A sad ending to Sandra Day O'Connor's tragic menage a trois

John J. O'Connor, the husband of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has died at 79. The former attorney had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1990, but made headlines two years ago when it was revealed he had a girlfriend at the assisted living home where he was living out his days-- and that his wife was okay with it.

O'Connor's son revealed he'd struck up a romance with a woman who is a fellow Alzheimer's patient. He also said his mother the retired justice wasn't jealous about the relationship, and was pleased that her husband was comfortable.

One of the people who ran the center in Phoenix said that people with Alzheimer's need intimacy and sometimes developed romantic attachments with fellow patients.

Sandra and John O'Connor first made tabloid history in 1985 at The Washington Press Club's Salute to Congress dinner, when Washington Redskins running back John Riggins, who was seated next to the Justice and drunk out of his mind, said to her: "Come on Sandy, baby, loosen up. You're too tight." Then he knelt beside John O'Connor, put his hand on his shoulder-- and fell to the floor, asleep.

Good news for David Hull

It took most of the mainstream media about three days to catch up with our report on Friday that Joe Perry was claiming that Steven Tyler had quit Aerosmith, but as soon as they did catch up, Steven Tyler that came out and denied it.

He walked onstage at the Fillmore in New York where The Joe Perry Project (with bassist and Aerosmith fill-in player David Hull) was performing and announced:

"I just want New York to know, I am not leaving Aerosmith! And Joe Perry, you are a man of many colours but I, motherfucker, am the rainbow!"

Then they played 'Walk This Way.' Tyler ended the song with his arm around Perry.

November 11, 1999: Brokaw battles 'Baby'

November 11, 1999
New York Post

Neal Travis’ New York

INTERVIEW TAB-LED

WHILE network news organizations have adopted many tabloid-TV practices, they don't like to admit it - and certainly don't want anyone getting air time to talk about the way standards have changed. Burt Kearns, in town to launch his book, "Tabloid Baby," just learned the power of establishment television.

Kearns was scheduled the other evening to do John Gibson's MSNBC show, talking about the way the tab stars of "A Current Affair" outperformed traditional news anchors - including NBC's Tom Brokaw - at the tumbling of the Berlin Wall 10 years ago.

Kearns was pre-interviewed and the cable channel arranged a limo to take him to their studios over in New Jersey. Just an hour before the car arrived, they canceled him. He was told Brokaw - who has his own memoir to plug and who regards the news very seriously - was taking his place.

NY Times: A Current Affair at the Berlin Wall

The New York Times solicited readers' photos and recollections of the fall of The Berlin Wall. Among them was the encapsulation of the groundbreaking and singular tabloid television coverage by the producers and host of A Current Affair, as recounted in the book Tabloid Baby:

"Brandenburg Gate, East Berlin — On the night of Thursday, Nov. 9, a contingent of producers and correspondents from A Current Affair boarded a rented jet at Teterboro Airport bound for Berlin, where we crashed the network party. Maury Povich borrowed Peter Jennings' perch to report live from the Brandenbeug Gate while Dan Rather flew around in a cherrypicker above him. The next day, Maury reported from the Eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate. Then we commandeered a Mercedes and drove into the forests of East Germany to reunite two brothers, one who owned a small sugar plant there, and the other we had 'kidnapped' the night before from a tavern on the Upper East Side. As told in the chapter "Achtung, Baby!" from the book, Tabloid Baby."

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT! "ACHTUNG, BABY!" TABLOID TELEVISION AT THE BERLIN WALL ... READ THE ENTIRE CHAPTER HERE

Tabloid Baby excerpt: November 9, 1989

"Thursday, November 9, 1989, was a pretty rough day. I went home without hitting the bar, ordered some Japanese food from Obento Delight around the corner and was settling in to watch some television when the phone rang. It was Wayne.

"'Get down to the Fortune Garden, mate. They're tearin' down the Berlin Wall! Communism's over and the place is going fackin' nuts...'"

That night, a group of Germans made history and a group of tabloid television foot soldiers from A Current Affair changed the face of television news.

In this exclusive excerpt from Tabloid Baby on the tenth anniversary of its publication, you will see how.

Click the page images to enlarge each page.

Disneyland: Black to the future? Or past?

A year after the election of Barack Obama, Disneyland officially inaugurated its first black princess with the debut of Tiana's Showboat Jubilee! starring Princess Tiana from the new animated feature, The Princess and The Frog.


Singing and dancing and performing from the Mark Twain riverboat along the Rivers of America and culminating in a second line march into New Orleans Square, the spectacle is, as the daily program, promises, a "toe tappin,' hand-clappin' riverboat extravaganza" that veers perilously and surprisingly toward the coonin' and buffoonin' of another era and a Showboat of another era. The actress lip-synching to the recorded tracks plays it broad-- way broad, and the happy shining stereotypes, including a gravel-throated crocodile trumpeter named Louis-- are in your face. Equally controversial is that the prince Tiana is paired up with, appears to be white, or Indian, or Middle Eastern, but most definitely not a black man. It all seems to tarnish Tiana's achievement, and while she may become a favorite of little black girls, the setup could lead to serious questions from black boys.

Stevie Wonder

Any irony in all this? While the show tapped and clapped along New Orleans Square, Stevie Wonder was in the plaza at the end of Main Street with Sleeping Beauty's castle behind him, dressed in red and performing "What Christmas Means To Me" for an ABC Christmas Day special.

Lindsay vs. Michael, photos vs. Tweets

Talented, troubled sometime actress Lindsay Lohan or her people are on a Twitter campaign against her very estranged father who's gone out on a perilous limb withhis own campaign claiming she needs some help. This is Lindsay less than 48 hours ago. Yeah, she's doing just fine. Oh, yeah.

Leon Russell rolls on

First Oasis, now Aerosmith

Joe Perry says Steven Tyler has quit Aerosmith.

Just this morning, we were watching a CNN clip about Aerosmith's performance in Abu Dhabi and noticed that Perry and Tyler were interviewed separately, Tyler alongside his new partner in crime, Tabloid Baby pal Mark Hudson. Perry says the Abu Dhabi show was the band's last, and that he learned of Tyler's decision "online" but hasn't been able to confirm it because Tyler doesn't return his calls. He denied guitarist Brad Whitford's claim that the band would look for a new frontman.

Tyler didn't look all that steady in the Abu Dhabi interview. Then again, he fell off a stage and broke things not to long ago.

Aerosmith is cited as an influence in the book, Tabloid Baby. We've also been following the story of hometown rock 'n' roll hero David Hull, who's been filling in now and then for Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton, and most recently been holding down the bottom for the reunited Joe Perry Project.

Outrage! Royal Mail rejects Benny Hill stamp

What is with the British and their insults to their greatest comedian, Benny Hill? It's bad enough that during his life, Benny's ITV series was canceled because it wasn't "politically correct," but twenty years later, they're denying him an honor for the same reason.

Great Britain's Royal Mail service has rejected a stamp honoring Benny Hill to commemorate the 50th anniversary of ITV.



The series ran on ITV for 20 years and featured classic and slapstick and burlesque sketches, blackouts, sight gags, song parody, pioneering use of "undercranking" sped-up footage and double entendre humour-- always suitable for the entire family and always hilarious. The series was packaged and ran for decades in the United States, where it became a major influence on the development of tabloid television, not to mention generations of comedians to come (its importance is covered in the book Tabloid Baby, which this month is celebrating its tenth anniversary).

Despite its success, Thames Television dropped The Benny Hill Show in 1989, admittedly as part of the trend of political correctness that was prevalent at the time: some had accused the shows as being sexist and racist.

Twenty years later, the country that spewed out the likes of Sacha Baron Cohen and Russell Brand, continues to be imprisoned by political correctness. Even the Daily Telegraph, in reporting the stamp insult, says the Benny Hill Show "is best remembered for the closing credits in which Hill chased an assortment of scantily-clad women."

Sad.

Let dad take the heat if Lindsay stays alive

So Lindsay Lohan has the mainstream gossip media on her side this morning, as she or her people take to Twitter to attack her father Michael after he released her private voicemail recordings and went frighteningly public with his concerns about not only her health but her life.


Word is that Lindsay is seeking a restraining order to keep him away and stop him from forcibly tossing her into a rehab facility. As we've mentioned before, Michael's mediamongering ways have not helped him in the eyes of the drivebys who only see an attention-seeking showbiz dad. But we've spoken to Michael. He's motivated by true concern and fear that his daughter will soon be dead like more than one of her hard-partying celebutard pals, and the heat he's taken for his grandstanding and otherwise inappropriate actions have already caused Lindsay to straighten up, if only because people are watching.


And let's be honest, most of the gossips and showbiz writers don't give a shit whether Lindsay Lohan lives or dies. They'll jump on whatever side is controlling the headlines at the moment, and if she's found dead in some hotel room, or bungalow, it make an even better story.

We'll check back.

Good morning? Not for these divas.

Look what we woke up to in the Daily Mail. Mariah Carey, Lady GaGa, Britney Spears and Diana Ross. The fact that they represent four generations of female pop superstar and the sheer volume of tragedy make it worth pointing out.

Disney decides to mess with Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is getting a cynical and potentially dangerous makeover from Walt Disney's successors, as they fear the iconic beloved symbol of childhood innocence is more of a corporate symbol than beloved character to a generation raised on the Disney Channel.

The New York Times reports on two parallel efforts within the Walt Disney Compamy organization to make Mickey Mouse more Miley Cyrus. The first is a new video game, Epic Mickey, "in which the formerly squeaky clean character can be cantankerous and cunning...

"In many ways, it is a return to Mickey at his creation. When the character made its debut in 'Steamboat Willie' in 1928, he was the Bart Simpson of his time: an uninhibited rabble-rouser who got into fistfights, played tricks on his friends (pity Clarabelle Cow) and, later, was amorously aggressive with Minnie.

"Epic Mickey, designed for Nintendo’s Wii console, is set in a 'cartoon wasteland' where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations live. The chief inhabitant is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a cartoon character Walt Disney created in 1927 as a precursor to Mickey but ultimately abandoned in a dispute with Universal Studios. In the game, Oswald has become bitter and envious of Mickey’s popularity. The game also features a disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck and a 'twisted, broken, dangerous' version of Disneyland’s 'It’s a Small World.' Using paint and thinner thrown from a magic paintbrush, Mickey must stop the Phantom Blot overlord, gain the trust of Oswald and save the day."


Meanwhile, Disney "has quietly embarked on an even larger project to rethink the character’s personality, from the way Mickey walks and talks to the way he appears on the Disney Channel and how children interact with him on the Web — even what his house looks like at Disney World."

Disney announced this week that after 20 years of negotiations, the Chinese government has given the okay to open a Disneyland in Shanghai. The China move is seen as another reason they're tampering with their symbol.

What next?

Video: Pink Slip is Facebook's buzz clip

The first installment of Pink Slip, the new romantic comedy webisode series, made a splash when it hit YouTube, but the real buzz started after it was spread around on Facebook. Set in L.A. and focusing on what folks do when they're out of work-- pink slipped-- and broke, it struck a chord with viewers, and part two, which injects some real Bosom Buddies-Some Like It Hot comedy, is bound to attract even more attention.

Pink Slip Part One focused on Suzie, who's working two jobs to make ends meet. Now the series picks up with Max, who's recently been evicted and comes up with a solution when his Aunt Florrie drops dead. Check it out. It's written, produced and directed by Tabloid Baby pal Muriel Campbell and showcases a lot of talent, who, when they eventually hit it big, you can say you remember from Pink Slip.

The Los Angeles Times also ignores theatre legend John Kenley's pioneering, cross-dressing, hermaphroditic glory... but Brett Hudson remembers

Add the Los Angeles Times to the mainstream media outlets that leave the most colorful part of a great person’s life out of the story. The LA Times is a couple of days behind the New York Times in reporting the death at 103 of John Kenley, the Ohio summer stock theatre impresario known for casting television and movie stars including Burt Reynolds, Mae West, William Shatner and Joe Namath in popular plays and musicals.

We were doing a bit of quick research Sunday morning to see if he’d brought The Hudson Brothers to Ohio, when we discovered that the famously-closeted Merv Griffin had outed the beloved Mr. Kenley as an alleged "registered" hermaphrodite, and that the producer lived half the year in Florida as “Joan.”

Neither Times found that information fit to print. We did. His determination to live his life in the Midwest on his own uncompromising terms surely makes him a trendsetter of the 20th Century.

And just a few minutes ago, Brett Hudson phoned our office to sto say he’d read our post about “Mr. Kenley”—who indeed had produced a Hudson Brothers in Godspell in 1977.

Said Brett:

“I couldn’t believe you did an item on Mr. Kenley. We did Godspell in Columbus, Ohio. It was the summertime and it was sold out. And after we finished the performance, my brothers and I would sit in the lobby and sign autographs.

“On the second night after the show, we’re signing autographs and there’s a long line, and John Kenley is in the autograph line, and he hands us a photo and says, ‘Will you sign this picture?’ And we see that the photo is already signed— to ‘Joan.’ We asked him, ‘Who’s Joan?’ and he says, ‘Didn’t you notice? I was in line on Opening Night!’

“He was in line-- in full-blown drag! It was unbelievable! You know how you can usually tell? You couldn’t. He was a complete— he was a woman!”

“He was the strangest person. And he was the nicest guy. He loved great theatre. He had such passion for the theatre. And when I found out that he’d died, I teared up a little. With his passing, you lose that passion, that Old School passion.

“Working for John Kenley was a pleasure. He loved what he did. He was a wonderful person. A great guy. And yeah, a great gal!"

Performers were known as The Kenley Players. Paul Lynde is said to have been the most popular. There's a website seeking out surviving Players.

Danny Gans' co-writer responds to Vegas columnist's slam

It was a shock to fans of Danny Gans that the first hometown review of his posthumous autobiography was a detailed rebuttal from an entertainment columnist who claimed that "though I'm not named," he was the target of a chapter in The Voices In My Head that took aim at a jaded, sleazy, dishonest show biz writer.

Mike Weatherford (left) of the Las Vegas Review-Journal (a paper that's owned--extraordinarily-- by the book's publisher) accused Gans of a "grudge," and called his co-author, RG Ryan, "sloppy," in yesterday's Review-Journal column and blog post.

Ryan responds exclusively to Tabloid Baby:

"Not sure what set Mike off, but we had a cordial phone conversation during which I was able to provide a context for the chapter in question. His accusation in print that I was a 'sloppy co-writer' seemed based solely on a mis-spelling of former RJ entertainment reporter Michael Paskevich's name, which, for the record, was also missed by the Stephens Press editorial staff.

"He's entitled to his opinion, as was Danny Gans."

UPDATE: RG Ryan also responded to Weatherford on the Review-Journal blog page:

"Regarding those details that I didn't, "bother to ask you about", it was an autobiography, Mike. Those were Danny's memories, and he didn't plan on dying prior to publication.

"About Mike Paskevich--what can I say, the mis-spelling of his name made it past all my edits, plus the editorial staff of Stephens Press, a situation I find profoundly unfortunate but am powerless to correct.

"By your reaction to this chapter it appears that reviewers have feelings too...just like the celebrities they review, which was kind of the whole point.

"rg"

Vegas columnist blasts Danny Gans book!

In the Las Vegas news media’s first examination of Danny Gans’ posthumous autobiography, a veteran newspaper columnist is challenging the accuracy of the book, blasting it as a "grudge" and the attacking abilities of Gans’ co-author.

Las Vegas Review-Journal entertainment columnist Mike Weatherford's scathing column and supporting blogpost appears today-- on the six-month anniversary of Gans’ death by Dilaudid.

Weatherford challenges the facts in Chapter 34 of The Voices In My Head, claiming that he is the unnamed columnist who appears in the chapter, allegedly telling Gans on their first meeting that he was not his friend or fan, that Gans needed topless dancers in his show, and broke a promise not to review Gans' opening-night gala at The Mirage.

Writes Weatherford:

“The first mostly wasn't true. The second I can only figure was a joke... The third issue is fuzzier. I don't remember what was said about reviewing the gala.”

Weatherford attributes the jab in the chapter to the fact that he had given Gans’ Mirage opening a less-than-perfect rating.

“Gans' manager, Chip Lightman, called to raise hell about the letter grade, which was an A-. Apparently that minus sign bothered them. ‘The No. 1 show in town should be an A plus-plus-plus, you should like everything about it,’ Gans later told the Los Angeles Times.”

Weatherford gives a detailed blow-by-blow rebuttal of the chapter on the Review-Journal blog page. He also throws in a punch at Gans’ co-author, RG Ryan:

"I didn’t have room for the details, which if sloppy co-author R.G. Ryan had bothered to ask me about, might have kept the chapter out of the book to begin with.”

Weatherford characterizes the issue as “sad.”

His characterization of the chapter as a “grudge” gives promise that the book will be a no-holds-barred response to the local media who disparaged Gans’ talent, much in the style of fellow Strip legend Wayne Newton’s classic autobiography, Once Before I Go.

Weatherford’s blast is all the more extraordinary because the Gans book is published by the Review-Journal’s parent company. The publisher made a deal with Gans’ family in the days after his death on May 1st,, and perhaps coincidentally, its reporters did not follow up on or investigate the mysterious circumstances of his death at 52.

Weatherford, for example, never followed up on his column in which he reported that Gans was “down in the dumps” and “in unusually low spirits” the day before he died.

We at Tabloid Baby are still waiting our copy of the book from Amazon.con, which signaled a three-to-five week wait.

NY Times obituary neglects to mention that theatre producer was alleged hermaphrodite who lived as John... and Joan

If Wikipedia and other sources are to be believed, the New York Times left some very colorful-- and essential facts out of its obituary for Midwest theatre impresario John Kenley.

The Times notes that Kenley, who died October 23rd at an astonishing 103, made his name "taking large-scale productions to small towns and cities and festooning the shows with headliners like Mae West, Gloria Swanson and (Cloud 9) star Burt Reynolds...

"Mr. Kenley was known to book stars, even unlikely ones, for their box office potential. He cast the television host Hugh Downs, for example, in 'Under the Yum Yum Tree' and the talk show star Merv Griffin in 'Come Blow Your Horn.' He hired Jayne Mansfield, the actress who had been promoted as the next Marilyn Monroe, to star in 'Bus Stop.' (Ms. Monroe starred in the film version.) And he recruited Joe Namath to play the drifter in a 1971 production of 'Picnic,' when he was still near the height of his career as quarterback of the New York Jets..."

Now why would The Times fail to report several colorful facts about Kenley that show him to have been even more of a pioneer in the past century? From Wikipedia:

"Griffin fondly recalls his 1963 appearance and remembers being taken aback by what he did not know was an opening night tradition. At the cast party, the first dance was reserved for Mr. Kenley, and the play’s leading man.

"Indeed, in his 1980 autobiography, Griffin puts in print what had frequently been rumored by many and known as fact by few, 'John Kenley is a registered hermaphrodite.' For his part, Kenley’s retort was, 'I’m not even a registered voter,' but there are many now who state that Kenley spent many a theatrical off-season in Florida as a woman, Joan.

"In his unpublished memoirs, Kenley writes, 'People have often wondered if I am gay. Sometimes I wished I was. Life would have been simpler. Androgyny is overrated.'"

David Hull is on the road with Joe Perry

We've written extensively in the past few years about the rock 'n' roll star resurgence of Seventies hometown hero David Hull as he's filled in for the ailing bass player Tom Hamilton on various Aeorsmith tours. Now that injuries and other maladies have led to an Aerosmith hiatus, guitarist Joe Perry has resurrected his Joe Perry Project. David Hull was the bassist with the the Project the first time around in 1979.

See the tour schedule here.

Golf event honors Danny Gans

A week after what would have been Danny Gans' 53rd birthday, the philanthropy and charitable work of the late Las Vegas superstar will be live on and be celebrated over three days with a golf clinic, pro-am tournament poker tournament and silent auction.

The Danny Gans Partee for Kids benefits First Tee of Southern Nevada and the Danny Gans Junior Golf Academy, organizations that help kids throuh golf. The tradition was begun fifteen years ago by Danny Gans and this year's event will be a memorial in his honor.


Strip headliner Rita Rudner will host.

Schedule of Events
Saturday, October 31st
2:00pm- 500pm
Wildhorse Golf Club
Danny Gans' Partee Fore Kids Jr. Clinic

Sunday, November 1st
3:00pm - 6:00pm
The Mirage Hotel and Casino
Celebrity Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament

Monday, November 2nd
9:00am
DragonRidge Country Club
Celebrity Pro-Am Registration and Breakfast
10:00am
Shotgun Start

Danny Gans' Partee
(at conclusion of play)
Dinner Award Ceremony - Silent Auction

No Steve Friess show for Danny Gans birthday

Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans' birthday went unmentioned in Las Vegas over the weekend. The musicial impressionist who died May 1st from an overdose of Dilaudid would have been 53 years old. Gans' spirit did hang over the city on Saturday, October 25th. As we'd reported, the coauthor of Gans' autobiography conducted his first official book signing at a Las Vegas shopping mall, and tickets went on sale for Garth Brooks' stand at Gans' theatre at the Wynn on the Strip.

The birthday was not noted or celebrated by Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author and comp queen Steve Friess, who had used Michael Jackson's first post-mortem birthday as the excuse to produce the “Michael Jackson’s Untimely Death Was The Best Thing That Could Ever Have Happened to Michael Jackson’s Music Show” at the Palms.


Friess, whose website features a misleading photo of him hoisting female sex star Holly Madison in a Honeymoon-in-Vegas pose, later published a tortured explanation of his conflict of interest-- he was covering the Jackson death investigation for The Times. His producing partner and star of the show was fired from the Strip prodution of Jersey Boys.

Gans' life, philanthropy and memory was celebrated at a charity road race earlier this month.

We are still waiting for our copy of the Gans book, The Voice in My Head from Amazon.com, which is posting a three-to-five-week delay in orders. The book is published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which consequently laid low on Gans death coverage.

Could breast implants have saved Billie Holiday?

True, they may be a pair of Spaldeens glued to a fishstick, but a couple of fake new breasts seem to have helped Amy Winehouse find her way back, if unsteadily, from what seemed to be certain destruction...

Egotastic

John Cleese! Seventy today!

An eventful year for comedy genius John Cleese (right) has gotten even more lively as he turns seventy years old today. Cleese is also marking the fortieth anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus, featured in a monster documentary package, performing his solo show "divorce tour" and awaiting the release of The Seventh Python, the Neil Innes biopic from our pals at Frozen Pictures, in which he plays a starring role.


We are particularly glad he did not follow through on his recent Twitter suggestion:


Happy birthday to John Cleese-- and bookmark his Cleeseblog!

Book and Brooks carry on after Danny Gans

Danny Gans' co-author RG Ryan signs copies of the Gans autobiography The Voices In My Head at a Borders bookstore in the Las Vegas Town Square shopping center Saturday, the day Garth Brooks sold out the first twenty of his solo shows at Gans' former theatre on the Las Vegas Strip.

Amazon.com is very slow in getting out copies of Gans' books. Ours is promised for delivery in mid-November.

Photo: Photo Diva at Living Las Vegas

Day Two: LA Times website now displays several photos of an accurately middle-aged Roman Polanski for feature on his rape of a 13-year-old girl

It took a day, but as a result of our insistence, editors at the Los Angeles Times have presented an accurate visual presentation of Roman Polanski in its website promotion of a feature story that recounts the sordid, explicit details of his 13-year-old rape victim's grand jury testimony.

Tabloid Baby was the first to direct readers to the girl's graphic grand jury testimony, on the day Polanski was arrested in Switzerland, 32 years after he fled the United States to escape sentencing. Close to a month later, the LA Times ran the story on its website and as a front page come-on in its Weekend print edition, and featured a photo of a baby-faced Polanski, a dozen years younger than he was when he admittedly anally raped the child. The photo selection and juxtaposition did make it appear as if the age difference between predator and victim was not so great (it was 30 years), and subtly lessen the impact of Polanski's crime. The paper replaced the misleading photo late yesterday, after our staff reached out to the reporter.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This morning, the website has gone overboard, with several photos of an adult Polanski-- and without the additional photo of the smiling young victim.

Update: LA Times website replaces photo of youthful Roman Polanski in promotion of article about his rape of 13-year-old girl when he was 43

More than ten hours after we pointed put that the Los Angeles Times was using a photo of a youthful Roman Polanski to promote its sexually-explicit recounting of his 13-year-old victim's grand jury testimony of her anal rape by the then 43-year-old celebrity director in 1977, the paper's website has replaced the 1965 picture with one showing Polanski in 1979.

Although Polanski was 43 when he was arrested for the anal rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, the paper's website used a detail of a photo of the fresh-faced 32-year-old Polanski with Jill St. John at the New York premiere of Bunny Lake is Missing in 1965.

The site added insult to the girl's injury when it juxtaposed the young Polanski with a photo of the smiling victim.


Why the paper chose to promote a front-page Sunday feature about a 43-year-old's rape of a 13-year-old with a shot that makes the admitted perpetrator seem like "a kid" was also a mystery to the article's writer, who emailed us to say:

"Not sure exactly. Good point though. The one they had up earlier was when he was 43, as will be the one in the paper."

Sometime after our exchange, the Times website switched to a photo taken in October 1979, after Polanski had fled sentencing for the sex assault:


In a photo gallery added to the online feature, it's revealed that the repalcement headshot is a detail of Polanski with 18-year-old Nastassja Kinski, star of his film Tess (in his autobiography, Polanski admitted engaging in intercourse with Kinski when she was 15):


The Sunday print preview edition of the Times features a large version of this photo from the 1977 legal proceedings:

Why did the LA Times choose a photo of a young, boyish Roman Polanski for its late and lurid feature on his child rape case?

Los Angeles Times photo

The day Roman Polanski was picked up in Switzerland on a fugitive warrant issued in 1978 after his guilty plea in a child rape case, we led our readers immediately to transcripts of the 13-year-old victim's testimony about her ordeal with the 43-year-old celebrity director that included drugging her with Champagne and Quaaludes, oral copulation and anal sodomization.


So it's interesting that this morning, close to a month after Polanski's September 27th arrest and weeks after the expected Hollywood brouhaha of support has died down in wake of the stark details of the young girl's words, that the Los Angeles Times chooses to run a lurid recreation of the testimony under the guise of it being somehow "lost in the spectacle."


What's more interesting is the Times website editors' apparent decision to lesson the blow to Polanski and his high-profile Hollywood supporters by using a photo of the criminal apparently taken when he was in his baby-faced early twenties, before he let his hair grow out int he style of the day-- a stylistic move the took at least a decade before he, at age 43, admittedly preyed upon a 13-year-old child.

It appears to be a subtle and subliminal flourish. In the Los Angeles Times photo chosen to represent today's extended story, Polanski looks like a boy. When he ran away, he was a man.

Roman Polanski 1977-1978

Pachalafaka

Pachalafaka, pachalafaka
they whisper it all over Turkey
pachalafaka, pachalafaka
it sounds so romantic and perky
oh I know that phrase
will make me thrill always
for it reminds me of you, my sweet
just the mention of
that tender word of love
gives my heart a jerkish Turkish beat

I won't say c'est bon
or l'amour toujours
for they can't express what I'm feeling
even maresydoats or
other foreign quotes
don't seem to be quite so appealing
but pachalafaka! pachalafaka!
takes me back with you to passionate desert scenes
and it's there we'll stay
till the very day
we find out what pachalafaka means
we find out what pachalafaka means!

What starts with 'f' and ends with 'u-c-k'?

For a kid growing up in the Sixties, Soupy Sales was a daily bad influence, a kiddie show host who offered an afternoon class in anarchy, rebelliousness and wild, grown-up comedy that, like the music of Vic Mizzy, had a lasting effect. Soupy actually was suspended-- jailed, we thought-- for instructing us mail him those dirty green pieces of paper with the pictures of the men we'd find in out parents' wallets and purses. His daily Soupy Sez nuggets of wisdom did tell us that it's always greener in the other guy's wallet, and we still know the lyrics to Pachalafaka, but someone's got to tell us if he really did, as we've always remembered, teach us this joke:

"What word starts with an 'f' and ends with a 'u-c-k'?

"Firetruck."

Photos: Isn't Life Terrible

Somebody save Lindsay Lohan

With all his media interactions, eagerness and ability to get into the headlines with a soundbite or a quote, Tabloid Baby pal Michael Lohan has found himself in the position of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. His real concern over the health of his daughter Lindsay is being written off as the latest outburst of a publicity whore, when in fact Michael Lohan is right, the worries are real, young Lindsay's obsession with Marilyn Monroe is a lot more dangerous she and her people would have us think, and if her father isn't allowed to, someone should before she joins her friends Heath Ledger and Adam Goldstein.

Put it this way: This is the face of a 23-year-old.

This week... and 2004

Hudsons and pals recall Laurel Canyon days

Brett and Mark Hudson are captured in the spotlight on LA's Laurel Canyon and its importance to musical culture over the past fifty years. The classic photo of two-thirds of The Hudson Brothers with their producer Bernie Taupin, his songwriting partner Elton John-- and friends-- is one of many highlights in A big heavy new photo-filled book called Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and Music of Laurel Canyon, which takes the Laurel Canyon saga before and beyond the Byrds to Zappa to CSN heyday that's been written up in recent years. The photo was taken at Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco club on the Sunset Strip during The Hudson Brothers' Seventies prime, and also showed up in the Rodney doco, The Mayor of The Sunset Strip.

We're just digging into the new book by Harvey Kubernik and all the pictures we've never seen (Like the one above, We know the shot of David Crosby, Joni Mitchell and Eric Clapton in Mama Cass's yard, but not the wider angle showing Micky Dolenz filming the scene).

Green Acres forever

Green acres is the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square

You are my wife.
Good bye, city life.
Green Acres we are there.

"Green Acres" by Vic Mizzy

He wrote the greatest TV themes of all time

Vic Mizzy has died at home in Bel Air at 93. Amid the glut of celebrity and pop culture deaths in 2009, we've of late been relegating notable passings to our Death of The Day section at the right of the page, but Vic Mizzy deserves special mention.

He wrote the theme songs to Green Acres and The Addams Family.

The LA Times:

"Then came an offbeat assignment: 'The Addams Family,' the 1964-66 TV series based on Charles Addams' macabre magazine cartoons and starring John Astin as Gomez Addams and Carolyn Jones as his wife, Morticia. For his theme song, Mizzy played a harpsichord, which gives the theme its unique flavor. And because the production company, Filmways, refused to pay for singers, Mizzy sang it himself and overdubbed it three times. The song, memorably punctuated by finger-snapping, begins with: 'They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky: the Addams family.'

"In the 1996 book 'TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes From Dragnet to Friends,' author Jon Burlingame writes that Mizzy's 'musical conception was so specific that he became deeply involved with the filming of the main-title sequence, which involved all seven actors snapping their fingers in carefully timed rhythm to Mizzy's music.'

"For Mizzy, who owned the publishing rights to The Addams Family theme, it was an easy payday.

"'I sat down; I went "buh-buh-buh-bump [snap-snap], buh-buh-buh-bump," he recalled in a 2008 interview on CBS' Sunday Morning show. 'That's why I'm living in Bel-Air: Two finger snaps and you live in Bel-Air.'

"The season after The Addams Family made its debut, Mizzy composed the title song for Green Acres, the 1965-71 rural comedy starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

"For Green Acres, Burlingame observed in his book, Mizzy 'again conceived the title song as intertwined with the visuals' of the show's title sequence and telling the story of wealthy Oliver and Lisa Douglas moving from New York to a farm in the country."

Both tunes are brilliant work of hipster pop, still memorable and singable today, and as influential to and ingrained in a generation as any rock'n'roll of the Sixties.

Disneyland has its first black princess

Disneyland has its first black princess.

Posters are up and products are on sale at the park, promoting the animated feature, The Princess and The Frog, and the character Princess Tiana.

Tiana will be the ninth of Disney princess characters, which have rung up $3 billion in retail sales since 1999. Disney introduced the Middle Eastern Jasmine, its first non-white animated heroine in 1992's Aladdin: a Middle Eastern character named Jasmine. Three years later an American Indian princess appeared in Pocahontas.

The Broadway musical-style film is set in New Orleans uring rhe Jazz Age. It opens in New York and Los Angeles November 25th and goes into wide release December 11th. Disneyland opened in 1955. The Walt Disney Company announced it had begun work on an animated featuring its first black princess on March 12, 2007. Barack Obama had announced his candidacy for President on February 10th.

Lenny Bruce memorabilia up for bid

Rare Lenny Bruce memorabilia will be going up for auction October 28th at the Laugh Factory on The Sunset Strip.

More than 25 items from the late, legendary comedian's estate will be sold by his daughter Kitty Bruce to benefit Lenny's House, a non-profit recovery house for women healing from drug and alcohol addictions, named in Bruce's memory. The items include Bruce family photos, personal letters, a typewriter from his early years, his bedroom set and one of his trademark trench coats, which he became famous for being arrested in.

The auction will follow an all-star benefit show featuring Richard Lewis, Paul Mooney, (Cloud 9 star) Rick Overton, Paul Provenza and Bobby Slayton. It begins Wednesday, October 28th at 10 pm.


The event takes place one year to the day after The Laugh Factory was the stage for the second public performance of Eric Cohen's play, The New 30, produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures.

Bruce was found dead of a drug overdose on August 3rd, 1966, in the bathroom of his home on North Hollywood Boulevard, a two-minute drive from the Laugh Factory.

The Essential Lenny Bruce, a collection of Bruce material, has been named as one of Tabloid Baby's most influential books.

Find auction details at the Lenny Bruce website. For reservations, call The Laugh Factory in West Hollywood at 323.656.1336.

Lenny's House is overseen by The Lenny Bruce Memorial Foundation a 501C3 organization.

Garth Brooks too excited over comeback

PHOTOS: Las Vegas Review-Journal; Las Vegas Sun-Scott Harrison

Paul Tanner wants to be Danny Gans

It's a busy week for fans of the late Danny Gans. His autobiography arrived in stores, Garth Brooks announced he'll be moving into his theatre, impressionist Frank Caliendo began what could be a ten-year run at the Monte Carlo in hopes of drawing in the Gans crowd, and an impressionist named Paul Tanner says he's ready to take over the Las Vegas superstar's celebrity musical impressionist mantle. He told us in this press release that showed up at the Tabloid Baby offices:

Celebrity Impressionist Paul Tanner
Tapped to Follow in the Footsteps
of Legendary Las Vegas Entertainer Danny Gans

Press Release Distribution Staff

(EMAILWIRE.COM, October 15, 2009 ) LAS VEGAS – It’s been six months since the untimely tragic death of one of Vegas’ top entertainers, Danny Gans, and his absence has left a noticeable void in the entertainment community. Celebrity impressionist Paul Tanner may just be the one to fill that void. He has been contacted by several “interested parties” who see Tanner as the next star following in the footsteps of the beloved entertainer.

A performer who did his first impression at the age of seven, Tanner recalls Danny Gans with the utmost respect and admiration.

“I’m thrilled and humbled every time someone compares my show to Danny’s,” Tanner said “When I heard he passed away, I felt like someone kicked me in the stomach. It was shocking. Danny’s passing is a huge loss for anyone who appreciates great entertainment. I would be honored to carry the torch and honor his tradition.”


Like Gans, Paul Tanner’s show is filled with the great voices of comedy, celebrity, and music. His audiences around the world have included the likes of Pope John Paul II, who upon meeting Paul, gently made the sign of the cross over Paul’s vocal chords.

And when Neil Diamond’s mother came to see Tanner in Los Angeles, she told him, “You sound more like my son than my son does!” He smiles while retelling the story, “You don’t get a better review than that.”

When asked how he felt about the opportunity to step into the spotlight departed by Danny Gans, Paul replied, “No one could ever replace Danny Gans. But I think he would love my show.”

Paul Tanner was classically trained at The Juilliard School and spent time in opera as well as acting on Broadway before he developed his show, “Paul Tanner’s First Impressions”which he has performed all over the world. For a preview of Paul Tanner’s show visit www.youtube.com/paultannerofficial.

Tommy Cooper's image appears on pie

We talk about miracles, but some are undeniable. The Daily Mail reports that an image of late comedian Tommy Cooper has appeared on the bottom of a steak pie-- in his hometown!

Chip shop owner Crad Jones discovered the image while eating pie and chips in his shop in Caerphilly, South Wales. He said he called the piemaker, Peter's Pies, when he noticed the silhouette so they could document his find.

Tommy Cooper was a comic magician known for wearing a red fez and for collapsing from a heart attack and dying in front of millions of television viewers, midway through his act on the London Weekend Television variety show. After his death in April 1984, a bronze statue of him wearing the hat was erected in Caerphilly.

Garth Brooks defies Encore Theatre curse

Steve Wynn supplied Garth Brooks with a private jet as part of the deal to bring the country-pop star out of "retirement" to Las Vegas for a five-year residency at Danny Gans' "cursed" theatre at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino on the Strip.

Brooks will play four weekend one-man shows a week (one on Fridays and Sundays, two on Saturdays), and may even draw some regular working class folk to the high-end Wynn and Encore hotel casinos on the Strip. They say all tickets will be $125. Brooks says that along with the bundles in cash, Wynn gacve him a jet so "I'd be able to go to soccer games, to practice, all this stuff.

"Taking care of my children and family is so important to me, and that will be the same for the next five years, except I'll play music."

In the five and half months since Danny Gans' death, Beyonce, Whoopi Goldberg and Larry King have taken the stage at the Encore Theater while Wynn hunted for a permament replacement for the unique musical impressionist.

Some in Vegas consider the Encore to be "cursed" in light of Gans' sudden passing, the failures of Broadway transplants Avenue Q and Spamalot, a medical emergency during Goldberg's debut-- and a show starring Larry King.

The Las Vegas Sun noted yesterday:

"Wynn also said in July that while Gans' 'tickets made money but not much,' the show brought visitors into Wynn and Encore restaurants and the casino floor. Wynn called the loss of Gans as a performer at Encore 'not a cataclysmic event by any means' from a business perspective, 'but a personal loss.'"

Photo: Las Vegas Review-Journal

Al Martino's final days were full

Word this week that Al Martino died at 82 in his hometown of South Philadelphia may have led to the assumption that he'd been infirm or had returned home for his final days. So it was a surprise to read in his New York Times obituary that he was active and working and stepping out and recording until the very end:

"Mr. Martino, whose career spanned five decades, fell backstage on Oct. 3 while acting as M.C. of a concert on Staten Island... He had canceled a performance for a television broadcast of the Columbus Day parade in New York. But on Monday he was in a studio recording songs for an album...

"After leaving the studio Monday evening, Mr. Martino and his wife headed back to Philadelphia and had dinner at an Italian restaurant with Jerry Blavat, a Philadelphia radio and television personality.

“'He was in tip-top shape,' Mr. Blavat said on Tuesday. 'I got the call and I said, "That’s impossible, I had dinner with him last night.”'"

"...The last song Mr. Martino recorded on Monday... was Garth Brooks's 'If Tomorrow Never Comes.'"

From the prescient final song the sudden passing to Garth Brooks... can't help but think of Danny Gans.

Danny Gans book hits stores today

Danny Gans' autobiography makes its official debut in bookstores today-- the same day that Garth Brooks will announce he's starting a long run at the theatre left vacant by Danny Gans' death.

The Voices In My Head arrives five months after the Las Vegas headliner died of an overdose of the powerful opiate hydromorphone, also known as Dilaudid or "drugstore heroin." Gans' ghostwriter-turned-cowriter RG Ryan tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal what he told Tabloid Baby last month: that the book will not address Gans' drug use (or his ownership of a pharmacy supply house), but that "readers may get an idea from the book about why he took them":

"Gans sustained several injuries over the years that caused him long-term problems, including an ankle injury that ended his dreams of becoming a major league baseball player, surgeries, two car accidents and a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis."


The paper says the book "spans more than 50 years, beginning with a brief history of how his parents met and closing with a chapter about how Gans came to be headlining at Encore after a long tenure with The Mirage.

"Much of what's addressed in the book-- Gans' love of baseball, his Las Vegas resume and even his inspirations-- won't surprise readers who are familiar with the entertainer, co-writer Ryan says. But Gans told his story in a way that will enable people to understand what drove him to be the 'man of many voices' and a longtime Las Vegas headliner."

Ryan says he met Gans while exercising at a local gym 13 years ago,and that he proposed the idea for the autobiography over coffee in May 2008. The book, told in Gans' voice, was based on 15 hours of recorded conversations that Ryan transcribed and shaped.

Despite Ryan's insistence that he book was completed the day day before Danny Gans died, the Review-Journal article states that he'd completed only a "first draft" on April 30th. Ryan emailed to correct us after we reported last month that Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke wrote that a "rough draft" had been finished that day:

"The final draft was, in fact, completed at eleven AM on Thursday, April 30, 2009."

He tells the Review-Journal: "The day before he died, at 11 a.m., I sent him a text," Ryan recalls. "I just said, 'Done!!!' He wrote back, 'Great, let's get together Friday at 4 p.m.'"

The first copies of the book were made available Saturday at the Danny Gans Memorial Run for Champions. The paperback retails for $14.95 and is published by Stephens Press, a subsidiary of Stephens Media LLC, owner of the Review-Journal. It's available at Amazon.com (we're awaiting our copy), some bookstores and online at DannyGansVoices.com (see column at right).

Garth Brooks and Steve Wynn are scheduled to announcer the singer's extended stand at the Encore Theatre at one pm.

The secret story Al Martino left behind

When longtime Beverly Hills resident Al Martino died in his hometown of South Philadelphia this week, he left a rich legacy that included more than fifty years of entertainment, memorable songs like Spanish Eyes and Here In My Heart and a crucial role in one of the of the greatest motion pictures of all time.

Al Martino’s life story was far richer than even that, as revealed in a screenplay that survives him.

The film was written in 1991. Famed television reporter Rafael Abramovitz and Burt Kearns of Tabloid Baby and Frozen Pictures acclaim met Martino on a shoot for Hard Copy, and later spent weeks with the star going over every detail of his contentious life. They came away with the material that would become a biopic screenplay named for one of his greatest hits, Here In My Heart.

The script tells the story of Martino’s life from his childhood in his South Philly and his idol Mario Lanza through all many dramatic and harrowing events that led to his triumph as Johnny Fontane in The Godfather. It's a story as compelling as the Godfather saga itself, full of great depth and conflict, full of violence, mobsters, war, show business, celebrity, addiction, abortion, love, redemption-- and music. The story also shows that Martino may very well have been right when he claimed his own life—not Frank Sinatra’s-- was the inspiration for the character. He had to fight for the role- and Marlon Brando, with the aid of some whiskey, helped him inhabit it.

Al Martino would certainly have been a bigger star had he not “crossed the Mob” early in his career and was forced to flee the USA to England, where he made history, scoring the UK’s first #1 single (when the song Here in My Heart topped the very first NME chart in 1952). But Here In My Heart reveals that his years in England, before he returned to Atlantic City, received a commutation and blessing from a real "Godfather” and resumed his career in the States, were not easy.

When Here In My Heart was first shopped, many of the characters depicted were still alive, and though some names had been changed to protect the guilty, the property was deemed "too hot" to handle. Close to twenty years later, it is a real tribute to a man who triumphed in the end, and what may be its most poignant chapter, died in the place where it all began.

New Danny Gans promises "show on steroids"

MADtv and NFL pregame impressionist Frank Caliendo arrives on the Las Vegas Strip tonight to launch a new show that's meant to fill the comic impressionist void left by the untimely death of Danny Gans in May.

Ironically, in light of the speculation regarding Gans' drug use, Caliendo tells the Las Vegas Sun that his act at the Monte Carlo "will be my stand-up show on steroids."

Photo: STEVE MARCUS/ Las Vegas Sun

Danny Gans run "amazing experience"

"The spirit of the day-- that of kind and caring generosity--
was graphic witness to who Danny Gans was in life,
and now even in death."

More than two thousand people showed up and the first copies of Danny Gans' autobiography were unveiled at one of year's most poignant and emotional charity events.

The Danny Gans Memorial Champions Run for Life was hosted by Gans' friend Donny Osmond at the District community and shopping center in Henderson, Nevada Saturday-- benefiting a cancer charity close to Gans' heart, less than six months after the 52-year-old musical impressionist's sudden death at home just three miles away.

RG Ryan, co-author of Gans' autobiography, The Voices In My Head, was there, and says he was surprised when the book's publisher arrived with the first two hundred copies of the book.

We emailed to ask him about the event. He sent us this reply:

"The Danny Gans Champions Run for Life (benefiting children's cancer research) was an amazing experience. 2000 people participated in either a one-mile fun run or a 5K competitive run (which was won by a 13 year-old girl, by the way).

"But the highlight of the morning was the actual 'Champions Run.' The 'champions' were all children battling cancer in all of its various, hideous forms. Each child got to choose someone to "run" with them, from Center Court at The District down to the Elephant Bar and back. Quite emotional. Donny Osmond ran with the first little girl, dancing the last few yards (maybe getting in some extra practice for DWTS). The Pirates and Sirens from TI, as well as members of the UNLV Volleyball team along many others participated in honor of these amazing children.

"The spirit of the day-- that of kind and caring generosity-- was graphic witness to who Danny Gans was in life, and now even in death. I'm not sure people ever really got it that Danny was one of the most generous souls ever to walk the planet. From public events like this, to several dozen charities and religious non-profits, even to buying a wheelchair for a random homeless cripple he would see every day on his way in to work, he lived what he believed.

"We didn't even know if there would be copies of the book available by the race, but the printer managed to get a couple of hundred to us, so we sat up a table and didn't make a big deal out of it because the day wasn't about selling books, but about the children..."

UPDATE: The Voices In My Head is now available at Amazon.com.

Tabloidbaby.com's TWO MILLIONTH visitor

Our two-millionth visitor (since we started keeping track) stopped in at the Tabloid Baby site at 3:11 pm Pacific time from Columbus, Ohio. TabloidBaby.com has surpassed 2,000,000 visitors. (A visit happens when someone visits the site. It consists of one or more page views or hits. One visitor can make multiple visits. And we're closing in on four million page views.)

Columbus, Ohio

Tragic news: "Oasis is no longer"

In what must rank among the greatest tragedies in the history of rock 'n' roll music, Liam Gallagher confirms today that Oasis, the great rock 'n' roll band of all time, is offically broken up, over, history and "no longer."

The singer whose erratic and threatening behaviour reportedly led to a guitar-bashing brawl with his guitarist-bandleader brother Noel, the cancellation of a concert, tour and, in Noel's words, the end of the band, tells The Times of London:

“Well, Oasis is no longer. I think we all know that. So that’s done.”

Times2: “You genuinely feel that?”

Liam: “Oh, I know. Without a doubt. And it’s a shame but that’s life. We had a good run at it. The thing about Oasis is, no one... we ended Oasis. No one ended it for us. Which was pretty, kind of...cool, I’m thinking of what the next step is musically, which is all my mind’s on.”

For now, Liam will concentrate on his fashion line.

Sad day.

Farrah fans fume over Playboy "insult"

Fans of the late Farrah Fawcett are up in arms over what's considered to be an insulting, small tribute to the iconic actress in the November issue. Though there were rumours that Farrah, who died in June, would grace the cover of the magazine she'd posed in twice in the Nineties, cartoon character Marge Simpson gets the cover while Farrah gets a mention in smaller type than Stephen King, Tracy Morgan, Benicio del Toro or some Victoria's Secret model.

One fan commented on this site:

"What a slap in the face of Farrah Fawcett. She was THE sex symbol of the 70s and was on the cover of two of the mag’s most successful issues and THIS is how they pay tribute to her? A simple footnote on the cover??!! WTF Playboy? You put that drug addicted, ex-stripper Anna Nicole on your cover when she died but Farrah gets upstaged by a cartoon? How much did FOX pay you for this placement? Huge, missed opportunity here folks. This is why Playboy is barely selling and no longer relevant to consumers-- it is edited by a goofy old man so out of touch. Farrah fans are insulted and Playboy once again missed the boat."


Farrah had resisted appearing nude in films or magazines throughout the 1970s and '80s. When she posed nude in Playboy's December 1995 issue, it became the best-selling issue of the 1990s, with over four million copies sold worldwide. She returned at age 50 with a Playboy pictorial in the July 1997 issue. That same year, she played Robert Duvall's wife in The Apostle and wonan Independent Spirit Award nomination as Best Actress.

Garth Brooks to Danny Gans' theatre?

This announcement on Garth Brooks' website has revived speculation that he's heading to Steve Wynn's Encore on the Strip.

Nude Marge Simpson is old nude news

Playboy is getting some ink and buzz this morning with word they've got Marge Simpson on the cover and possibly in a nude pictorial inside the November issue. Funny, but nothing new. Anybody with a kid who's googled his favorite Simpsons character knows the online toonporn industry has been showcasing The Simpsons and their neighbors in various naked positions and configurations for years now.

One of the safest-for-work pix is above.

Stars' praise helps sell Danny Gans book

"Danny Gans poured his energy into everything he loved, from his family to his faith, from baseball to his career in entertainment. When it came time to document his life story, he poured his energy into this project as well. Sadly, one day after this manuscript was completed, Danny died.

"His inspiring story remains, offering a compelling mix of touching tales and life lessons. From the baseball diamonds of his youth to his sold-out stardom on the Las Vegas Strip, Danny charts the struggles and successes of his life. Along the way, he tells us of the heartwarming courtship of his wife, Julie, and his close relationships with his father and mother.

"An uncommon gift as an impressionist lifted 'The Man of Many Voices' to the pinnacle of the Las Vegas entertainment industry, where he will be long remembered as a much-loved performer and a generous man. Here is the story of Danny Gans, told in his own voice, and from his own heart."

--The Voices In My Head website

The Voices In My Head, the Danny Gans autobiography now on sale online (see the ad and link on this site) and possibly available at tomorrow's Henderson, Nevada charity run renamed in Gans' honor, is being launched with testimonials by the biggest stars in the world-- and his former manager:

One of the most unique human beings and entertainers in the world has been taken from us in an unexpected moment. We will all try to go on with our lives without our dear friend. At this moment it seems almost impossible.
— Steve Wynn

When you think of Danny Gans the first thing you think of is entertainer. The second word you think of is best. He is Las Vegas, and he was Las Vegas, and he will always be Las Vegas.
— Larry King

Danny Gans… worked tirelessly to entertain his audience and even harder to help the underprivileged in Las Vegas. With his loss, the world is a sadder place.
— Andre Agassi

Not only was he the best in his field, but he was such a kind and loving person.
— Celine Dion

The Las Vegas Strip is better for having had Danny Gans’ light shine so brightly, and will be forever impacted by his loss.
— Siegfried & Roy


Beyond his spot-on impressions, Danny Gans will be remembered for the impression he left as an entertainer, a humanitarian, and family man and friend.
— Louie Anderson

Danny Gans was quite simply one of the greatest entertainers ever to step foot onto the stage. In my twenty-seven years in Las Vegas, I have never seen anyone better.
— Lance Burton

We’ve lost an amazing entertainer. His friendship, charisma and talent will be greatly missed.
— Donny & Marie Osmond

Danny was an immense talent and a great friend. He brought so much to Las Vegas, both on and off the stage. I will miss him.
— Wayne Newton

Danny Gans will not only be remembered as a Las Vegas entertainer, but as a man who loved his family, loved God, and loved the city of Las Vegas.
— Chip Lightman

He could conjure up a vast array of the world’s most celebrated names, but when you think about his love for his family, or his many philanthropic interests, it’s clear that Danny’s finest role was playing himself. We have lost him far too soon and he will be greatly missed.
— Elaine Wynn

The book, published by the owners of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not being sold on Amazon.com. It's available in trade paperback or hardcover with an adudio CD.