Charles Nelson Reilly 1931-2007

THERE WAS MORE TO THIS ACTOR’S LIFE THAN BLANKS AND ASCOTS

Tony Award-winning actor (and saucy game show panelist) Charles Nelson Reilly died Friday night (5/25/07) in Los Angeles due to complications stemming from pneumonia.  He was 76. 

Although I was well aware of his failing health, it was still very sad for me to hear the news of his passing. It is not easy to say goodbye to someone that made so many of us laugh through the years.  Some of the folks we grow up watching in the afternoon’s of our youth seem like they’ll be around forever. They can always be found in ‘TV land’ sitting on our screens, forever frozen in time, looking just as young and healthy as they ever did.  That’s probably why I think 76 years-old seems a bit premature for Charles to leave this world.

Sayonara, Rosie…

DAYTIME’S QUEEN OF CONTROVERSY DECIDES NOT TO RENEW HER CONTRACT

Wednesday was the big announcement I had been expecting to hear from Rosie O’Donnell.  It was becoming increasingly apparent to me that she was not going to be able to sustain the level of commitment to The View that ABC Television wanted from her.   They tried to paint her into a corner with a three-year contract that she ultimately could not accept.  Why would anybody want to guarantee three more years of intense scrutiny from media pinheads (mostly from the right) when they know that one more year would barely be sustainable?  

I must give credit where it is due. Rosie was able to breathe a lot of life into the (now stale) format that had initially distinguished The View from its competitors.  There had always been four or five women sitting around an ugly table, chirping away on issues,  but the conversation seemed a little too safe and predictable (especially towards the end of Meredith Vieira’s tenure.)  Rosie changed all of that with her presence and ever-changing moods.  She served as the ‘true voice’ (even in her most deluded moments) of the variety of people that watch daytime television.  Without her presence, even with some sort of pale substitute occupying her seat, the show is going to suffer.

Clinton vs Obama

           

Here is my tribute to the two prominent figures at the center of the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.  The general election is not for another year and eight months, and we don’t even know which one of them is going to do well enough in the primaries to gain the top spot on the ticket.  At this point, there is always a chance that both will fail miserably. 

Prince Frederick Von Anhalt: Freak of the Week

IN A WEEK CHOCK FULL OF WEIRDOS, ZSA ZSA’s HUBBY TAKES THE CAKE

I woke up Friday morning not knowing who I would choose to be this week’s recipient.  There were too many juicy stories I could have picked from but none had that extra ’something’ I look for in a honoree.  Leave it to Zsa Zsa Gabor’s eighth husband to inspire me to make my difficult choice. 

San Francisco’s cad-Mayor, Gavin Newsom, was an early contender based on his questionable personal and professional relationships.  Either half of the Griffin and Ryan O’Neal ’Battle for Attention’ would have been a decent choice, but I passed (someone should at least call Dr. Phil for those guys.)  How about the entire US Senate for acting like a bunch of tools by avoiding the real issues they should be debating?  

Father of the Year

FORMER STAR EXPLAINS WHY HE SHOT AT HIS SON

Add another chapter to Ryan O’Neal’s inexplicably dramatic life.  The Love Story actor was charged with assault and negligent discharge of a firearm after fighting with his son, Griffin, at his Malibu home over the weekend.

O’Neal later told the LA Times he had fired his gun following a confrontation with his son who allegedly grazed him four or five times with a fireplace poker.  Griffin O’Neal was visiting his father and accompanied by his pregnant girlfriend JoAnne Berry, who suffered a poker-related injury in the scuffle. 

The elder O’Neal had been out with friends for the evening, celebrating a birthday (and reported victory over ass cancer) for his longtime love, Farrah Fawcett.  After an intial run in with Griffin and his poker, Ryan fled upstairs to retrieve his handgun.

“(Griffin) started to come up the stairs again with the poker in his hand. So I just fired it into the banister, and that scared him and he fled,” said O’Neal in his LA Times interview. 

The puffy actor has long been an advocate of tough love.  In 1983, police were called to his home following a fight in which he knocked out two of Griffin’s teeth.  No charges were filed.

Griffin made headlines in 1987 when he was tried for manslaughter in the death of Francis Ford Coppola’s son, Gian-Carlo, who was decapitated in a drunken speed boating accident. He admitted to drinking at the time of the accident and was found guilty of the lesser charge of reckless boating and fined $200 (about the same amount of money you would have to spend to purchase a case of a finer Coppola wine.)