COMING IN 2018: WE'RE ENTERTAINING NOURISHMENT FOR THE MIND, BODY & SOUL
We will return in 2018 with a new look, mission & direction. Stay tuned as we develop our online destination that celebrates contemporary & retro pop culture as well as body, mind & spirit!
Launching a new podcast while juggling several other projects (some big, some small!) has its ups and downs. The ups: A new podcast and several other projects! The downs: Little sleep and totally forgetting to blog about some of my noteworthy celebrity health and fitness covers in the last six months or so!
With that said, enjoy the above stories on some of TV's favorite survivors and thrivers!
Retro pop meets forward thought as ebullient and enlightening "Eight is Enough" star Dianne Kay -- in part two of her exclusive, in-depth interview -- opens her heart about loving her TV siblings (including her "secret marriage" with Adam "Munch" Rich), working with Steven Spielberg on the set of his feature "1941" (and auditioning at her apartment with Mickey Rourke!!!), dealing with her garage sale addiction (hey, who stole her "8 is Enough" jigsaw puzzle?!?), being mistaken for a faux Betty Crocker, being overwhelmed by ugly reality TV (editor's note: "Kate Plus Eight is Enough!"), raising a teenage son in a hormonal household and developing her new half-hour, one-camera comedy series, "Seconds." In addition, Dianne shares with us her psychic vision that alerted her to her kidney cancer last fall and, in doing so, saved her life.
ALSO: Chris discusses changing media and changing times -- and beseeches Oprah to reimagine the "soaprah" and infuse her O brand of "retroality" drama and personal empowerment in half-hour versions of ABC's sadly-dumped "All My Children" and "One Life to Live." Fellow daytime icon/pioneer Agnes Nixon needs your help, Oprah -- please save all her children!
Chris also talks about the rapidly evolving book publishing world, the rules of which are shifting thanks to Amazon.com Inc. signing deals to publish high-dollar tomes with high-profile celebs ranging from "Laverne & Shirley" star (and fellow cancer survivor) Penny Marshall to New Age guru Deepak Chopra. Then Chris shares his short-lived book "negotiations" with late, legendary Hollywood press agent-business manager Jay Bernstein, who this fall celebrates the posthumous publication of his memoir, "Starmaker."
Offering insight about his "Come and Knock on Our" tell-all and his equally long-in-the-works "Price is Right" tell-all, Chris explains how journalistic, in-depth, "unofficial"/"unauthorized" TV books have become far and few between as the publishing industry, since the late '90s, has moved toward studio/network-commissioned, licensed (and therefore often "fluff-piece") TV books while television has taken over telling these boob-tube biographies. Hmmmm ... can you say, "multimedia e-book"?
Also: the return of Facebook's controversial group "Farrah Fawcett: We Want the Truth 2," a few parting thoughts about ABC's reimagined "Charlie's Angels" turducken, er, turkey, and what '80s TV icon ABC will likely "retool" next. (Goodbye, "Hot Bosley" ... hello, "Hot Belvedere"?)
Finally, in the fourth installment of a recurring "dream weaver" segment, dream interpreter/intuitive life coach Yvonne Ryba (http://YvonneRyba.com) shares two of her compelling, prophetic "death dreams" while encouraging listeners to reimagine their own reality by understanding the creative power of the mind.
As the world mourns the two-year anniversary today of Farrah Fawcett's death to anal cancer, we have some good news to share about another '70s TV blonde who is beating another form of the deadly disease.
Dianne Kay, who played Fawcett friend Dick Van Patten's daughter Nancy on the 1977-81 ABC family dramedy, recently announced she has conquered kidney cancer and is staging a career comeback. She's presently writing a sitcom pilot titled Seconds. The concept, she tells MORE magazine, "is about four women who are in their second stages of life. Our menopausal hormones are battling our kids’ raging hormones. I guess you can say our show is a parody, and we are really making fun of ourselves in a positive way."
Kay reunited (via satellite) with her TV family in spring 2010 for a Today Show interview. Among those in attendance: Kay's younger TV sister, Connie Needham-Newton, who, according to a Facebook source, recently announced she beat ovarian cancer.
Oh, what a tangled web of Los Angeles-based litigation.
The legal battles spun off from NBC's controversial documentary Farrah's Story—which played to about 9 million viewers during last year's May sweeps—continue to unfold in Los Angeles County Superior Court six weeks prior to the one-year anniversary of Farrah Fawcett's death from anal cancer at age 62.
Radar Online reports that the documentary's exec producer, Craig Nevius, is suing L.A.-based law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp (MSK), claiming negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. Nevius alleges MSK--which once repped his and Fawcett's joint production company, Sweetened by Risk LLC (SBR)--"possessed an actual conflict of interest" in later repping defendants in litigation the producer brought last year.
Nevius claims that in summer 2008 he and Fawcett fired one of the firm's lawyers, Kim Swartz, for his "lackadaisical and inattentive representation" during the documentary's licensing negotiations with NBC.
Last May, Nevius sued Fawcett's longtime lover, Ryan O'Neal, business manager Richard B. Francis and Farrah's Story co-producer Alana Stewart, alleging the trio conspired to wrestle control of the NBC special away from him while a cancer-ravaged Fawcett lay on her deathbed. Francis, as trustee of Fawcett's estate, countersued Nevius in January, alleging the filmmaker invaded Fawcett's privacy while mismanaging the TV project and her money--claims Nevius has also made against Francis, O'Neal and Stewart.
Fawcett died on June 25, 2009.
"For almost one year, MSK represented and had confidential attorney-client communications with Nevius... regarding SBR, the Program and NBC (who aired Farrah's Story)," Nevius claims in his new suit.
MSK, his filing continues, "failed to exercise reasonable care and skill and acted in negligent manner with respect to their duty of loyalty owed to Plaintiffs, by among other things, taking an adverse position with respect to issues concerning ownership and control of SBR, acting as counsel of record for Francis and O'Neal in the Action, refusing to voluntarily withdraw as counsel of record in the Action and forcing Plaintiffs to pursue a motion to disqualify in order remove Defendants as counsel of record in the Action."
Last September, the Los Angeles County Superior Court disqualified MSK from repping O'Neal and Francis. "MSK cannot take sides in a dispute among [SBR] owners/members, nor be in a position where it must argue the veracity and credibility of its own attorneys," the court ruled. "By representing [Francis and O'Neal], [MSK] is taking sides in the dispute over [SBR]'s ownership and control."
As of this blog posting, Radar reported MSK had not responded to requests for comment.
If he were alive today, Angel- and luxury-loving Charlie Townsend would not be a happy man.
Charlie's Angels star Kate Jackson, claiming she's in "financial ruin," is suing her former financial advisor for $3 million. The advisor: Farrah Fawcett's former business manager, Richard B. Francis.
Francis, who's also Ryan O'Neal's business manager and a trustee of Fawcett's estate, has his hands full these days. He's already engaged in dueling lawsuits with Farrah's Story documentary exec producer Craig Nevius, who--as Jackson claims happened to herself--was cut out of Fawcett's life in the weeks (in Nevius's case, months) leading up to her tragic death from anal cancer on June 25, 2009.
Last March, Nevius--sued by Fawcett's estate in January for allegedly embezzling "hundreds of thousands of dollars" from her production company--charged in court filings that Francis and Fawcett friend Alana Stewart are using the cancer research charity The Farrah Fawcett Foundation "to divert Ms. Fawcett’s assets away from other rightful beneficiaries," including the late actress's 92-year-old father, James.
In her suit filed this week, Jackson claims Francis knew about her "extremely close relationship" with Fawcett and capitalized on that connection to land Jackson as a client. The brunette Angel alleges Francis estimated she was worth about $5.4 million, and advised that she could live off at least $300,000 annually from her accounts' interest.
Jackson claims she learned her true financial worth--per her suit, approximately $3 million--when, under alleged pressure from Francis, she bought a house for $2,0011,000 in Santa Monica's "Golden Strip" in 2008. According to TMZ, Jackson's suit claims she knew she couldn't afford the house, but Francis--who she alleges knew she was "grossly overpaying" for the home--"drained her savings account in order to pay for it anyway."
Reports TMZ, "Francis says he's been in the business for 50 years and has an impeccable record with several celebrity clients" The site quotes Francis as saying, "This case will end at the deposition stage. It will never go to court."
But if published in the media, these depositions--and those of Francis's other Fawcett-related suits--could set the stage for a damning trial in the court of public opinion.
Last February, Jackson told Radar Online she questioned an April 2009 document seemingly signed by Fawcett revoking control of Farrah's Story from Nevius and giving it instead to Fawcett's longtime lover O'Neal. Nevius sued O'Neal, Francis and Farrah's Story co-producer Alana Stewart last summer, accusing them of conspiring to seize control of the documentary and interfering with his contract with Fawcett to oversee it.
"Farrah had such beautiful penmanship," Jackson told Radar Online, who reported TV's "smart Angel" had seen the document, crucial evidence in Nevius's case. "It caused me to become very sad and upset, when I saw that signed document, because I believed that she was not awake enough, because of the pain medication she required. Frankly, to me, that document didn't look like she could have a clue what she was signing."
In an exclusive interview with Retroality.TV last fall, Nevius said that around early April 2009, Francis, O'Neal and Stewart "isolated" Fawcett from him. And "Ryan and Alana took steps to take over the documentary through his business manager [Francis] and Farrah’s and my former attorneys who filed our company’s Articles of Organization with the state. Suddenly, Ryan and his business manager claimed to have Farrah’s 'Power of Attorney'—although they refused to show it to me."
As of last September, "I haven’t seen any document entitled 'Power of Attorney,'" Nevius told us. "Although I have seen other documents which they claim negate the operating agreement that Farrah and I signed when we formed Sweetened By Risk LLC. They claim the other documents also void the rights Farrah invested with me on her behalf and on our company’s behalf should health events interfere with her ability to continue the work. These new documents were signed with a scrawled, scrunched signature that they claim is Farrah’s."
In January, Fawcett's estate sued Nevius, accusing him of embezzling from Sweetened by Risk LLC (SBR), botching an initial edit of her NBC documentary and selling out Fawcett by releasing data and footage without her consent. The suit was filed by Francis, acting as an estate trustee, and by SBR.
In a statement released to the media, Nevius responded, "These accusations are nothing more than a fabricated press release disguised as a lawsuit. As much as I would like to answer the allegations and disprove them right here and right now in the court of public opinion, I will wait to do so in a court of law."
Jackson defended Nevius in an AP report about the estate's lawsuit. "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," Jackson said.
Jackson's suit, while on the surface unrelated to the Nevius-O'Neal/Francis litigation, could bring to light revealing information about Francis's dealings with Fawcett and O'Neal, and the couple's dealings with each other. Fawcett appointed Francis a trustee to her estate in 2007. Curiously, however, she did not name O'Neal--whom she never married--in her will as she did their son, Redmond.
"I've read Mr. Nevius' response to our complaint which I think contains spurious and outrageous allegations,” Howard Weitzman, an attorney for the estate, Francis, O'Neal and Stewart, told the AP.
Responded Nevius to Tabloid Baby: "Mr. Weitzman thinks my lawsuit contains 'spurious and outrageous allegations?' You mean, he doesn't know? It doesn't sound like he has unwavering confidence in his clients. But he is right about one thing: the truth will come out during litigation. And it will reveal that Ryan O'Neal is a monster, Alana Stewart is soulless and Richard Francis acts like a thug."
Perhaps Jaclyn Smith, with her far-from-Hollywood, good-old-reliable K-Mart contract, is the truly "smart one."
By Chris Mann Retroality.TV Editor
Look up the word "wholesome" in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of Dick Van Patten. Whether helping a troubled Eight is Enough kid or encouraging hungry puppies by eating his line of Natural Balance dog food, the TV father figure's familiar image reassures us he's still serving up hearty goodness.
Van Patten, who turned 81 on Dec. 9, shares his eight decades as an actor, family man and TV octodad in his delightful new memoir Eighty is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment (Phoenix Books), co-authored by Robert Baer.
The lighthearted book reads like a who's who of New York stage and Hollywood screen, detailing Van Patten's successes and struggles as a Depression-era child model-turned-Broadway child star who grew up, thanks to his uber-attentive mother-turned-manager, working with acting legends such as Tallulah Bankhead and Fredric March while hanging out with the likes of James Dean and Kirk Douglas.
In 1949, the industrious Van Patten moved to TV land, playing the winsome son in one of America's premiere live sitcoms, I Remember Mama, whose audience surged as America went from 3.5 million to 60 million TV sets during its nine-year run. In 1977, he landed his pop culture-defining role as Tom Bradford, the kindly dad of eight who never forgot to leave a plate of homemade wishes on the kitchen window sill.
The ever-spry actor, who's recovered from a stroke in 2008, inspires readers with his trademark—and still fully-intact—upbeat attitude in this biography. He doesn't shy away, though, from briefly discussing the storied and, in one tragic case, fatal troubles of his Eight is Enough children (see sidebar) or acknowledging the less-than-rosy child-star memories of his sister, actress Joyce Van Patten.
He also offers poignant memories of the late Farrah Fawcett and actress Diana Hyland, who portrayed his TV wife before quickly succumbing to cancer less than two weeks after Eight premiered in spring 1977. The actor and his wife of 55 years, Pat, were with Hyland and her considerably younger lover, John Travolta, when Hyland died. (Actress Betty Buckley joined the show in season two as Bradford step mom Abby; her acting and singing talents later won her critical raves and a Tony on Broadway.)
Despite the sadness he's experienced, Van Patten emerges as a grateful and gracious everyman whose soft-spoken optimism and genuine persona promise to keep him going decades beyond eighty.
I was quite amazed at your history—from child modeling to Broadway to live TV and film. You’ve done it all.
Oh, yeah, I’ve been around a long time. (Laughs.)
And yet I, like most of America, grew up watching you on Eight is Enough.
I was on another series before you were even born. It was on for nine years, live very Friday night, called I Remember Mama. It was one of the very first sitcoms, from 1949 to 1958. I was a kid actor. It was nice working on Eight is Enough because I was surrounded by kid actors. And they went through everything I went through on I Remember Mama.
You had two big hits—that’s a rarity in television.
When I read the script for Eight is Enough, I didn’t think it would be a hit. I thought it was just like Father Knows Best. So I was surprised and happy when it took off.
And it survived and thrived, despite Diana Hyland’s death—let’s discuss that in a bit—and the substance problems of about half of the Bradford kids. Were you aware of the drug abuse behind the scenes?
No. I had no idea about any of that. Maybe it’s better that I didn’t. Things went very smoothly on the set … There was a real bond between me and the Eight is Enough kids. I used to tell (them), “This is as good as it gets. Sit back and enjoy it because it’s not gonna get any better.”
Which kids do you keep in touch with? You bailed Adam Rich out of jail in 1991—and I understand you’ve been a father figure to him and others.
Adam Rich calls me all the time. And also I’m the godfather of Susan Richardson’s girl. (Susan’s) in Philadelphia, so I don’t see her at all. She’s doing alright [Richardson suffered a nervous breakdown in 1999 and in recent years has worked a a retirement home caregiver in Pennsylvania.]… Connie Newton and Laurie Walters, I still keep in touch with them; I went to Laurie’s wedding. Of course, Lani O’Grady is dead now. It’s so sad.
Lani really struggled with drug and mental health issues. Did you keep up with her?
I did. She’d call me or I’d call her every couple of months. (Pause.) I’m still very much in touch with Dianne Kay.
I had a crush on her as a kid.
I don’t blame you. She was the prettiest of them all.
A few of your TV kids became teen magazine pin-ups.
Yeah. I go up to Seattle every once and a while and see Grant Goodeve. He’s a lovely guy. He’s got three kids and he does a local show up there called Northwest Backwoods. He’s the commentator.
Willie Aames has not been so lucky—he’s fallen on hard times again.
I don’t hear from him much. But I heard that he’s broke now and selling the stuff in his house. I don’t even know how to get in touch with him. It hasn’t been a good life (for him).
You fell on hard times after Mama.
That was about from ’59 to ’67. When I Remember Mama went off the air in 1958, all of a sudden I couldn’t get any work. I was too identified with that show, I guess. So I did go into other things like real estate, and I did very well. Then all of a sudden Elaine May put me in a play called Adaptation/Next and then she sent me out here with it and I never went back to New York. I started getting all sorts of work again out here. That was the only slump I fell into.
What advice would you give Willie if you connected with him?
I’d tell him to make his work as an actor the most important thing and not let anything else interfere. Forget all that–it’s nonsense.
TV’s a pretty tough market for actors now, given reality TV. Now instead of Eight is Enough we get Jon and Kate Plus Eight.
I can’t stand all of that reality stuff, that improvisation. I can spot it in a minute. Good scriptwriting and doing your writers’ lines—that’s what I think is great. I don’t go for all of that improvising; I never did. The actor’s lines are the important thing. (In reality TV), they try to act like it’s so real. But it isn’t. It comes off as very artificial. It’s not real.
Do you think his fate is a product of the times? You came from an era—
A more wholesome era, yeah.
But also an era when people valued money after the Depression. And people valued their opportunities during War World II …
That’s a good way to put it. That’s right. I don’t think it was just Hollywood (that changed), I think it was society in general. Things changed.
If you could go back to 1977, have a crystal ball and find out that at least four of your eight TV kids were gonna have really hard times, in retrospect, is there any advice you’d have given them to keep them on the right track?
(I would tell them) I’d get a high on working. I didn’t need to anything else to get high on. I’d tell them that’s what you get your high from—from working, from getting jobs, winning auditions and beating out other kids on the auditions.
A major turning point for you, certainly as a comic actor, came when you landed the role of the son in O Mistress Mine—a part you got over Marlon Brando and Roddy McDowell. How did your O Mistress Mine parents, actors Alfred Lunt and his wife, Lynn Fontanne, change your life?
I was with them for four years and they were almost like parents to me. I lived with them on their farm up in Genesee Depot, Wisc., for about three weeks. They were a big influence on me. I got very good reviews playing their son. There were about 90 kids up for the part, and they narrowed it down to me, Roddy and Marlon. I beat them out at the last (minute). (Laughs). When it closed in 1949, I went right in to I Remember Mama. It prepared me.
Looking back, how did you manage not to be overwhelmed and get a little cocky growing up on stage and screen?
I knew nothing else. I had a real stage mother—I owe everything to her. She got me in a Broadway play when I was seven years old. And it just seemed like the natural thing (for me) to do. I didn’t know anything else.
You credit your mother so much in your book. Yet she was a complicated woman.
So many times when you hear the term “stage mother,” they say it like it’s a dirty word. On the contrary, I owe everything to my mother. In tennis, Serena Williams owes everything to her father. Tiger Woods owes everything to his father; he had him out on a golf course when he was seven years old. I figure it’s a terrific thing when a mother helps her son. If it hadn’t been for my mother, I’d probably be a bellhop. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a bellhop … But it’s been a great life and I’ve met the most interesting people and traveled all over the world.
But you’ve got an exceptional attitude—you saw gigs as a child as opportunities that you didn’t take for granted.
My mother and father used to tell me, “You’re only as popular as the show that you’re on, so don’t let it go to your head.” It’s so true. It’s the show that made you popular. And I had that in my mind all the time; I had smart parents.
We all know what happened when stars such as Suzanne Somers forgot that maxim. And, ironically, Eight is Enough premiered on the same night—March 15, 1977—as Three’s Company.
That’s right! I forgot that!
Some of your earliest career advice came in a rather unexpected way from the sexy Tallulah Bankhead in her—aptly titled—Skin of Our Teeth dressing room on Broadway.
She invited me to her dressing room—and she was stark naked. I was 14 years old. I’d never seen a woman naked before. It was sort of exciting for a little kid. I kept saying my line wrong so she’d keep calling me back to her dressing room.
She mentions me in her book. She said, “I never liked child actors. The only child actor I ever liked was Dickie Van Patten, because he could read the racing forms.”
They give Katherine Hepburn credit as the first woman to wear slacks. It’s not true. Tallulah Bankhead wore slacks before Katherine Hepburn. That was 1942, and she wore slacks every day.
So Tallulah was a pioneer in more than one way.
Yes. (Laughs.) And she loved baseball. She was a fanatic about the New York Giants.
What advice did she give you?
Here’s what happened. I was offered the (lead) role in Tomorrow the World, but I would’ve had to leave The Skin of Our Teeth. She said to me, “Don’t leave a hit to take a chance on some other show.” It turns out she was wrong because Tomorrow the World was a big hit also. Skippy Homeier played the part. And my sister did the play.
You and your sister certainly did some major plays—and so many of them war-themed. Heavy material about the big issues of our times. How did this shape you?
It was a great education. It really was. I just did what I was told. I’d go from one play to another. One play would close and they’d get me into another one. It was crazy.
Of course, you were an old pro by age 10. In the midst of the Depression you were make $5 an hour as a child model. Did you ever feel exploited—or that you had a responsibility as a breadwinner?
I never felt that way. I just felt that this is what I was supposed to do.
Your attitude is reminiscent of Ron Howard’s.
Oh, I’m a big fan of Ron Howard’s.
How is your sister doing? Has she made peace with her life as a child actor?
My sister just did twelve weeks in Boston in a movie (Grown Ups) with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. It’s a big, big movie. So she’s doing very well. Every play that Neil Simon did on Broadway he had my sister in it.
For better or worse, your mother was a real go-getter. She was your manager?
Yes, she was. She was stage-struck. She loved the theater. My mother and father went to a play in 1928 when they were just married. It was called Showboat. Every since then, she was a fanatic about (theater). About four years ago I did Showboat in Chicago. It all came full circle.
I love the story in your book about your mom traveling cross country to L.A. to hit up Stan Laurel after he sent her a letter saying you had a promising future.
I’ve got to tell you one thing that’s not in the book. About a month ago I was at the race track and someone said, “Stan Laurel’s daughter is coming tomorrow. Why don’t you bring that letter and show it to her?” So when I met her I showed her the letter he sent to my mother. She got a big kick out of it.
Ultimately, you and your mom decided that New York was your town.
Now I’m out in California, and I love it, but I still feel like a New Yorker.
You’ve done just about every major play out there.
And worked with so many important directors, too. Every major stage director I worked for: George Kaplan, Moss Hart, Max Reinhardt, Joshua Logan, Elia Kazan.
Your book reads like a Who’s Who in Hollywood—from hanging out with James Dean to watching women hang out with Kirk Douglas at a burlesque bar.
Jimmy Dean was like my flunkie! He used to follow me all over. He’d get me a pack of cigarettes. I used to play poker and he’d sit behind me and watch me play all night.
For the generations that view you as a genteel father-type, do you think people will be surprised to learn you were rather, um, adventuresome in your youth?
That’s putting it mildly. Yes. (Laughs.) The one thing I had in common with (Tom Bradford) is I’m very family-oriented. I have a great family, and that comes first. Same way it was with the father on Eight is Enough.
Your dad left your family when you were 14. That must’ve been tough for you.
I felt sorry for my mother. She wanted my father to come back—she was still in love with him. He met somebody else, and I always feel my mother never liked anybody else (romantically). It’s so sad.
Then you become the ultimate TV dad of the ultimate idyllic family on Eight. Yet the show was fraught with tragedy off camera—starting with Diana Hyland’s sad death from cancer after filming the fourth episode.
When she passed away, I never thought the show would be a hit. I sort of went, “That’s the end of the show.” Yet they wrote it into the show and it worked out fine. Diana was going to marry John Travolta. That was definitely true. We were with her when she died.
I had done another show with her, a soap opera called Young Doctor Malone. So we’d worked together for about two years in New York. I knew her pretty well.
She didn’t know she was sick until the second or third week of filming Eight?
Well, that’s what she said. But I sort of think she knew it but didn’t want to lose a job. Before you do a TV series, they have you go through a physical at the doctor. But the doctor just never picked up that she had cancer.
How did her death affect you and your TV kids?
We were all very, very upset. Diana was a nice girl, and we got very close those few weeks that we worked together. The kids took it very hard.
Eight’s step mom Betty Buckley went on, of course, to become a huge Broadway star. And she wrote a lovely endorsement of you and your book for your back cover.
She lives in Texas now on a ranch. It was very nice of her to write that. It’s funny: She wanted to sing on the show and they never would let her. I bet they’re kicking themselves now. She’s an amazing singer. She won the Tony.
Sadly, thirty-two years after Diana Hyland’s death, you lost your friend Farrah Fawcett to cancer.
Yes. Farrah was my wife’s best friend … My son Vincent was on a show called Apple’s Way. He was 16 years old and supposed to fall in love with a woman 24 years old. Farrah Fawcett had done these commercials and they hired her for the part. My wife had to go to the set every day with my son. So while she was on the set my wife and Farrah became very friendly. Later on, we all played tennis together.
What made her so special as a person and as a performer?
Well, first of all, Farrah was very, very smart. She wasn’t just so bimbo or some blonde—she was really intelligent. I think that helped a lot. She was such good company and just a great girl.
Were you with Farrah in her final weeks?
I wasn’t but my wife was. She went up to see her about every week.
You even have a Michael Jackson connection.
The funny thing is we lived next door to the Jacksons. My wife became very friendly with Michael. He was so nice to her. He loved to help her out—clean the house and everything … For Michael and Farrah to die on the same day was weird. My wife lost two close friends on the same day.
You were hanging out with Hollywood hotshots even back in your teens.
I had the same dressing room with Kirk Douglas. Kiss and Tell in 1944 was his first Broadway play. Then when I was in The Skin of Our Teeth I had the same dressing room as Monty Clift. This was before he became a big superstar. Whoever I shared a dressing room with would become big stars. (Laughs.)
You and Kirk share the same birthday.
We were both born on December 9. We’re exactly 12 years apart. I have the same birthday as Donny Osmond, Redd Foxx and Kirk Douglas.
You and Kirk also have survived similar health challenges.
I had a stroke about a year ago. But I’m okay now.
Eighty clearly is not enough for you. What do you want to do between 80 and 90?
I’m not sure but I want to keep working. I also have that (line of) dog food now, Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance. I like to help animals. We give away dog food to different animal charities.
And you still go to the track?
I do. I have a couple of racehorses.
Can we expect another Eight is Enough reunion?
They don’t even have the shows on DVD! That surprises me. (So) there won’t be a reunion.
The show has certainly survived in the U.S. vernacular—
People come up to me every day and say, “I grew up with you.” And then Obama’s 2007 speech: “Eight is enough.” (The crowd chanted,) “Eight is enough! Eight is enough!” I couldn’t believe it. He was smiling when he said it. It was so cute.
The chart below lists celebrities (shown in red type) and non-celebrities (shown in blue type) who have all been diagnosed with cancer. (Assumed names and approximated ages are used to protect the identities of the non-famous.) Can you find a pattern in the chart?
THE ANSWER IS NO! There is no pattern because cancer is indiscriminate. Cancer affects all ages, races, genders and professions. Cancer does not methodically select who shall be stricken, who will survive or who may succumb to its terminal grip. Cancer does not care how much money a person has in the bank or the amount of fame one has or how many awards and metals somebody wins. Cancer does not think about the perfect prom dress or that favorite teddy bear. Cancer does not grant mercy to any of its victims—as even in death, cancer is hard, painful and suffers both the dying and those left behind to carry on. Celebrities suffer no more nor no less than the dental hygienist or paralegal. Non-celebrities vow to fight as defiantly against cancer as do celebrities.
Some folks suggest that having money helps. Newsflash: I have never seen cancer grab a $20 and head to the bank. I have never heard of cancer making a withdraw of $1,000 from an ATM. I know cancer takes lives from the rich and famous. I know cancer takes the lives of the poor and the poorest. Money may buy a pricey doctor or two or three. Money may fund trips around the globe to specialists. Not enough money may deny vital drugs. No money, no insurance may or may not affect ability to receive treatment. St. Jude is based on need and will not deny a child for the lack of financial prowess his/her parents may wield. Simple, at the end of the day, cancer does not recognize the dollar sign.
Celebrities do publicly support the fight against cancer. Lance Armstrong is the creator of LiveStrong, an advocacy website for cancer patients and family members. Since 1998, Katie Couric has passionately promoted the need for cancer screenings after losing her husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer. Christina Applegate faced with life and death took extraordinary measures to combat her breast cancer. Ted Kennedy fought as hard against his brain cancer as he did in Congress for his constituents in Massachusetts. Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett—though overshadowed by Michael Jackson’s sudden and mysterious death—had both their valiant battles and tragic defeats displayed by the media for all prying eyes to see.
However, celebrities aren’t the only supporters in the fight against cancer. Other cancer survivors—including me—participate in raising awareness of the need for further research for a cure for cancer. We walk for those heroes we have lost and to celebrate our victories. We ask for and make donations to St. Judes, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the American Cancer Society and many other organizations and institutions sworn to fight cancer until cancer is an innocuous disease. Non-celebrities, like myself, may be sitting in the chemotherapy room consenting to have life-saving poison feed through our veins or hanging over a toilet heaving all of our souls into the bowl. But make no mistake about it—we’re fighting our cancer equally as hard as celebrities, though without the hovering of vulturistic paparazzi.
Ultimately, there is no difference in celebrities' efforts and non-celebrities' efforts when it comes to warring with and against cancer on all fronts, personally and publicly. Celebrities and non-celebrities are dueling for a common goal: NO MORE CANCER. AND THAT IS THE PATTERN THAT WE HOPE DEFEATS THE INDISCRIMINATE CANCER!
Six years ago on Oct. 27, 2003, colorful Price is Right announcer Rod Roddy lost his brave battle with colon and breast cancer at age 66.
The larger-than-life voice behind the immortal catch phrase "Come on down!" from 1986 until his death, Roddy was diagnosed with colon cancer on—of all days—Sept. 11, 2001. He soon became one of the first celebrities to publicly campaign for colon cancer awareness and early detection. Sadly, as his cancer spread despite chemotherapy, Roddy also became one of the first male celebrities to share his diagnosis, in March 2003, of breast cancer. (Recently, former KISS drummer Peter Criss and Shaft himself, actor Richard Roundtree, revealed their breast cancer diagnoses.)
"I could have prevented all this with a colonoscopy, and, of course, that's the campaign I've been on since I had the first surgery," Roddy told CBS months before his death. "To everybody out there, get a mammogram! It can happen to men, too."
Despite his two-year cancer fight, the flamboyant TV ham—famous for his vibrant, glittery blazers and wacky Showcase skits—remained committed to his 17-year gig as Price's famed on-screen announcer and host Bob Barker's TV sidekick. He showed up with bells on until his final hospitalization two months prior to his passing.
"We all admired his courage," Barker told an interviewer in 2003. "He was always upbeat and hopeful. I went to the hospital and sat on the edge of his bed and we laughed the whole time we were talking. He was still having fun."
But not nearly as much fun, another former Price colleague says, as Roddy would have wholeheartedly preferred. In 2002, the high-energy announcer was suddenly taken off camera on the iconic CBS game show. FremantleMedia, the show's production company, claimed Roddy's disembodied voice was the product of their new "international policy" to keep all announcers off camera on all of their shows. Despite his still robust appearance, Roddy was seldom seen on camera in his final year or so on the show. (During his absence for cancer treatment in late 2002, however, fill-in announcers Paul Boland and Burton Richardson were featured on screen when introduced by Barker. And Roddy made a brief appearance on camera during the season 32 premiere in 2003 when introduced by Fremantle exec Syd Vinnedge.)
Roddy's rare on-camera Price appearance, Fall 2003
This "policy" was a facade, says veteran Barker's Beauty prize model Holly Hallstrom. The 1977-95 show vet, who countersued the series' legendary emcee-turned-exec producer and won a multi-million-dollar settlement in 2005, claims Barker yanked Roddy off the screen in 2002 following a backstage dispute over money. According to Hallstrom, Roddy demanded higher pay for a series of successful Price primetime specials. She says Barker—not Fremantle—retaliated by taking away the very thing that kept the ailing announcer going: his coveted, if minimal, camera time.
For the first time ever, an emotional Hallstrom breaks her silence, in this Retroality.TV audio interview, about her "precious" co-star's reaction to his on-screen vanishing act while he fought for survival during the final year-plus of his life. (This segment of Hallstrom's explosive Retroality.TV interview—part 4 in an ongoing series of exclusive chats with the classic game show model—will be available next month on our You Tube channel).
Barker paid tribute to Roddy in an 18-second clip montage in a Price episode airing after the announcer's death. Howard Stern mocked this brief memorial on his popular radio show. CBS' Late Late Show aired a considerably longer video homage to Roddy—one of the talk show's favorite guests—around this time.
The Emmy-winning emcee never referred to Roddy again on his game show. Barker mentioned Roddy only once in his 2009 memoir Priceless Memories—while listing him alongside his Price predecessor, the legendary Johnny Olson, and Roddy's successor, Rich Fields (whose frequent on-camera appearances apparently signaled the reversal of Fremantle's international policy in the last five years). Olson and Fields earned the Price host's recognition in the book's anecdotes; Roddy did not.
Roddy's long and illustrious Hollywood career took off in 1977 when he was hired as the announcer for the hit ABC sitcom Soap, which ran until 1981. Prior to landing his "Come on down!" dream job, he enjoyed success at CBS as the "avoid-the-Whammy!" voice behind the high-rated daytime game show Press Your Luck. For more info about Roddy, visit friend and fellow announcer Randy West's website.
Media-shrewd actress-turned-bestselling author Suzanne Somers last week outraged many Americans—including the equally vocal Whoopi Goldberg, who just ripped her on The View—with her latest, publicity-magnetizing comment, which goes something like this: Chemotherapy poisoned the late Patrick Swayze. Last week's headlines took it a (logical) step further: "Suzanne Somers Claims Chemo Killed Patrick Swayze."
The always-outspoken Somers' remarks surfaced just days after Swayze died—and, ironically, less than a week after TV icon Farrah Fawcett's cancer documentary, Farrah's Story, was denied an Emmy amidst claims that Ryan O'Neal seized control of the NBC special and, in essence, muffled Farrah's voice in her final months. Retroality.TV recently broke news about Fawcett's hopes for the project—and revealed stunning details about her fight for life and O'Neal's alleged threats to kill Farrah's Story executive producer Craig Nevius—in this exclusive interview with Fawcett's producing partner and confidant.
To be fair, Suzanne's sound bite-worthy claims were derived from her longer, if equally unsettling, comment about the late Swayze's chemotherapy. In Somers' own words: "They took this beautiful man and they basically put poison in him. Why couldn't they have built him up nutritionally and gotten rid of the toxins in his body? I hate to be this controversial. I'm a singer-dancer-comedienne. But we have an epidemic going on, and I have to say it."
Goldberg today shot back: “In case she doesn’t know, Patrick did everything and went everywhere to try and stay healthy as long as he could. That he’s been gone a week and this statement came out is bad timing and bad taste and Suzanne, you know better. And I’m not sure that’s not what you meant to do, but you should have thought about it.”
"MaryscottOConnor"'s stinging comments following a New York Post story about the controversy also pretty well sum up the anti-Somers Swayze backlash:
"She's entitled to her opinion. As am I: and my opinion is that Ms. Somers is an utter moron, and an insensitive, opportunistic moron, at that. I believe she actually believes the stuff she's spewing, but I also believe she's spewing this particular stuff at this particular time—taste and tact be damned—because the publicity and attendant possible increased sales for HER book are just too tempting. Which makes her not only a moron but a venal, contemptible moron, at that."
Ouch. Somers' new book, Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer—And How to Prevent Getting it in the First Place, hits bookstores Oct. 20.
The breast cancer survivor, who in 2001 controversially announced she eschewed chemo in favor of injecting the herb Iscador, made her Swayze remark to Toronto-based columnist Shinan Govani just hours after the beloved Dirty Dancing and Ghost star succumbed to almost always-deadly pancreatic cancer following a valiant 20-month fight. “People won’t listen to me," the PR-savvy proponent of alternative medicine told the National Post gossip columnist. "If only they would listen to me.”
Monday, Somers apologized on her blog: "In a casual conversation at a private party (with someone who never identified himself as a reporter) at the Toronto Film Festival last week, I was asked about this beloved actor. It was never my intention to make an official statement about his passing. I was not informed or aware I was being interviewed. I would never have been so insensitive as to offer a public statement so close to his untimely passing. I sincerely apologize if my comment has caused any additional pain to his family during this difficult time. I send my deepest condolences for their loss."
(I wonder who Suzanne thought she was talking to when Govani chatted her up—or vice versa—at this industry event. Govani must've had a good memory, because apparently he quoted her accurately without wielding a pen or a tape recorder. Chances are, Suzanne will get the 411 next time.)
Timing is everything. Perhaps if Suzanne had waited a few weeks to reference Swayze's death, more people would be willing to listen. On the other hand, would her comments spread like wildfire once the media focuses squarely on (God forbid) the next untimely (and, in the case of Michael Jackson and Billy Mayes, non-cancer-related) celebrity death?
In Somers' defense, she says she just wants to get potentially life-saving information to the public. As someone who's had the honor of interviewing a few famous cancer survivors—namely Fran Drescher, Jaclyn Smith and Olivia Newton-John—I appreciate the value of Somers' voice in the public arena. And as the guy who literally wrote the book on her rise to superstardom and public war of words with her Three's Company producers and, many years later in my book, her former co-stars, I also appreciate Suzanne's passion to speak her truth, however controversial and, at times, completely at odds with seemingly everyone else's truth, it can be.
Perhaps she will be more successful in getting her potentially life-saving message out than was the late '70s sensation whose stratospheric stardom inspired Somers' own quest for instant made-for-TV celebrity. Farrah Fawcett devoted the final years of her life to fighting cancer and enlightening the public about alternative, life-extending therapies. Sadly, the brave TV Angel lost her three-year battle with anal cancer on June 25. But thanks to her "video diary" that documented her trips to a German clinic to find the treatment and hope that the U.S. health care system could not offer her, she left behind a legacy of courage, strength and potential change for millions afflicted with terminal cancer.
Tragically, according to my interview with Craig Nevius, Farrah's Emmy-nominated NBC documentary was riddled with misinformation, missing information and the misguided machinations of Fawcett's longtime lover, Ryan O'Neal, and close friend Alana Stewart.
Farrah's message was further muddled by the coincidental timing of Michael Jackson's shocking and suspicious death. What media attention and analysis Fawcett's death—and life—clearly merited gave way to the relentless feeding frenzy surrounding MJ's demise.
Not that Stewart had trouble promoting her well-timed (?) book My Journey with Farrah last month, though. People magazine gave her the cover treatment, and the talk show circuit spread the word. (Gotta love corporate synergy.) But when Nevius broke his silence recently about Stewart and O'Neal's alleged betrayal of Fawcett while they apparently took the reigns of the documentary Fawcett and Nevius had named—with NBC's apparent blessing—A Wing & A Prayer, the media turned a deaf ear.
So what if Nevius exposed Farrah's true—and apparently thwarted—intentions behind her cancer video diary? So what if he revealed for the first time why she avoided surgery to receive a colostomy bag, famously commented on weeks earlier by Ryan O'Neal? So what if he offered compelling details about O'Neal's alleged efforts to overtake the project and Stewart's supposed remarks that "at least (Entertainment Tonight) ran only the 'good wheelchair pictures'" while the celebrity news show exploited Farrah's final days last spring?
By early September, the media was more interested in showing Patrick Swayze's "final photos"—the same wheelchair trip home to die that Farrah had taken in April—and looking for the next death-related celebrity sound bite. Which Suzanne served up, unwittingly or not, during the oh-so-important 24-hour news cycle following Swayze's sad demise.
Somers will be on the talk-show circuit next month with her new book, offering more potentially breakthrough info in the fight against cancer. Thankfully cancer-free and otherwise able-bodied, she will have the chance to get her unfettered words across—an opportunity that Fawcett, according to her A Wing & A Prayer producing partner, was denied in Farrah's Story. (Farrah was indisputably unable to promote the NBC special last May; instead, O'Neal and Stewart walked the red carpet and spoke in place of the iconic Angel in numerous interviews.)
I trust that Suzanne will use this public platform responsibly and sensitively. If she invokes Swayze's or Fawcett's name—and she probably will and, under the right circumstances, maybe should—I hope for her message's sake that she tempers her product-publicizing passion with the utmost respect for the brave, though sadly silenced, celebs whose advanced and terminal cancers clearly couldn't be beaten with herbs and nutrition.
