I Must Have a Puppy

It occurs to me that my mother never told us some basics about what she wanted should she ever have Alzheimer’s. True, few people think in those terms, but since both my grandmother and mother had Alzheimer’s, there’s a good chance I will be next. So, here’s my first list for my husband, daughter and son: 1. I must have a puppy to lick me and stay by my side and think everything I do is wonderful. 2. Hair: I must always be a blond with shoulder length hair. No pixie cut. Only Mia Farrow and Peter Pan can carry

If Marilyn Had Lived…

Marilyn Monroe had beauty, fame, riches, and men. But, in the end, she had nothing. Unable to remember lines, totally unreliable, and often falling into deep despair and paranoia, Marilyn increasingly turned to booze and drugs. In August of 1962, her psychiatrist Ralph Greeson, who had prescribed so many of the drugs she used, found Marilyn Monroe dead in her Brentwood home. The coroner determined her was due to “acute barbiturate poisoning” leading to a probable suicide. Marilyn never knew her father (though for a while she pretended he was Clark Gable), had a mother who was in and out

The Sexy Goddess

Rita Hayworth was a dazzler. Women wanted to be her; men wanted to be with her. She was a graceful and electric dancer. Her mother was in the Ziegfeld Follies, but wanted her daughter to act; her father, a renowned dancer, wanted her to dance. They both got their way. Margarita Carmen Cansino was born in Brooklyn in 1918. In 1937, feeling that her name typecast her, she dyed her brown tresses a blazing red and became Rita Hayworth. She was on her way to fame, fortune and a life in the sun. In 1987 Rita Hayworth died of complications

JR Will Never Die…

A shameless rogue with a conscience that must have been surgically removed at birth, “Dallas” character JR Ewing was envied, loved, despised, almost killed, and yet he was impossible to resist. No one could have played him with such magnificent relish – an irresistible villain – like Larry Hagman. This was a man who embraced life with a joyous sense of abandon: he rode a Harley-Davidson wearing a chicken suit, made love flying a plane, put bourbon on his cornflakes. The major difference between JR and Larry was that everyone loved Larry. The viewing audience was obsessed with JR. When

Stepping into My Own Prime Time

For years I was a sitcom writer; my shows were always in prime time. I have been writing voices for Designing Women, Family Ties, Kate and Allie. Yup, that’s me – except not really. They have been what Julia Sugarbaker would assert on her soapbox, what Alex Keaton would wisecrack to his way-too-liberal parents, what Kate would say supportively to Allie. I would give them lines, but they were never my voice. That’s the trick to writing for others on TV: you write in the characters’ voices. When my husband, George, and I started USAgainstAlzheimer’s, the tables turned. My husband