Kelsey Grammar and Patricia Heaton, two major Republican tools, so it probably wasn't something critical of the war. Anyway, Ray took five minutes to make us all feel better about his no longer being on TV. Sweet of him. And then he gave Rainn Wilson's Emmy to Jermey Piven, who immediately hit on his own award. ("Hey angel, I've got a couple of big balls you can lift.")

Didn't Terry O'Quinn realize that when they gave him Michael Emerson's Emmy for LOST, that was just their way of telling him to get LOST?

I'd make a joke about Tina Fey, except she was actually funny. In fact, she was so funny, I thought she was on the wrong show.

Didn't you love the clip of August Schellenberg in the nominees for Best Supporting Actor in a Mini-series or a Movie, as the homophobic Indian Chief? "Red Cloud is no longer a chief; he is a woman you have mounted and had your way with. Do not speak to me of Red Cloud!" They ended the clip just before he called Red Cloud a Faggot. (Isaiah Washington could be heard in the back, yelling "Hey August, get your own act!") So they bleeped Sally saying mothers don't want their kids to die in wars, but they left in "He is a woman you have mounted and had your way with." Now I get it: Peace Speech is out. Hate Speech is in. You know, I've always felt bad about the genocide the Europeans settlers wreaked upon the Native Americans, but if that was what they were like, good riddance. It was a feel-good clip, as it certainly made me feel better about the genocide.

So was Ellen DeGeneris put on the show just to make Ryan Seacrest look funnier? No, because she introduced a montage of funnier people than Ryan, which may well have included Osama Bin Laden. Tom Snyder dead was funnier than Ryan alive.

Now the award to Katherine Heigl was a joke, wasn't it? They weren't seriously trying to make us believe she was better than Rachel Griffiths, Lorraine Bracco, or Aida Turturro were they? Better than Sandra Oh? Sure, but that's it. Or was the award for Most Annoying Supporting Actress in a TV Drama, because I saw her work on Grey's Anatomy this year, and I agreed with her mother.

In keeping with the "Greenest Emmys Ever" theme, the metallurgical composition of the awards themselves has been changed, and the Emmys handed out tonight will be turning green over the next week.

Open letter to Robert Duvall: Dear Bobby, you said, "I never knew an actor in my lifetime [When else would you meet an actor, Bobby?] or anybody's lifetime [Okay, now you're just babbling meaninglessly.] who didn't want to do a western. We all want to do westerns." Bobby, have you forgotten our one wild night of passion back when you were killing mockingbirds? I must assume so, because I have never wanted to be in a western, or even to watch westerns. Oh, I did make one, the beloved Johnny Horndog. It was while making that movie that I became the first person to make Iron Eyes Cody cry. (The man was a waterworks!) Bobby, I hate westerns. Make them if you like. Love them, share them with others who love them, but don't announce that all actors want to make westerns, because some of us would rather stick needles in our eyes. Love, Tallulah.

Ah ROOTS; the show that showed America that slavery was bad. Who knew? I remember watching it when it ran originally, and being shaken to my very soul, as I said to myself, "Damn! That Levar Burton is HOT!" 30 years later, he still is, but Ben Vereen looked better (and was considerably more lucid) in his old-age make-up in the clip than he looked live on the stage. Nice to see Eddie Asner up there with the cast. How well I remember him saying to Kunte Kinte, "Toby, you've got spunk. I hate spunk." (I adore spunk myself, and have devoted my life to amassing as much spunk as my acquainti could churn out.) And now we can see that Levar would never have grown up to be John Amos. Standing beside him on the stage, we could see that Levar's still a foot shorter than Amos.

Lou Gossett Jr. (He's - what? - 100? Time to drop the "Junior" Lou.) said, "I just want to add that as I watched those scenes from our show 30 years later, I am still incredibly moved." Wow! He was reading those words off a teleprompter only one minute after watching the clips! He had time to tell the writers his reaction ("Incredibly moved"), have them write up his remarks and get them onto the teleprompter, all in one minute! Why, it's almost as though they were written in advance, so that they weren't his real reactions at all, but just a - what's the word for it? Oh yes - a lie.

Then Robert Duvall wandered aimlessly back onto the stage, accepted ROOTS's award, and resumed babbling, this time about how his parents "Pushed me into acting. They pushed me." while the five other winners standing behind him on the stage resisted the urge to push the old gasbag out of the way so they could squeeze in a word or two, and perhaps even make a cogent remark.

Neill Patrick Harris making leering jokes to the Indestructible Cheerleader was cute. It was like he completely forgot that he announced he was gay some months back, and we all now know he's far more interested in Heroes than in Heroines. It was like seeing Charlie Sheen flirt with Richard Simmons.

At the risk of not being snarky for a sentence, I have to say that I saw the performance Leslie Caron won for, and she was GREAT! 100% deserved. She was so good they almost gave her award to Katherine Heigl.

Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are funnier in a coma than Ryan Seacrest would be performing The Importance of Being Earnest. And I'm sorry, Tony Bennett is great and all, but he is not funnier than Stephen Colbert. However, Tony's son Danny babbling on and on, not letting his living legend father get a word in edgewise to accept his own Emmy was pretty damn funny. And then Tony introduced a woman he thinks is his wife, although she looked considerably younger than his son.

The "President and CEO" of the Emmys came out and talked about TV that gives back and performs charitable acts, at least I think that was what he was blathering about. I saw Bob Hope hit the screen in a clip and hit the mute button fast.

Let me see if I got this right; they had a set of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons impersonators come out and sing old Four Seasons hits while Sopranos clips played in the distant background on screens you mostly couldn't see at all, to celebrate The Sopranos? I didn't really see much (any) connection. Yes, Frankie Valli had a high voice, but he wasn't a soprano. However, it was wonderful to hear some good music again for a few minutes. Maybe they could have come out again later and done a few more numbers, as a tribute to 30 Rock.

It was an awards show, so naturally Helen Mirrin showed up, and naturally they gave her an Emmy. The thing is, she wasn't in anything this year. They just gave her an award out of habit.

What was the award to Al Gore for? Does he know? Was it for staying off TV?

Okay, about Joley Fisher. After Brad Garrett leered down her dress, and made the joke about a western titled "Bury My Head Between Your Knees." (Which Fox thoughtfully did not bleep out, as a crass joke about cunnilingus isn't anywhere near as offensive as saying that Mothers don't like War.), she said to him: "Honey, you couldn't get on Craig's list. Oh no, I'm sorry, unless it was Senator Craig's list." scroll down to the the flogging I posted two entries below, and read my title: Senator Craig's List. The date on that posting is September 8, 2007. Joley, you'll be hearing from my attorney. And then she gave Stephen Colbert's Emmy to Tony Bennett. Fisher! Pay attention to what you're doing, when not ripping off my flog.

Next time, let Eliane Stritch host. Stritchey, as usual, was funnier than everybody else. Elaine said she's never been cheap and she's never been easy, which explains why we were never up for the same roles; we're two diametrically different types, despite our shared love of social drinking and penises.

Greg Daniels is a wonderful writer, but now we know why he doesn't perform his brilliant work. He could turn a half-hour sit-com into a mini-series just stammering out a single joke. Greggy, the secret of comedy is timing. Get some. (This is from love, not from jealousy because you're a better writer than I am, you bastard.)

Ryan, in his Henry VIII drag, said, "You know, this looked a lot less gay on the rack." Well of course it did. It wasn't being worn by a gay man then. (And that Henry VIII; what a big old homo he was. Just ask the 6 wives.)

When you're relieved to have Wayne Brady come on to do a comedy bit, Ryan's has been on too long. Ryan, when Wayne Brady is a step up from you (Helped by the legendary comic stylings of Kanye West), you are not funny.

"Best Reality Series" is another joke award, right? All I know is that when they announced The Amazing Race as the winner (again.), I could hear Waaamber from Big Brother 8 wailing "WHY GOD?" all the way from the sequester house.

Ricky Gervais didn't show up, so Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert gave his award to Steve Carell, who plays Ricky's old role on The Office. Works for me. Never give it to Ricky, Steve. In my last flogging, I retold the tale of how I gave Delores Delgado's Oscar to Jane Wyman. Some readers have expressed skepticism about this story. Well now you've seen Jon & Stephen really do it, so you see? It does happen! They got big laughs doing it, but Jane Wyman never got the joke. Nor did Delores for that matter. For her psychotic reaction, read Chapter 31, "In Seine!", of my award-ignored autobiography My Lush Life.

Speaking of Jane Wyman, I noticed in the Dead People Montage that both Jane Wyman and Jane Wyatt died this last year. My God, as if I didn't get them mixed up enough already as it is! Now which one was First Lady, which one was Spock's mother, and which one's husband always knew best? (Hint, that last one can't have been Wyman. Ronnie never knew best! Besides, on Falcon Crest she only pretended to make wine, the big booze tease! How I detest Hollywood sham!)

Why does William Shatner have bigger boobs than Debra Messing? And why is he funnier than her?

America Ferrera won an Emmy for playing Betty Ford. I haven't seen the show, as Selma Hyack's eyebrows scare me, and it's opposite Smallville. Is she any good?

Okay, now James Spader is being funnier than Ryan Seacrest, and he's improvising!

I know there were two more minor awards to give out (Best Comedy Series and Best Drama Series) but when Kelsey Grammar and Patricia Heaton stepped up, it was just too many Republicans on Fox. I half-expected Bill O'Reilly to step up and join in the banter. I needed a drink, and I went and got one. What won?

Cheers darlings.