Retroality's Chris Mann's Open Salon Blog

Why Suzanne Somers + Joyce DeWitt = Oprah's teaching moment

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 21:02:54 -0500

Re-Joycing in the Somers time ... O, My God, you can almost

hear Oprah yell, "THREEEEEE'S COMPAAAAAAAAAANY!"

News analysis

By Chris Mann

Last week, two sixtysomething Seventies sitcom stars—one still girl-next-door-lovely, the other leather-skirted-Sexy Forever®—emotionally buried their infamous 31-year hatchet in a series of now-viral YouTube videos.

Soon later, there were likely more Aha! Moments at the ratings-challenged, celeb-retrospect-driven Oprah Winfrey Network than at a 1980s David Copperfield special.

And if there weren’t, well, then there should’ve been.

By Saturday, virtually every major media outlet teased, touted and/or embedded footage of media-savvy Suzanne Somers hugging it out with her Three's Company co-star Joyce DeWitt for the first time since the then-third-billed jiggle queen (and future ThighMaster millionaire) was booted from their top-rated ABC comedy after demanding a 500-percent pay hike and then staging a sick-out during the show’s fifth season in fall 1980. Her producers struck back, relegating Somers each week to a humiliating one-minute “phoned in” scene taped apart from her co-stars before firing her in spring 1981.

Stunningly, after extending an olive branch to Somers, 65, multiple times over the last fifteen years—to no avail—DeWitt, 62, accepted an invitation from Somers’ producers in early December to appear on her new talk show, Suzanne Somers Breaking Through, on YouTube’s CaféMom channel.

The historic Company contract battle alienated the theater-trained DeWitt—whose focus on her craft clashed with Somers’ fixation on celebrity—and deeply angered the series’ Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning star, John Ritter, who died days shy of his 55th birthday in September 2003 after trying to reunite the trio in a dream-sequence cameo on his hit ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.

(Somers, unmoved by what she deemed an insignificant cameo, declined Ritter’s invitation—which he delivered via personal phone call in late 2002—saying she wasn’t “ready” to reunite. Few know she also turned down opportunities to join him and DeWitt in a proposed FOX special in spring 2002 and a CBS Early Show segment in 2001.)

In spring 2003, DeWitt co-produced a somewhat anti-Somers telefilm spun from a hit Company episode of The E! True Hollywood Story, which itself grew out of my 1998 book Come and Knock on Our Door. Somers previously released her own tell-all, After the Fall, which portrayed DeWitt as deeply insecure and jealous of her fame (DeWitt has adamantly denied the latter claim, saying she has long been confident in her chief showbiz pursuit--her work as an actor.) The women then battled it out on Extra, Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight.

“For you and me, but also for those people who were aware of the ‘ick,’” an at times choked-up, at times soft and at times somewhat steely Somers told DeWitt of their YouTube reunion, “I think it’s a teaching moment in reconciliation (and) resolution.”

Paging Miss Winfrey, party of three!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“I think that you gave me the opportunity to make sure I walk my talk,” DeWitt told Somers, stressing that CaféMom producers invited her to partake in celebrating their sitcom and their “cherished” co-stars. Since Ritter’s passing, DeWitt has in essence served as the show’s goodwill ambassador, speaking for everyone from late, original cast member Audra Lindley to brief Company player Ann Wedgeworth.

“For the last thirtysomeodd years,” DeWitt added, “I have relentlessly said that it is my opinion that the only reason Three’s Company is worth remembering is that it created an opportunity for all of us to laugh together ... to celebrate joy together, to open our hearts together, to share in such a healing, beautiful thing as laughter.”

But Somers, for the most part it seems, continues to maintain a different focus.

“None of us expected the kind of explosion that happened. I was always afraid that I wasn’t worth it, that I didn’t measure up,” replied the actress turned bestselling self-help/alternative health author, who was a single mom for nearly a decade before marrying Canadian celebrity—and, by 1980, her hot-tempered, in-over-his-head manager—Alan Hamel during the sitcom’s second season. “It was, how do you go from, ‘I just want to make some money,’ to the three of us on the cover of Newsweek (in February 1978)?”

Suzanne Somers' Newsweek covers, 1978 and 1970 (below)

DeWitt, intent on avoiding contentious matters, brushed past the Newsweek reference. And for good reason: She and Ritter appear as also-rans respectively leaning into and leering over Somers’ scantily-clad body on the magazine cover. In my book, Ritter called the magazine’s shoot “creepy"; DeWitt said she and Ritter felt “used, lied to."

Somers said she, too, was innocent of Newsweek’s focus—and blamed their male, middle-aged producers for keeping the divisive agenda a secret. “I walked into that photo setup as part of an ensemble that night,” she told me in 1997, “and when I walked away, we were removed from one another. It was really never quite the same again.”

"I was told that a second photo session was held secretly with just Suzanne," DeWitt said in the book. "If that's true, then her feeling manipulated is a mystery to me." Countered Somers, "The shot they used was the three of us there that night, and I never shot another [pose]."

Not exactly an International Coffee moment. But, for those who know the compelling back-story, definitely an “aha!”

(Minutes before introducing DeWitt during their December 2011 taping, Somers told TV Land executive Tom Hill—in a Breaking Through episode premiering late last month—that she sent her as-seen-on-Newsweek negligee to the Smithsonian to display with the cover. Hmmm …)

But that was then, and this is now, right? And all’s well that evolves well. DeWitt and Somers’ lengthy Internet sit-down occasionally segued to areas of common ground: They both sadly lost younger brothers, they both loved and miss Ritter and they both did not appreciate their now-deceased producers’ chauvinism. Oh, and they both still playfully accuse the other of passing gas in a pup tent seconds before Ritter crawled in (!). These moments of genuine connection were truly heartening and encouraging for fans of the show, yours truly included.

DeWitt also fondly brings up co-stars Norman Fell, Don Knotts and Richard Kline. But Somers, while offering a friendly ear, gives little feedback. (Perhaps wisely, neither made mention of Somers’ respective temp and permanent replacements, Jenilee Harrison and Priscilla Barnes—the latter DeWitt’s best friend of 30 years.)

Invariably, Somers returns the discussion to herself. She explains—as she did in her 1988 book Keeping Secrets, its 1991 TV movie, her ill-fated 2005 Broadway show The Blonde in the Thunderbird and at points in between and since—that she’s spent years in therapy to overcome the effects of growing up with an alcoholic father. And how playing the mind-numbingly naive Chrissy Snow gave her a chance to live out her lost childhood. And how, as per DeWitt’s compliment, that she was, indeed, “fabulous.”

DeWitt offers plenty of affirming comments and gestures—they even sweetly hold hands—and Somers sincerely acknowledges she respected her co-star’s masters-level actor training. Their teary-eyed chat ends with “love you’s,” hugs and Somers saying, “Come and knock on my door again.”

So everything’s good now … right?

Well … not exactly “Oprah and Gayle good.”

Apparently bruised by the mixed reaction she received in online comments—some posts said Somers appeared to be repressing anger and at times “standoffish”—the home shopping guru and new media maven took to Facebook on Friday afternoon.

“I was the one who was fired for asking to be paid commensurate with the men,” Somers says of her reunion with the clearly more relaxed DeWitt. “I don't believe it was fair that the producers and the network used me to make an example so other women in TV would not have the audacity to ask for parody (sic). At the time I felt that the cast left me hanging and that is why I was initially hurt, and then hurt always turns to anger. So if I wasn't as animated as usual, it's because you were watching true feelings and I was working them out in front of you. Forgiveness is a process.”

Somers made similar comments late last month on Access Hollywood and CBS's The Talk -- more than six weeks following her reunion with DeWitt. On The Talk, she said she still doesn't think she did anything wrong at Three's Company. That men in television made ten times what she was making, and that she was treated like "a pariah" when her co-stars and crew gave in to her producers' "mob fury" after she asked for a raise. And that the cast, all serious acting vets, already seemed put out with her for her various award-show accolades. (Somers received a People's Choice Award in 1978 and a Golden Globe nomination the following year.) And that, well, it was her producer's idea -- not Somers' -- to invite DeWitt onto Breaking Through. (Of course, no mention was made that DeWitt had personally reached out to her in 1996 and again in 2001/2002 and, at least via media interviews, numerous times since.)

Co-star Richard Kline told me in my Retroality.TV “Reimagine That!” podcast last week that Somers’ “the men” comment is inaccurate. “She wanted what the man got. She wanted what John got,” Kline said. “No matter the title ‘Three’s Company,’ let’s face it, it was really John’s show. He was the pivot, he was the focus off of which the girls bounced and reacted. There would be no show without John.” (Somers has indicated that Ritter made up to ten times her salary. In fact, Ritter received $50,000 per episode to DeWitt and Somers’ $30,000 in 1980-81.)

If, despite her very considerable post-Company accomplishments, Somers connects her sense of self-worth to her net worth, the fact that Ritter ended their friendship when she demanded three times his pay and 10 percent of their show’s profits may remain the toughest pill to swallow. Especially since the very person whose understanding, approval and forgiveness she seems to have wanted the most is no longer here to give it to her.

This isn’t the first time Somers has staked a claim for helping women break through Hollywood’s glass ceiling. "I thought [after being fired], 'Oh, I can't win. They want to make an example of me so no other women get uppity,'” she told the Los Angeles Times in a 2007 story titled “The Unsinkable Suzanne Somers.” “I have to say when women get paid big salaries in television now, I take personal pride in it.”

Sadly, a significant part of Somers’ wounded pride and residual anger—stemming from broken relations with the once-close Ritter—may never find external resolution. In a recent appearance on CBS’s The Talk, she confessed that the two had only “sort of” made peace—a pretty far cry from previous pronouncements that they’d mended fences.

And here’s where Somers needs one of forgiveness queen Oprah’s “teaching moments” the most. Few could continue and deepen the recently-reunited sitcom actresses’ dialogue in a public forum like Winfrey, whose struggling OWN cable network found some of its highest ratings and publicity in its “docu-reality” reconciliation/celebrity-Aha! series The O’Neals and Finding Sarah. Perhaps Oprah’s Next Chapter: Suzanne and Joyce is calling out to you, Lady O.

The former daytime doyenne seems primed to offer the sometimes-polarizing Somers a public platform anyway. Winfrey took heat in a Newsweek cover story for giving voice to controversial medicine—including, notably, Somers pushing bioidentical hormones—in 2009. "Many people write Suzanne off as a quackadoo," Winfrey said on her former talk show. "But she just might be a pioneer."

“On the first episode of Breaking Through,” Somers, who lost part of her breast to a lumpectomy in 2000, tells her Facebook followers, “I allowed you to actually see me naked for the purpose of advancing science with my stem cell breast reconstruction [an experimental surgery that Somers discusses in this week’s People magazine]. It wasn't easy. On this episode with Joyce I felt more naked than I've ever allowed myself to be seen. For those of you who ‘get’ what I was and am trying to do, I thank you. For those of you who don't understand, know that my heart is in the right place.”

Whether Somers was a pioneer for TV actresses seeking equality in 1980, she continues to beat that drum while pushing medical breakthroughs and cancer and “anti-aging” treatments that some call unproven and potentially dangerous. But her biggest challenge my be as simple—and as complicated—as trying to heal from a three-decade rift with one “very different” person she’s getting to know again, and one she’ll never see again, at least in the flesh.

“We needed to do this,” she told DeWitt, referencing Somers’ lack of on-camera resolution with Ritter, who nixed a TV reunion with his blonde co-star on her 1994 syndicated talk show, the aptly named The Suzanne Somers Show.

Come and knock on her door, Oprah. She’ll be waiting for you.

Soaprah: Ryan's hope amidst claims he violated Farrah's will

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:06:00 -0400

Outgoing daytime doyenne Oprah Winfrey's unwillingness to save Agnes Nixon's ABC soap institutions All My Children and One Life to Live took on multiple levels of irony this month with the arrival of her cable network's heavily-touted serialized docu-drama The O'Neals.

This eight-episode "soaprah" pairs the ever-tumultuous Ryan and Tatum -- the former again reviving his love-never-means-having-to-say-you're-sorry persona(lity?), as last portrayed in May 2009 in NBC's controversial "news special" Farrah's Story -- in their ever-continuing starring roles as warring father and daughter all-too-willing to rescue their off-screen relationship by rekindling their on-camera chemistry. (Tatum's Oscar-winning turn at age 9 as Dad's co-star in 1973's Paper Moon, anyone?)

But could Winfrey's OWN brand of retrocentric melo-reality TV unwittingly be creating more of a soap operatic existence for its turmoil-plagued male lead than even he bargained for?

(And after accusing his children of causing the cancer that tragically took his late, longtime love Farrah Fawcett's life two years ago this week, is such a scenario even possible?)

Two years after Farrah's tragic death on June 25, 2009,

Ryan O'Neal's family drama continues.

According to new reports on Good Morning, America and Radar Online, police are probing the Love Story star for apparently possessing a famous Andy Warhol portrait of Fawcett that the iconic TV angel bequeathed -- along with all of her other valuable artwork -- to her alma mater, the University of Texas, where she majored in art. The painting's estimated worth: $30M. (You heard it right -- five times the value of a circa-'74 Lee Majors, folks.) The missing portrait appeared hanging in O'Neal's Malibu bedroom in footage -- apparently shot in recent months -- airing on the June 19 premiere episode of The O'Neals.

Oops.

Farrah's missing $30M Warhol portrait, in her Westwood

condo in her final years (top image) and in Ryan O'Neal's

Malibu home as seen on the June 19 episode of The O'Neals.

O'Neal's apparent possession of the original artwork is especially circumspect given the fact that Fawcett excluded her on-again, off-again love from her living trust signed in 2007. In that document -- referred to in press reports as her last will and testament -- the Charlie's Angels star left $4.5 in trust to their troubled son, Redmond, $500,000 in trust to her father, James, $500,000 to her nephew and $100,000 to Greg Lott, Fawcett's boyfriend during college and, according to Lott, her secret lover off and on until Farrah's final years. Ryan O'Neal, on the other hand, received nada. Zippo. Zilch.

Ouch.

But the latest troublesome chapter in O'Neal's 70-year-old life may have only just begun. According to an exclusive report in the July 4 issue of Star magazine, the University of Texas has reached out to Lott and Farrah's Story executive producer Craig Nevius in their investigation. Which isn't good news for their biggest foe. Both men have said O'Neal cut them out of Fawcett's life during her last three months. (Incidentally, Charlie's Angels co-star Kate Jackson also has claimed O'Neal denied her access to her beloved friend of nearly 35 years -- and even the chance to say goodbye -- during Fawcett's final, bedridden weeks. Jackson will likely tell all in her memoir The Smart One, due out in October.)

And in an explosive commentary posted this week on TheMortonReport.com, Nevius spills on O'Neal's less-than-Love Story-worthy relationship with Fawcett. The writer-producer -- who recently settled dueling lawsuits in which he claimed O'Neal unscrupulously seized control of Farrah's Story from him while O'Neal's manager/Fawcett's estate trustee, Richard Francis, "usurp(ed) her estate" during her final months -- accuses the actor of self-serving, controlling behavior throughout the Burning Bed star's three-year battle with anal cancer. Referencing O'Neal's newsmaking interview this week with CNN's Piers Morgan, in which the reality star claimed he and his adult children contributed to Fawcett's deadly cancer, Nevius writes:

I'm not buying these well-rehearsed and over-dramatic soundbites. Because I know this man well enough to know that he very rarely says what he really means. That's why if the media listened carefully to Ryan's interview what they would really hear is that Ryan is not actually blaming himself or his children for causing Farrah's cancer. In fact, he's doing the opposite. In some sick and narcissistic way, he's attempting to take the credit for it. Not only does his ego demand that the public recognize him as the love of Farrah's life, he also needs everyone to know that it was this same intense love that ultimately killed her.

Craig Nevius executive produced Fawcett's 2005 reality series Chasing Farrah for TV Land, and formed a business partnership and close friendship with the actress in the years following. Photo: Lisa Boyle.

Nevius states that O'Neal initially rushed to Fawcett's side following her cancer diagnosis, but could not sustain his role as selfless hero for the long run. "A few months after Farrah began chemotherapy," Nevius writes, "Ryan became increasingly jealous and, at times, even angry at the outpouring of love and sympathy that she received from all over the world -- not to mention his own children." O'Neal became "furious" when learning of Tatum's "secret reconciliation" with Fawcett following her diagnosis. "And so, ever the gentleman, he wished Farrah good luck with her cancer and made his exit: 'bowing out' as he described it in the note that he left with her assistant."

Of course, this reality was not depicted in the NBC "video diary" that Fawcett and Nevius originally titled A Wing & A Prayer and that Fawcett, The New York Times reported, "had intended ... to address shortcomings she saw in American cancer treatment and to present it in art-house style." O'Neal orchestrated a takeover of the project during its final weeks of production in spring 2009 and, along with Fawcett's friend Alana Stewart, appeared in interviews throughout the special and during a publicity tour, including a red-carpet screening promoting its network premiere six weeks prior to Fawcett's death.

O'Neal has retained control of Farrah's Story and reportedly plans to release it on DVD. (He also reportedly formed Unforgotten Love Productions, LL in an effort to produce a sequel.) And though Nevius dropped his suit -- he says because he could no longer afford the costly legal fees -- he has, no doubt to O'Neal's deep disdain, retained his right to voice his grievances and, he has said, seek justice for Fawcett.

"After two years, I can no longer afford to fight Ryan O'Neal, Alana Stewart and Richard Francis over creative control of Farrah's Story and whether or not they had the right to take over the company that Farrah Fawcett and I formed to produce the documentary about her cancer fight and efforts to protect her privacy," Nevius said in a statement in March. ""I will always believe that Ryan and Alana acted as squatters: isolating Farrah from me and others in order to obtain signatures that would ultimately allow them to turn the innovative and informative film we worked on for two years into a network deathwatch."

And according to Nevius, A Wing & A Prayer may not be the only "last will and testament" of Fawcett that O'Neal and/or company, um, reimagined. He told ABC News this week that he first discovered O'Neal apparently wrongfully possessed a valuable item Fawcett willed to her alma mater while reading Tatum's new memoir, found. In it, she discloses that the Warhol painting now hangs in her father's bedroom, ""That was a 'Thank God, we've caught you' moment," Nevius said. "I told the university, 'Be patient and wait, because this man is so arrogant, he's going to show it.'"

In March 2010 Nevius alleged in court papers that Fawcett "was not aware" of the existence of The Farrah Fawcett Foundation, "a charitable foundation funded by Ms. Fawcett's assets" and an organization with which O'Neal "recently announced that he would be 'working.'" Also that month, Nevius released a statement, "in the name of Farrah Fawcett," in which he called on the attorney general "to investigate the 'Farrah Fawcett Foundation' and interview a handful of Farrah’s trusted friends and associates with respect to Farrah’s knowledge and intent regarding this so-called 'charity.'

"And I would suggest that the attorney general start with interviewing Farrah's father and Kate Jackson," Nevius stated. "I will be happy to give him a longer list in private."

Fawcett's father, James, died last August, months after Nevius alleged in court papers that Francis had "systematically sought to divert and delay distribution" monies due to James per his daughter's living trust. "Mr. Francis and his lawyers have helped themselves to the Trust's assets by paying themselves to line their own pockets," Nevius alleged.

Now, an impassioned group of Farrah's devotees, led by fan Cathy Swango, have taken up the cudgels for Nevius in a Facebook page called "Farrah Fawcett: We Want the Truth." "I have started this group to discuss the controversy that surrounds Farrah Fawcett's death, her last wishes, the documentary A Wing and A Prayer, and anything else WE AS FANS have on our minds!" Swango states in the page's description. The group has begun a letter-writing campaign requesting that California's attorney general open an investigation into the Farrah Fawcett Foundation and her estate.

As for the Warhol investigation, ABC news reports, "O'Neal's representative said he has not betrayed her final wishes and that 'all of Farrah's wishes expressed in her will have been fulfilled.'"

O'Neal expressed disappointment last week that Oprah had essentially abandoned him and Tatum during production of The O'Neals. “I thought that was the thing – that Oprah would be there and use her magic on us,” he told Comcast. “I thought she’d bless us and that would help. We spent New Year’s Even with her, and she was very encouraging. Then we never saw her again. And haven’t heard from her."

With the so-not-"living-your-best-life" publicity now surrounding the show and its subjects, one wonders if Oprah can use her magic to save this father-daughter relationship. If her network gets pulled into a police investigation of a stolen Warhol, the media queen may need to save her transformative powers for damage control (Thirty Million Little Pieces, perhaps?) and stage an intervention, er, interview with Ryan and Tatum during their show's season (series?) finale.

Or it may just be time for the queen of daytime to reimagine the "soaprah." In comparison, saving Erica Cane and the rest of Agnes Nixon's "children" may not be such a tall order after all.

CBS Turning a Blind Eye to Sheen Domestic Abuse Guilty Plea?

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 07:06:54 -0400

The Globe magazine will soon publish Gary Coleman’s “death photos,” but it isn’t the first tabloid to exploit the late actor’s dying images.

Coleman’s ex-wife, Shannon Price—called “cold, cunning and creepy” for her questionable conduct during and after the actor’s dying days—this week defends herself “only,” as its promo proudly blares, “on The Insider!” (as well as its sister show, Entertainment Tonight).

Here’s hoping Price holds a mirror up to The Insider's producers and panelists, who, after hosting Coleman’s disturbing TV swan song in February, should know by now that tabloid TV exposure is a two-way street.

If anything good can come from the diminutive Diff’rent Strokes star’s tragic death from a brain hemorrhage at 42, it will be the beyond-timely demise of the attack-style television “interview” and throw-’em-under-a-bus “coverage” that helped write his troubled life’s final act.

Namely: the well-deserved mercy killing of a brand-defining chunk of the CBS Corp.’s once-benign (read: pre-Anna Nicole) ET and its more transparent, gossipy, mob-scene offspring—the show whose aggressive badgering and exploitation could have sent the infamously quick-to-anger Coleman to an even earlier grave in February—The Insider.

via The Insider

Varying levels of tabloid toxicity sadly unite TV’s most influential block of half-bloodthirsty, half-obsequious entertainment news shows. The target of these schizophrenic series’ dark sides? Rarely, if ever, a CBS headliner, film giant or a celebrity who otherwise has current bankability, high-placed PR and legal teams and the collective power to shut down these infotainment series.

To wit: CBS’s Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen planned to plead guilty this week in an Aspen, Colo., courtroom to a misdemeanor third-degree assault charge stemming from his felony menacing arrest on charges he threatened his wife at knifepoint on Christmas day. But, aside from brief, vague reports (mostly on their web sites), both ET and The Insider have all but ignored this story for months—though they chirpily trumpeted his recent press release revelation that he’d signed for two more seasons of his series “after two-and-one-half months of a whirlwind of speculation” (and for upwards of $2 million per episode).

via The Insider--the show's web site (and not the series itself) last "covered" Sheen's troubles via this interesting analysis

No, today’s prey are yesteryear’s luminaries clearly on their way down, out and potentially six feet under—or at least those former stars struggling to re-spark or resuscitate their image and livelihoods by coming to the (A-list-)celeb-friendly series that often unapologetically deliver the final blow.

In his last TV interview, the often-agitated and visibly weakened Coleman—fresh from his own domestic violence arrest and plea deal, a seizure and head injury in January and pneumonia and heart surgery last fall—suffered one of his problem-plagued life’s final indignities during his visit as an in-studio "guest" at The Insider on Feb. 17.

The show's celebrity attorney panelist flesh-chewing interrogator, “CBS legal correspondent Lisa Bloom,” relentlessly pounded the actor with the same aggressive question—Did you abuse your wife?!—despite the fact that he'd already answered her. Her button-pushing "cross examination" of the embattled, embittered and explosive former sitcom star was a rude and ruthless spectacle that The Insider was all too happy to spin and exploit ad nauseum across the next several days of February sweeps.

via The Insider

(Coleman, long strapped for cash and ever-desirous to set the record straight—like any public figure—on his terms, would return to the studio he fled to confront Bloom’s co-panelists on Feb. 26. That appearance was apparently so taxing that the actor suffered a seizure while on set. Fortunately, an infinitely more empathetic Dr. Drew Pinsky was sitting in Bloom’s chair and administered life-saving procedures on Coleman during his still-unseen swan song. Tellingly, Pinsky has interviewed for the syndicated TV newsmagazine Extra—not ET or The Insider—about Coleman in the days following the actor’s death on May 28.)

Bloom—who now represents Michael Lohan (!)—soon chimed in on Joy Behar's Headline News show. "I'm an attorney," Bloom stressed after Behar played an abbreviated clip of the on-air debacle. "I've represented a lot of women and children in abuse cases. I know how to talk to batterers. I know how they respond. They generally only go after their own family members. And Gary Coleman has pleaded guilty to a domestic violence incident against his wife, but it was pleaded down to a misdemeanor and he only had to pay a $500 fine—no jail time."

She was referencing Coleman's arrest on Jan. 24 for failing to appear in court on previously-unpublicized charges of domestic violence against his wife, 24-year-old Shannon Price, during an incident at their home in Santaquin, Utah on April 18, 2009. An Associated Press report said details of that incident were not outlined in court documents but qualified Coleman's defense attorney, Randy Kester, as characterizing the event as an "argument that got out of hand." "No one was injured and no ambulances were called," Kester said. "It was just a disagreement."

It wasn't the couple's first quarrel—or their last. Price was arrested in July 2009 and charged with domestic violence after a furniture-toppling row with Coleman. Bloom failed to mention Price's arrest. To be fair, the celebrattorney also didn’t bring up Coleman’s arrest and conviction for punching a female autograph-seeker who the 4’8” actor said taunted and intimidated him in 1998. Nor did Bloom remind us he also was accused in 2008 of trying to run down a male fan who snapped his photo at a Utah bowling alley. That fracas resulted in no arrests and was settled this January for an undisclosed sum.

A week prior to his Insider outburst, Coleman pleaded guilty to a class B misdemeanor charge of domestic violence/criminal mischief stemming from the still-murky April 2009 incident. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped a domestic violence/assault charge and the judge ordered the actor to pay a $595 fine and attend classes on avoiding domestic violence.

via The Insider

The judge also should've sentenced Coleman to stay away from ravenously provocative infotainment shows. Especially on the days that Gloria Allred's legal eagle daughter sweeps in for the kill.

"I think in this country," Bloom continued to Behar at the height of the TV’s Tiger Woods hate-a-thon, "we're really tired of seeing celebrities get away with bad acts against their own family, drug use, whatever it is. They're never held accountable. Nobody ever asks them the hard questions. They get a pass on all of the shows. So I was there to see if he was going to answer the questions." (Coleman's initial response to Bloom—“There is no abuse that goes on at my house”—apparently was not precise enough for the attorney.)

Bloom's argument sounds pretty reasonable. Until you remember that Entertainment Tonight and The Insider are anything but journalistic enterprises with reputations for calling out Hollywood BS.

In fact, ET has had its lips suctioned to so much corporate-synergized celebrity butt for so long that Mary Hart can't smile without giving Tom Cruise or an NCIS star a wedgie. So, yeah, Ms. Bloom, we'd all love to see one of your entertainment news co-horts ask your network’s cash cow Charlie Sheen a hard-hitting question about, say, his drug use or alleged domestic violence, instead of parroting his attorneys’ and publicists’ carefully-crafted media statements. But guess what? It ain’t gonna happen.

Because Sheen, like NCIS star Mark Harmon and former Paramount Pictures golden child Cruise, is a current celebcommodity (let alone one on the company payroll) whose access, success and/or influence both shows need to survive. Likewise, we’ll never see these shows even gently press the sometimes-controversial Cruise about Scientology in favor of asking him insipid, sycophantic questions about why his daughter is or isn’t wearing shoes in a paparazzi photo.

But God forbid Cruise or anyone else now in ET/The Insider’s favor falls on hard times and no longer proves lucrative and/or legally threatening to the industry. To see that terrible fate, we need look no further than Gary Coleman, Dana Plato, Lindsay Lohan, Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and any retro star "caught" looking fat, old, disoriented, intoxicated, tired or frail. Or, as in the case of Farrah Fawcett in a wheelchair—her long-dreaded "final photo"—trying to live their final days in dignity with an ET-paid pap invading what little privacy they have left by shoving a camera lens in their face.

America already knew Gary Coleman was a troubled and angry and sick “former child star.” We didn’t need The Insider to put him--and now, postmortem, his ex-wife--on camera and incessantly poke him with a stick to remind us how cruel Hollywood can be.

Why Betty White Makes a Grown Man Cry

Sun, 9 May 2010 07:05:24 -0400

An oh-so-Live Betty White moved me to tears this Saturday Night. And not just in a laughed-so-hard-I-cried kind of way.

Oh, no. This was far more profound: I teared up in a please-don't-take-my-Betty-White-away way. (As in, you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. I know. Sad.)

As with most of life's trauma, it all goes back to childhood and young adulthood. And, oh yes, Dick Clark.

Picture it: Tulsa, 1992. The Golden Girls had just ended its seven-year run. Bea Arthur left the nest, and Betty, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty would never be the same, even though their short-lived spin-off The Golden Palace tried to promise more comedic hijinks. But we all know by now that Cheech Marin is no Bea Arthur, and cheesecake without biting sarcasm and raised eyebrows is, well, just cheesecake.

I'd just turned 20, just took a soul-crushing summer job at an all-you-can-eat-in-your-whitetrash-housecoast-sportin'-and-cheap-ass-flip-flops-wearin' buffet and just watched the Los Angeles riots turn the country upside down. After considering all of the sociopolitical consequences of our nation's bitterly divisive and otherwise ugly race war, the 20-year-old in me realized I may not get to visit L.A. that summer after all--despite my pact to stay alive since the previous fall just so I could get the hell out of Dodge for a couple of easy-breezy, beautiful weeks in August.

So, as I often did growing up, I placed all of my hope for the human race in a sitcom clown's magical ability to turn my spiritual frown upside down.

Which was all going along just fine, mind you, until Dick Clark tried to cast a dark shadow of fear and desperation on my eternal, as-seen-on-TV sunshine known as Betty White.

Betty was already under enough stress as it was in the early-'80s rerun of The $25,000 Pyramid that she again graced in cable reruns barely transmitting in my rural Oklahoma living room. I mean, sweet prophet, she only had sixty seconds to get to the top of the pyramid and possibly prevent a dowdy housewife from slitting her wrists during station identification. Is that not enough for the poor old (pre-)Golden Girl to bear?

Betty White in another, less-tense episode of Pyramid.

Apparently not. That prescient Dick Clark must've known America would again be watching in May 1992, pinning all of the fractured nation's hopes on Betty's ability to beat the clock and heal the world with the orgasmic sound of studio audience applause and game-show bells and whistles.

And so, as she brilliantly made her way to the top of the square-laden triangle, Betty White hit a snag. BECAUSE SHE'S HUMAN! But that is no excuse in a certain Dick's book.

A good 10 or 15 seconds ticked by as she tried to offer the perfect series of clues to the clueless housewife sitting across from her. Sweat was building on Betty's brow as her strapped-in hands clutched the arms of the plush torture device in which she sat. Finally, the dowdy housewife got the next-to-last answer, and with four seconds remaining, the final topic revealed itself at the top of the Dark Dick's Daytime Agony Climb.

Then, in what can only be described as the three most dramatic slow-motion seconds in the history of speaking peoples, I watch as Betty White performs the game-show equivalent of parting the Red Sea. She sees the answer: "Things You Paste." She tightens her death grip on her chair. A stroke seems imminent. And then, as if she wasn't under enough stress to fell a dozen elephants, Americans' cruelest teenager YELLS at her from his CBS Television City podium: "HURRY, BETTY!!!"

I nearly passed out. But with two seconds left, Betty summoned All That is Good, Peaceful, Unifying and Wise within her, quickly--and yet non-threateningly--uttering, "Pictures in a scrapbook!" And with nanoseconds remaining, Dowdy Housewife miraculously yells out, "THINGS YOU PASTE!"

Bells. Whistles. Applause. $25,000. And me sobbing at a 10-year-old game-show rerun. Because, in my heart of hearts, Betty White and I had made a pact, and she had brought salvation back.

Betty White: The Eye of the Tiger

Flash forward to Mother's Day 2010. At age 88, TV's good-old Golden Girl is still shining strong, kicking ass and taking names as the host of Saturday Night Live (!). In the 18 years since she saved mankind under the Dicktatorship of Mr. Clark, Betty has outlived two of her cheesecake-eating Golden co-stars (so long, dear Bea and Estelle) as well as the equally iconic, flaxen-haired '70s sunshine 25 years her junior, TV angel Farrah Fawcett, and, sadly, even my own personal Betty--my late grandmother, Elizabeth "Bettye" Hancock, who lost her battle with cancer in 1998.

So as I watched this very special SNL with my own (now Golden-aged) mother--just days after a madman tried to blow up Times Square (danger, Dick "Rockin' New Year's Eve" Clark!)--it was 1992's post-race-riot rerun of 1982's $25,000 Pyramid all over again.

Sure, Betty's foul-mouthed sketch-comedy stylings brought me tears of joy born from side-splitting laughter. And my pride in Miss White's still-shining, joyous essence lit me up like a cheap game-show set piece. But America's grandma also touched that vulnerable spot in me that wants to pause the world--or at least nearly freeze it for three or four super-slow-mo seconds--and say, "DON'T hurry, Betty!"

Because as long as TV's Queen of Game Shows/Happy Homemaker/Golden Girl is with us, everything will be all right--and we'll always have New York City and TV City and Minneapolis and Miami and (starting in June on TV Land) Cleveland to escape to during those long, hot, oppressive summer months.

In this day and age, we need Betty more than ever. As our country continues to heal from within while trying to find peace in an increasingly chaotic world, Betty White, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, may be our only hope.

So please don't pay any attention to that ticking time clock or that ball-dropping Dick, sweet golden girl. I'm giving you at least another 18 years to make it to the top of the pyramid.

Can Charlie's Angels achieve justice for "Farrah's Story"?

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:01:52 -0500

^{Kate Jackson defends producer sued Friday by Farrah Fawcett estate.}

The angels don't seem to be smiling down on Ryan O'Neal of late.

Seven months after losing longtime girlfriend Farrah Fawcett, the Love Story star watched helplessly as their son, Redmond, was arrested—sadly, yet again—on drug charges while in rehab this month. This, just weeks after Fawcett's other on-again, off-again love, Greg Lott, angrily confronted the 68-year-old actor, with paparazzi in tow, on the streets of Los Angeles.

O'Neal refused Lott access to Fawcett in her final months, then barred him from her funeral. (The actor also denied his estranged son Griffin O'Neal the chance to say goodbye to the woman who in essence was his step mom.) Last fall, news broke that Fawcett named college sweetheart Lott—and not the embattled father of her child—in her will, to the tune of $100,000. Ouch.

Now comes an unexpected move from Farrah's close friend and Charlie's Angels co-star Kate Jackson. In a surprise reversal, Jackson is defending a producer against lawsuit claims brought Friday by Richard B. Francis on behalf of Fawcett's estate and her company, Sweetened By Risk LLC. Francis acts as a trustee for the Fawcett Living Trust. He is also Ryan O'Neal's manager.

Producer Craig Nevius sued both men and Fawcett pal Alana Stewart last May, claiming the three interfered with his contractual duty to executive produce Fawcett's cancer documentary A Wing & A Prayer. O'Neal seized control of the project last spring—Francis claims on Fawcett's instructions—and oversaw creative changes while Farrah lay dying. Those changes included filming Redmond, in jail house jumpsuit and shackles, visiting his apparently semi-conscious mom on her deathbed. More than 9 million viewers watched the special, retitled Farrah's Story (with not-so-subtle nods to O'Neal's star-making role in Love Story), on NBC during May sweeps. Fawcett died on June 25.

The suit filed by Francis alleges that Nevius, Fawcett's producing partner who knew the iconic TV Angel for five years, possibly embezzled "hundreds of thousands of dollars" from Fawcett after she (allegedly) squeezed him out of the documentary and (allegedly) rejected his (allegedly) "amateurish and sensationalized" edit, which she (again, allegedly) deemed "wholly unacceptable." The suit also claims Nevius "exploited Fawcett" and publicized privileged information about the actress, including news that her cancer had returned.

Jackson told the AP on Friday that she was shocked by the suit's charges against the producer, who'd previously produced Fawcett's 2005 E! reality series Chasing Farrah. "He had an unflagging devotion to Farrah in every way and he worked with her to help her achieve her vision, not his vision and not anybody else's vision," she said.

This is no small thing. Last May, after Nevius sued, Jackson, in an appearance with Fawcett doctor Lawrence Piro, referred to him as "Craig Devious" on The Today Show. She also told the New York Post at the time, "It is evil to try to ruin (Farrah's Story). It sounds like the effect is not the effect she intended to have be her legacy." Last week, Jackson called her previous criticisms misguided. In an in-depth, exclusive interview with Retroality.TV last fall, Nevius revealed that, in 2004, he was in talks with Jackson and Farrah for an Angels reunion. That project never materialized.

Whatever accounts for Jackson's change of heart, one thing is certain: She loved Farrah. The two women, along with Charlie's third original angel, Jaclyn Smith, remained close throughout Fawcett's three-year cancer battle. Their deep fondness for Fawcett was evident in interviews both gave in the weeks before and after her death. These ladies' bonds—strengthened by their individual battles with cancer and shared experiences as mothers—are especially remarkable considering Fawcett bailed on their ABC hit after one year. In Hollywood, there's no quicker way to end a friendship than failing to show for work. Just ask Suzanne Somers.

Jackson is not alone in her support. Mike Pingel, Fawcett's friend and her personal assistant from 2005-2007, released this statement today: "Farrah trusted her friend and producing partner, Craig Nevius, with executing her vision for the documentary, which was to tell the world of her cancer battle. Farrah was so pleased with how A Wing & A Prayer was coming together she even showed me part of the film. It's sad the documentary was changed and Farrah's version has yet to be seen."

O'Neal also stood by Fawcett, to be sure—as she did him when he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001. "I don't think about mortality in my own case. I'll go with her," O'Neal told USA Today last May. "They said this drug I was on was good for five (years), and I've gone eight, so I'm on borrowed time. But I know someone will be waiting for me."

But would Fawcett want her longtime love to spend his final years angry, aloof, embattled and unable to set a good example—however late—for his children? That's doubtful. She was far from perfect, but this TV star radiated light and offered fellow cancer warriors a beacon of hope, even when she could've let anger and resentment consume her. By no account did cancer kill her will to live and fight the good fight. For Fawcett, that fight centered on changing patient privacy laws and revamping the U.S. health care system. She went to war for the greater good.

If you believe noted psychic medium James Van Praagh, Fawcett is still an earth angel, at least in spirit. In a reading for Alana Stewart in the recent E! special Psychic Hollywood: The Search for Truth (Hollywood and truth—talk about strange bedfellows!), Van Praagh said Fawcett wanted Stewart to help O'Neal reconcile with "Griff"—an apparent reference to Griffin O'Neal. The celebrated channeler's other reference to the father of Fawcett's child: that Ryan "should be here" for the reading.

The lawsuits filed by and against Craig Nevius might see Fawcett "speak from the grave" about her vision for her cancer documentary and her relationship with the man she entrusted to execute her vision. In a statement released Friday, the producer said he "will be more than happy to let the video tapes, documents, witnesses and Farrah's own words (both written and spoken) speak for me and defend me, finally removing all doubt and suspicion as to what actually happened during the final months of her life and who her real exploiters are. This is a fight Francis, O'Neal and Stewart cannot win."

As with her role as Charlie's "smart angel," Jackson may again prove the linchpin to crack the case. It follows that Jaclyn Smith—who also spent time with Fawcett in her final months—will likely also be called to testify. Their accounts, along with Farrah's own words in unseen documentary footage and documents, could reunite the Angels one final time in the name of justice.

Sadly, nothing will bring Farrah back in the glowing, inspiring form that Ryan O'Neal and the rest of America knew and loved. And only those who knew her best can truly keep her story—and her spirit—alive. Fawcett's friends and family not only have the opportunity to carry out her true vision, wishes and intentions, they have a responsibility to do so.

Something tells me she would much rather see O'Neal spend his final years using his "borrowed time" to help his troubled children and, in doing so, heal his own hurts. There's a reason he's been given the extra time that cancer denied Fawcett. And it's doubtful that reason has been to get arrested on drug charges with his youngest son and on assault charges (later dismissed) against his eldest son.

Fawcett knew how to fight the good fight. But life also taught her how to pick her battles. Here's hoping that O'Neal starts listening to the angel perched on one shoulder while overcoming the demons weighing down his other.