THE GOOD, THE BAD and THE UGLY

As a gay man, “Six Degrees of Separation” not so much a parlor game as it is money in the bank. Having the bragging rights to actual brushes with greatness carries such clout, that the right anecdotes could carry you along the dinner party circuit for weeks, if not months. So to say, I have not only met but spoken with—as in they have spoken back, so there was shared dialogue—three legends of Hollywood is the social equivalent of food stamps. Subsidized dining. All I have to do is pull out one of these stories and for seven or eleven others around the table it is “dinner and a show”. For the host, it cheap entertainment. And for me, it’s a free meal. And everyone is sated: they leave one degree closer to a legend and me, a belly full. I’ve grown fat by my free-flowing factoids about face-time with the fashionable. For I am America’s dinner guest.

But I have learned to dole out these tasty morsels sparingly—like a box of Godivas, eat just one or two at a time and the ‘chocorgasm’ can last indefinitely. I have seen the role of the eyes and the deep sigh from across a table by someone who’s already heard one or another of my ‘tales of whoa!’ Talk about poising a meal, there is nothing more toxic than a repeat performance. So if you retell these stories, and you will, try to keep a mental note of who’s already bellied up to the buffet of babble. But if told correctly, these should provide three courses. For I have had the honor and the horror of meeting three Hollywood legendary women I refer to as “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!”

The Good:

I weaseled my way into a dinner with Lucille Ball. I did. These were my Boston days but I just so happened to be on the West Coast, doing a news series on the prime time soaps, back in the day when “Dallas”, “Dynasty”, “Knot’s Landing” and “Falcon Crest” were ratings giants. During this sojourn, the CBS network was conducting a junket—parading out the stars of upcoming and returning series—for the affiliated entertainment reporters across the country.

These junkets are always a chance to catch up with the old friends on someone else’s dime, in this case the network itself, and so I made a note to stop by for a visit. My friend Penny was in town for the junket and we spent a day catching up between her round robin of interviews. As the day wound down, Penny asked if I was coming to dinner at Chasen’s that night.

“No…?”

CBS had orchestrated a dinner party for the comic genius Lucille Ball to toast her dramatic role as a homeless woman in an upcoming “Movie of the Week.” I wasn’t one for hero worship but on a very short list of people I most wanted to meet, Lucy was at the top. What a hoot: dinner at a legendary nightspot, Chasen’s, in the presence of a legend, Lucy. Nabbing an invitation? That was a minor issue.

There was a bit of a cocktail reception just prior to sitting down. We had been corralled into the side dining room, just to the right of the entrance and out of eye line of any other ‘names’ having dinner. Nonetheless, the guest of honor was a big enough name to trump anyone present that night. Penny and I were scrambling to discretely maneuver the place cards in order to snag a seat at Lucy’s table. But that wasn’t to be.

I had my back to the door when there was a collective gasp. I knew she had entered the room, but unlike everyone else I hadn’t turned or craned to see the moment. There were just about forty of us; I would have plenty of time to ogle the woman as the night wore on.

Drink secure in my hand, I was tapped on the shoulder and as I turned I heard, “Miss Ball, may I introduce Marc Freden.” My body continued the turn in one slow fluid motion. This was to be a highlight of my life and I wanted to savor every nano-second. “Marc, may I present Lucille Ball.”

And at that instant, I was face to face, just inches away from the fright mask hiding the icon we knew as Lucy.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said as she graciously extended her hand.

It was all I could do to stifle my screech and remember to squeeze tightly the glass that should have fallen and shattered at both our feet. What I wanted to say was “What have you done with the Lucy we know and love?” What came out was, “I’m honored to be here.”

She was a shadow of the former beauty she once was—a face, lined and jowly, not unlike the exaggerated caricatures of past presidents by gonzo political activist artist Robbie Conal. Well past the need for a face life, she was damn close to decomposing and I worried if we would witness the start right here over dinner.

“Gary, get me a margarita,” she snapped to her dutiful husband, Gary Morton, while clasping her throat. This was not a dramatic gesture but rather a preventative move, pulling up the lose folds of skin she called a neck. Clearly she was aware of her own shabby chic appearance and thought she could literally hold it all together. In those precious seconds, while she demanded a cocktail, we still stood inches from each other, buffeted even by the others who had yet the privilege of a sobering introduction. And I took it all in, every last detail.

Her eyes, still expressive and sparkling, draw your attention first. Pulling back ever so slightly, you notice the blue—out of style for the period, blue—eye shadow, which had been clearly applied with a paint roller from false eyelash to eyebrow. And those brows, so perfectly arched, from years of penciling in, were high and not naturally existent. The former occupants of this expensive, yet aging, real estate had been plucked and teased out of existence, leaving plenty of space for an artist’s touch. The eyebrows were perfect, if only drawn that way.

Her lips were also a thing of art. Her natural full pair had clearly suffered the ravages of time and cigarette burn. The deep furrows on her upper lip, caused by the combination of puckering to inhale and the burning away of collagen from the cigarette heat, caused lipstick to run north, past the natural boundaries, like a mighty river overflowing. She lined and painted her lips well beyond the natural lip line anyway. Between the lips and her eyes she was stage ready. But, by no means ready for her close up.

That red hair, a color only shared by the late comedian and actor Red Buttons, aging character actress Carol Cook and the fine folks at Crayola; was in itself something to behold: bright, damn near iridescent, orange in her signature cropped, teased, ‘do’. But it too was fake—a wig-- masterfully crafted, but a wig. As close as I was, I could close see the netting, the sign of a fine piece of headgear. Only hand made wigs of nearly single human hair construction required such webbing. (Some years later, at the now defunct Max Factor building, I was to see the actual molds for Lucy’s wigs.) I have keen eye for detail but even I would most likely have not been dragged into the net had it not been for the wisps of gray hair peeking out from underneath. Could she not see these in the mirror?

I stepped back, as her drink approached and she took it with her free hand, which provided me the opportunity to study the other. A large cluster of diamonds created the sparkling cocktail ring—one of those gargantuan types, more fashionable in days when people dressed for cocktails. She had large hands, for a lady, with long fingers and long tapered fingernails. All but the one, that is. Her thumbnail had broken, in a jagged fashion, right down to the finger line. But this clearly didn’t seem to matter to the dear girl, as she hadn’t bothered to sculpt or file the offending nail, at least into an even curve. It was simply jagged, accentuated by the chipped and peeling polish. In a land of $15 manicures, where image is everything, how could this millionaire mogul look so…unfinished? But she did. So taken aback by this fright sight that I stepped away from the potential of a long conversation with THE Lucy to ponder such an oddity.

I was quite simply disappointed. I want my stars to look like stars. At least back then, before I met enough of them and seen the results of years of neglect, well past their shelf life. But this was Lucy, one of the “Goldwyn Girl” leggy beauties of thirties movie history. She was the woman who kept Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz) plump and dowdy for years in order to accentuate her well maintained statuesque attractiveness well into her mid-life forties and fifties super stardom—ancient for a star of that era.

But during the dinner something remarkable took place. While we all busily ate and chatted with those at our respective tables, Lucy stood. She offered a toast of thanks to all of us. She seemed genuinely surprised that we would want to have dinner in her presence, of which I took to be a dubious yet convincing moment of acting. Still, it was a nice gesture. And then she proceeded to leave her table and visit with each and every table in the room, making sure to have a little one on one time with everyone present. It was an astonishing moment of graciousness; one of which, I have yet in my career seen equaled—even by lesser stars. She had masterfully turned the night from being all about her, to being all about us. She had a personal moment with each of us, reiterating how grateful she was for our individual continued support. And with a wave of her hand she performed Hollywood magic, she became that beauty on the small screen—no longer past her sell-by date.

And because of that moment, I can say now and forever: I LOVE LUCY!

The Bad:

I should have squealed like a schoolgirl when the phone rang and the person at the other end offered me a one-on-one interview with Barbra Streisand. Just us two for an entire half-hour; it was to be hysteric if not historic! I neither squealed nor flinched. I did nothing, primarily because I was sure it was never going to happen.

Of course I wanted to do the interview, who wouldn’t, if just to see up close if she was more fishwife than femme fatale. She is the legendary bette noire of Hollywood--a notorious control freak whose attention to detail borders on a form of obsessive compulsive disorder. Let’s face it, who would go to the effort of dropping the ‘A’ from Barb-a-ra, with the assumption that ‘Barbra’ would be the bigger name? She surrounds herself with the intellectual, the interesting and the powerful. It is not that she suffers fools lightly, she doesn’t suffer them at all. She is unabashedly brilliant and has pissed off the Hollywood old-boys’ network by her lack of overt humility and her refusal to kowtow.

She is an Oscar, Emmy and Grammy winning writer, director, producer, actress, singer and—most importantly—a gay icon. But I’ll be God damned if I can figure out why. It’s not like she married one like Judy or Liza had or cut her teeth professionally in their clubs like Bette. But even the mention of the possibility of this interview caused even the most butch of my gay friends to swoon.

I didn’t believe the interview would happen, even after a date and time was set, because the illusive Babs rarely agreed to do any publicity. Publicity connotes the person or the project needs recognition. Was there anyone who went to the movies or listened to music that doesn’t know who Barbra Streisand is? It was explained that she would only talk to six people in the world, covering most of the consumer based world, to talk about a new c.d.—the inspirational album, “Higher Ground”. Whatever. I agreed with the clarity of knowing it was never going to happen.

So imagine my surprise when on that fateful Friday morning I was gunning my way up the Pacific Coast Highway to some address, secret until only that morning, so far north I was sure two houses further was Oregon. I was late…well, running late…running dangerously close to being late. Having assumed this wouldn’t happen, I scheduled a shoot for a CNN series I occasionally hosted and spent the morning running to and from half a dozen museums and galleries, interviewing just as many people and spontaneously delivering an equal number stand-ups—monologues to camera.

I hadn’t even had time to change clothes. But my perfect Barbra outfit would be the only thing to stay in the closet that day. Praying to the traffic Gods as I snaked my way up the PCH, I tried to collect my thoughts about what Barbra and I would talk about but was easily distracted by ‘sur-reality’ check. I was actually about to spend thirty minutes chatting with Barbra Streisand and could not be more ill prepared to do so.

The British publicist had taken me to dinner the evening before. That’s when it clicked that perhaps this interview was a go, too late to cancel CNN. No problem. They’d understand. It was Barbra for Chrissakes! I was given some guidelines for the interview—something that makes any journalist bristle. She would talk about her son but not about his being gay. You could ask about James Brolin but only two questions. The interview was 30 minutes and, quite literally, you were to be escorted out immediately afterwards. There would be no b-roll; those walking together through the garden kinds of images which provide transitions during the interview, and absolutely no still photos. “Oh, and by the way,” he mentions nonchalantly as a way dropping the big bombshell. The tapes would not be instantly handed over to me. There was an edit bay installed at the house. If she didn’t like what I asked or her answer, for that matter, she would edit them out before I would be given the tapes.

Outrageous! No one with a legitimate claim to journalist ethics would stand for that kind of self-censorship. No one gets editorial control. If I ask a question she doesn’t want to answer that is her prerogative. But to edit the tapes! I should have walked out right there and then…except it was Barbra. “Now, what’s this I hear about her being a control freak?” I returned nonchalantly.

But he and I got on famously—I have a way with such people-- and promised that she and I would be the best of friends by thirty minute’s end. Remembering that gave me my first, only and short-lived moment of calm that entire day. I had arrived, on time, but frazzled.

Security was tight and everyone with a walkie-talkie or earpiece was thrown into a tizzy when the guy who represented the British market, me, had no British accent. Providing something just shy of a stool sample, I sufficiently convinced the men I am who I am and was allowed in.

The setting was a rather nondescript house on a spectacular bluff looking back over Malibu, Santa Monica and beyond. Right then I mourned the death of b-roll to capture this view. But no, means no—in rape trials and with Barbra. I was ushered to the pool pavilion at land’s end by one of the army of minions scurrying all over the lawn. I was instructed to wait there until called. She pointed to a mirror and told me that, and only that, was available if I needed to apply my own make-up. She made some sort of noise from air seepage through pursed lips—that I took to mean “no”—when I asked about the access to Barbra’s make-up artist, as the differential between the light in the house and the sun lit pavilion could leave me looking like a geisha. Too bad, the professional was allocated for Barbra only. A simple but effective steely glare answered my request for a touch-up once inside.

At that point, she thrust what I thought was a Gideon Bible in my hand—last rites before the execution was my perception. It turned out to be a contract, with more fine print than a marital pre-nup. The essence of which stated that the tape belonged to my show, the images on it belonged to Barbra. She was granting the broadcast rights to two segments only to be aired on dates specified, of length specified. There would be no re-broadcast without expressed and written permission from Barbra, Sony records and a litany of representatives for parties concerned. Blah, blah, blah! I was told to sign or there would be no interview. As I did so, a flash went off. She had taken a Polaroid picture of me signing the contract, which was stapled to the document, just in case I refuted the signature they had photographic evidence that I had signed. Control freak? Not our Babs!

As it turned out, I had plenty of time to spare. The diva herself had run late and that pushed back hair, make-up and lighting. It gave me time to collect my thoughts and even more time to find out we weren’t at Barbra’s house at all. (So if you’ve been waiting for a description, it ain’t coming.) The house had been rented for the day and hapless couple, seemingly lost in the middle of their own lawn, were the owners. They had been banned from the house. Eventually, after pointing out the late start was jeopardizing my commitments to CNN and mildly threatening to leave—as if—I was allowed in.

I pushed my way passed the security, minions and crew; thrust my hand forward and brazenly introduced myself to THE lady. As timing is, she had just inserted a fork full of turkey burger into her mouth—no bun, for the record—at the moment my hand thrust forward. Startled, she shook my hand and garbled something that sounded like “Hi, I’m Barbra.”

“For God’s sake, chew and swallow. I don’t want to have to Heimlich you,” I bellowed dramatically and sat in the appropriate chair. “Eat, you’re wasting away to nothing.” The outburst had diffused a tense moment; at least that was the feeling in the air, and the crew laughed. Smart, now they’re on my side.

Barbra had sprung for quite a spread. The set up was incredible. Three cameras, microphones and all those lights. Unless you see it for yourself, you have to believe the stories about Barbra and her lighting demands are the stuff of urban legend. It is not. To her credit, she knows what makes her look her best. So why not light the room to look your best? But contrary to the stories circulating, all that lighting is not there to morph Barbra into something she isn’t. It is there to make her look as attractive as she actually is. She is cursed with strong, defined features and that nose. All of which, if lit poorly, would make her look like the fifth face on Mt. Rushmore. The right lighting simply prevents her from looking…harsh.

The lighting director leaned in and asked, “Are you going to be sitting there?”

I looked at Barbra, who was no further away than 18 inches from me but saying nothing, and then back to him. “This is where I am supposed to be sitting, isn’t it?”

“Not the seat. Are you going to be sitting like that the entire time.”

Again I looked at the silent star and then back to the stranger. “Well, we will be here for 30 minutes. I may shift positions…”

“No you won’t,” he commanded at her behest.

“I beg your pardon.”

“No you won’t. The lighting is set precisely for her eye-line to meet yours in this exact position. If you shift, we will stop the interview, re-light and that will cut into your 30 minutes.”

OKAY! SHE IS A FUCKING CONTROL FREAK!

The chair was overstuffed and I had sunk right down into it and my suit jacket, I was positive, was bunching up around my shoulders. The sides of the chair were raised and my left elbow was propped horizontally, almost evenly, with my two shoulders. Not a flattering look. I asked the lighting director if I looked okay but he simply turned and left, his job was done. I grasped my dangling left hand with my right, discretely hiding a powder puff in that hand—assuming flop sweat couldn’t be far off—and braced myself for the longest 30 minutes of my life. People buzzed around her like gnats, redirecting a wisp of hair or applying powder. I, on the other hand, could have had dog shit on my face and not one would have mentioned it.

It is common, during awkward time before the start of the actual interview, to chat with the interviewee. It is a chance to break the ice, clear tension, feel out the mood of the subject and/or let them get comfortable with you.

“So have you had a busy morning?” I offered up, knowing that whatever she had been up to I could top it.

She sighed deeply as if I had opened the Pandora’s box of early morning chores. “You have no idea. I have been hanging two sconces and a chandelier.” Could you picture her now, precariously balancing on a step stool trying to wire the light fixtures before her hand went numb?

“Don’t you think that is over accessorizing?” I joked.

There was a half chuckle then silence.

“So,” I persisted, “Congratulations on the new album. You know I have listened to it so many times I could warble it back to you.”

“Don’t!” she snapped. As if…

We continued this game of me talking about everything from her engagement ring to having seen her son perform in “Twilight of the Golds” in London’s West End. To which it took every effort for her to acknowledge my dialogue with a multi-syllabic answer. And at one point, she began to count. “One, two, three…” It was perfectly shitty way to dismiss me. It was her way of trying to shut me up without saying so or at the very least dismissing anything I had to talk about as insignificant. She didn’t tell me what she was counting but I am no idiot and clicked to the notion it was the floral arrangements. She got to six or seven and stopped.

“You missed one,” I informed her. That was my way of say I was perfectly aware of what she was doing. She looked stunned. “There is one over your shoulder.”

Not breaking eye contact until she had to she contorted her shoulder back and snapped her head in the direction of the errant arrangement. I was careful not to smirk; just stare back with the same disconnected glared offered up to me.

“It’s pretty isn’t it?” she smiled, caught at her own game.

“Yes.” Two could play the one word game. What happened to the ‘we’d be the best of friends’ speech I got over dinner the night before?

A little secret to my success, or at least my familial approach to stars, is to not interview with notes present. Barbra suddenly noticed the absence of cue cards. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to ask me?” she asked incredulously.

“I think I have you covered Barbra.”

“We’ll see.”

I got to tell you I was very close to having to swallow hard at this point to just get my balls to descend from in my throat and back down between my legs. For all my bravado this was still Barbra Streisand. And with just moments to go before my first question, she had successfully trumped my sense of cool with her diva-esque sensibility. She had done to me something so many others had failed to do in the past, remind me that they were the stars and consequently I needed them more than they needed me.

Then they counted us down and she, ever so subtle pierced my calm, with a look that anticipated a short, very short interview. I took a tact so sugary sweet; I convulse at the memory.

“I thought of you doing an album of inspirational songs and thought, that’s tough.” She squinted, not sure of where I was going. “And as an observer of your life I have noticed something. Over the last few years you have shed yourself of home, possessions. Cleaned house. And I wonder if you Barbra Streisand aren’t moving on to ‘Higher Ground’?” I had tossed a softball and she was swinging with all her might.

We got on famously from there on with her not only answering my questions but also asking my opinion back—a real conversation. But here’s where I make my money as an interviewer. My opinions are irrelevant in the end result, even if she has a genuine interest in hearing them. With only half an hour allotted, you don’t want to insult the lady or appear to be disengaged by not responding to her question…but “tick-tock lady; stay with the plan!” There is a real danger that my opinions would take her onto a tangential track that could derail everything I needed her to speak about during those precious few minutes. And then it all came screeching to a halt—the potential of a train wreck looming.

I asked about her inspiration for the inspirational choices of songs for the album. She waxed on for a moment or two about how she had explained all this in the liner notes which she proudly pointed out she’s written all by herself. And then it hit her, “did you even read my liner notes?”

“No I didn’t.” I confessed with such abrupt honesty the crew actually gasped. I confess I would have read them, had I known she’d written them but I hadn’t and moreover, I knew honesty would be the best policy. There is no bullshitting this bullshitter.

“I can’t believe this,” she ranted off camera. “You come here to do this interview and ask about my inspiration which I have written in great length in my liner notes. And you don’t bother to even read them…” I wanted to point out that I didn’t matter if I had read them, the television audience hadn’t and we were doing this for them. But she had a point; I appeared unprepared. I let her rant and in my peripheral vision I could see the crew’s body language indicate this interview was as good as over.

“Now do want to know why I didn’t read your liner notes?” I asked, rolling some big dice. Even the crew leaned in for this.

“Yes.”

“I wanted to fall in love with the songs, the same as you had, because they meant something to me. Not because they meant something to you.” The crew all but applauded this Hail Mary pass.

She smiled and fully appreciated what I had said, going so far as to add “I would love for you to read them later and then tell me if we had the same feelings.” For the record, I never did. But on more than one occasion, a martini induced plan if there ever was one, I debated giving them a read and then calling La Babs. “Is this a good time to talk about what I thought?” Can you really imagine her taking that call?

The rest of the interview seemed to fly by. I hit all my points and a few I didn’t count on. And like every interview there is always something you wished you had asked or rephrased the question you did ask. For me that happened during my allotted two with regards to her now husband James Brolin. I had asked why she wanted marriage at this stage in her life, fair enough. But then asked a rather stupid: what does he do for you? What I should have asked was: “What do you think he sees in you that makes him want to marry you at this point in his life?” At that point, you force the subject to be introspective and tell you what they think they bring to the party. But I didn’t and the moment passed.

In the closing moments I asked a perfunctory question about which of her hundreds of songs best encapsulated her life at this point. She gave me a flippant response that included a nod to the notion that her career was more of a fascination to people like me than to her. Says who? FYI: Not necessarily!

At that point I thought the interview had ended and said to her I was sure she’d say the song best illustrating her life would have to be “I Finally Found Someone” from her film “The Mirror has Two Faces”. She snapped her fingers in the most animated gesture of the morning as I told her she blew her big segue. And we laughed. Unbeknownst to me the cameras were still rolling and the moment was captured from three angles. And that moment became the kick off to my finished edited segments.

I was somewhat shell shocked as I drove significantly slower back down the Pacific Coast Highway, on the way to rejoin my CNN colleagues. I was left with an emptiness, not feeling friend nor foe, somewhat angry at the soft ball approach I took to the entire interview but comforted in knowing those were her boundaries and not my inability’s.

The tapes were released to me a day or so later when I was informed I was the only interviewer of the day’s four to earn a full 30 minutes of interview time and they added as if this was a rarified treat, nothing had been edited out of my tapes—meaning, on some levels, that I had played the game exactly the way she wanted. But that is the way Hollywood works.

I am forever grateful for that morning, as I was able to gain the respect of a woman who doubted my abilities in knowing the subject matter, staying on point, reading the atmosphere and acting accordingly. I had passed muster. But at what price? The game had always been played by her rules. You have to applaud the person who can get away with that. But in reality, for all her peccadilloes and demanding minutia, she is simply a woman who knows what she needs and orchestrates getting it. I am positive that her reputation for being a perfectionist, a demanding taskmaster and overall pain in the ass is well earned. How does that make a bad person? It doesn’t. But it does show that sometimes you have to act bad in order to get the goods.

The Ugly:

I have nothing good to say about the comedian Roseanne. Ignoring the adage: ‘if you have nothing good to say, say nothing’; I ascribe more to the notion: ‘if you have nothing good to say, sit next to me.’ Now, I should preface the following with, over the course of my career, people have been ill behaved, egocentric, pushy, disrespectful and downright rude. But never had anyone been hateful—personally attacking and mean. Until, Roseanne.

It was a Friday, tape day for the “Roseanne” sitcom. It was common practice for two tapings to take place on tape day, one with an audience and one without, so that there can be options in the editing process without having an audience languishing there for hours on end. Roseanne’s show had the scuttlebutt of a troubled set. Rewrites occurred right down to the actual tapings. And when that is the norm, you can feel the tension on a set. Roseanne herself had a reputation for being a demanding finger pointer and prone to extreme personality swings. People were hired and fired around her with a fair amount of regularity. The buzz was, to work with the country’s funniest female was no chuckle-fest. She surrounded herself with a ‘yes-staff’ that laughed when she laughed and cried when she wasn’t looking. It was the only way to keep their jobs.

“Extra” was a relatively new show and in those early days. Competing with the juggernaut “Entertainment Tonight” was nothing short of pushing a rock—a big boulder of a thing—up hill. The entire premise of the show was to be a vicarious adventure ‘inside Hollywood’ for the audience. Publicists could smell the desperation of a show that needed face time with big names quickly. And one of the stars we wanted—needed—was Roseanne.

She capitulated late in the week to an interview, on the set, during the union mandated lunch break. Those who set up the interview should have smelled the rat right then and there. You can’t conduct an interview on a set without union clearance. And you couldn’t get the union to break from lunch in order to do it. But we were blinded by one word, ‘yes’. A ‘yes’ meant we had Roseanne. It should have been a coup but ended up being a blood bath.

I was chosen to do the interview. It was assumed that I, out of the lot of reporters, would be able to banter and retort with the prickly gasbag. We were given little instruction except to get in and get out rather quickly. This was their lunch break, we were the guests and there was no need to overstay the welcome. But at the last moment, just before I left the studio, I was told I would be doing the interview with Roseanne and the entire cast of the show. That was the way Roseanne wanted it. Even then, no one appeared to notice the rising stench. Was I the only one down wind of the rat?

I was escorted to the set by a pr. flack who was clearly used to taking a long walk on very fragile eggshells. The entire crew was lined, silently, in front of mock middle-American living room we had come to know as the Connor home. No one spoke, just scowled. They had left the set lit, not out of professional courtesy but rather; ironically, in order to keep the Queen of Mean shown in the best possible light.

The cast entered silently and sat haphazardly around the sofa. The flack introduced me to Roseanne, who could not have been more cold and distant. Not wanting to appear thrown, I made my way down the line of co-stars offering a hand and a “thank you” in advance. John Goodman would not even look up from the floor. He grumbled something. Laurie Metcalf, who played Roseanne’s sister on the series, was the only one who, even reluctantly, came close to graciousness. It was apparent that no one—not cast nor crew—wanted to be there. She demanded their presence and they were forced to obey. But if they couldn’t take their anger out on her, they certainly could and did on me.

The notion of charming my way through a comfortable conversation had dissipated and the game plan switched to simply extricating a few simple, highly marketable, statements from the stars and we’d leave—not having made any new friends but at least with my professional dignity in tact.

“Roseanne, you developed the character of the domestic goddess that became this series,” I began harmlessly enough. “All these years later, with the amount of success you’ve enjoyed personally, do you still relate the that domestic goddess character you started out as?”

That would be considered a softball question, lobbed squarely over the plate in order for her to whack it out of the park. It is the type of question that allows a person the option to be introspective, humorous, self-deprecating, and gracious or, God forbid, even grateful for all the success she’d wrangled along the away.

“What the fuck are you asking me?” she wailed in a cackle so caustic it could have shattered glass. And then to the crew, “What the fuck is he asking me? I don’t understand what the fuck you’re asking me!”

“I don’t know,” shouted a voice from the crowd. The lemmings, a.k.a. the cast and crew, knew where their bread was buttered and roared with laughter.

That was the exact moment a producer from “Extra” and a close friend who was manning the camera trained on me, began to tape shots of the rafters, the lights, the set; anything not to look at me. For this was a train wreck she couldn’t stop and refused to witness.

Scrap the colorful prose and get to the point, I thought, and re-phrased to explain that I simply wanted to know if the personal success of Roseanne has colored her approach to the character of “Roseanne”.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she wailed once again not unlike a child who repeats and repeats and repeats the same action after getting the desired attention.

The heat from the crimson of my face was only surpassed by the inferno of anger welling inside. This was not an ambush interview but pre-arranged to a schedule she dictated. I should have gotten up, apologized for wasting everyone’s time and walked with the dignity of a professional who refused to be spit on by the same woman who had, de facto, invited me there in the first place. But “Extra” was too infantile at that point and my walking out would have been tantamount to disobeying a direct order. And so I sat there, scrambling in my mind to find the right question that could extract a professional and expeditious answer. Just one, and I would leave. The discomfort hung in the air.

“So what can we expect to see in plot lines this season?”

Again, she spewed forth venom. A rant, audible then but long since blacked from my memory. Suffice it to say she peppered the response with expletives and never really answered the question. I turned to the equally uncomfortable cast assuming, wrongly, that they wanted this humiliation to end as much as I did and would provide a nugget or two in order to send me on my way.

John Goodman, still not having raised his head to acknowledge me, grumbled a response to the same question. A response, none of us could understand. Laurie Metcalf, who now looked as if she’d opt to chew her own arm off if it meant a way out of this trap, simply answered, “I don’t know.” And the punk kid who I won’t dignify with a name credit—he played Sara Gilbert’s boyfriend on the series—who had neither the age nor experience to be as flippant as the star answered the same question with a “What the fuck are you asking me?” as a parroting of Roseanne. Even I was taken aback by her reprimand of the kid. It wasn’t that he had been rude or disrespectful to me; he had to her. He had, in her mind, committed the blackest of all sins in stealing the comedian’s best line. (Yes, he has gone on to be the star of his own primetime sitcom now and I am…not quite famous enough! Really?)

This odyssey of an ‘interview’ lasted some twenty minutes in which I diligently attempted to do my job and get just one take-away soundbite whilst she, primarily, verbally attacked me with such vitriol, mean-spiritedness and hate that I almost couldn’t make it come to an end. We were well past the point of no return. But at some point of lucidity I stood, thanked everyone for their patience in giving up part of their well-deserved dinner break and stepped off the stage. Roseanne’s personal assistant stepped forward and told me I was the bravest person she had ever seen. (She was fired not long after but not because of her empathetic condolence.) I couldn’t even respond. Instead I turned to the pr. flack; who, had he done his job, would have called an end to this fiasco, and told him to get me out of there quickly and discretely. I would be God damned rather than to walk with the angry crew who recognized that I was getting nothing usable on tape and they, in turn, were losing their break for nothing but an exercise in humiliation.

By the time I got back to my office, having stopped at a liquor store to buy some fortification in preparation for the fight to keep my job, I learned that someone from the pr. firm had called my bosses. “How dare you send some fucking faggot to the set to try and kiss up to Roseanne.”

That was the final straw. The lack of professionalism was bad enough. The humiliation was worse. But to attack someone’s character, a person you’ve never gotten know, with such hate-filled bigotry is simply ugly. And this from a woman who has stood up and accepted many an award from gay organizations for her continued work in support of the community. And yet, she tried to pin her mean-spirited, hateful behavior on my homosexuality. How very nice of you. “And the ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ award goes to…”

I fully believe in the strength of the human spirit and that hate can eventually turn to love. But in her case the stories are legion—mine is just one. And to this day, I believe Roseanne is simply ugly.