Richard Widmark died. Another one I should have slept with. They are dropping like flies.

                          Is Robert Ryan gone?

Please, no one tell me the news about Robert Mitchum.

And, for God sakes, I don’t want to know about William Holden either.

Just keep it to yourself. This gal has to dream.
You can keep your skinny, Johnny Depps and bird-legged Brad Pitts. Those old boys really had it.

My play at the Geffen is going wonderfully. I am thrilled that many of my colleagues have come to see me. They have included: Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Mitzi Gaynor, Tim Conway, Nina Foch, John Landis, Joan Van Ark, Gigi Perreau, Judy Tenuta, Lucie Arnaz, Fred Willard,

Miss Michael Learned, Sally Kellerman, Linda Carter and a lot more I can’t think of at the moment because my fingers are aching from typing.

But what is really exciting to me are the stars who didn’t show up.

George Clooney – not wanting to make our affair public – asked me to leave his tickets at the “Won’t Call” window.

At the last minute, Liza Minnelli changed her mind and didn’t show up. Thank God as she likes to crunch her pills loudly during the show. 

And I begged my old friend, Julie Andrews, not to come. I was scared that the Grim Reaper might see her in my audience and think, “Hey. I can kill two birds with one stone.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Frank Rizzo of Crossville, TN for sending me an amazing blast from the past.

He sent me little, red, patent Mary Janes that Melissa wore as a child.  Opening the package reminded me of what fun I had with “my little girl”.

It was a simpler time when a kiss, a hug and a little whisky on the gums kept her quiet for hours.

I am in the midst of working out a reality show with my daughter, Melissa, in which we will really explore the mother/daughter relationship and its values. This will either bring us together more tightly or destroy our relationship forever. We spent Wednesday in the offices of VH1 trying to figure out a name for our show. Any suggestions?

After about two hours we started getting silly and giggly and began to come up with names that might work for other shows. For example:

If we were doing a reality show on the Ku Klux Klan we could call it “The Amazing Race Riot”.

If we were doing a show about Orthodox rabbis we could use “America’s Next Top Moyle.”

For women who are having their periods, we could call our reality show “American Midol.”

And, last, but not least, for celebrities with bad acne - like Cameron Diaz and Jessica Simpson - we could call our show “Lancing with the Stars.”

I will be telling you more about the show with Melissa as it happens. Working and living this closely with her is going to be an amazing experience – which I will tell you about – or you’ll read about the murder/suicide in the crime blotter.

For those of you who have been caring enough to continue to inquire about the status of my dog Lulu’s health, here is a happy update.

Although it has only been eight weeks since the amputation of her right, hind leg, Lulu is totally back to being her old, frisky, playful, annoying self. She is the star patient in her therapy class where she runs on a treadmill in water to help her with strength and balance.

The most amazing thing is how she has totally adjusted to life as a tripod. I think people that go through the same trauma should look to animals as inspiration.

  I am so proud of Lulu. Her face looks a little older and – please don’t tell her – as a  surprise I am planning to give her a muzzle lift for her birthday.      

Just this morning a friend of mine called and invited me to her 50th birthday celebration. I love her very much, but, frankly, I don’t know if I want to go and sit with all of her yenta friends who are going through menopause. I don’t relish the prospect of spending the evening with a group of women wearing clothes much too young for them while they sweat and cry. Here are some excuses I came up with to get you out of just such a jam…

1. I don’t believe you’re really fifty, so I refuse to attend a lie.

2. You’re not my best friend, so why give up a Tuesday night?

3. Are you kidding, American Idol is on Tuesday night!?!

4. You are such a wonderful person that I celebrate you every day and, frankly, I’m exhausted and have confetti in my lungs.

5. I can’t go because birthdays depress me. You’re just one year closer to the grave.

6. I’d love to, but I’ve already committed to your ex-husband’s “Wish She Was Dead Party” and he’s going to have much better food.

7. I absolutely will be there unless I have a relapse of “I Don’t Give a Shit.”

8. Would love to be there, but, unfortunately, am planning to be trapped under something heavy…your new husband.

The Eliot Spitzer case has been on my mind the past couple of days and if I were back at the Cutting Room – which I will be every Wednesday starting again on April 9 – this is what I would be saying.

First of all, I don’t think Mrs. S was that innocent of Governor S’s carrying on. The outfit she wore to the press conference was just a little too perfect. I have a feeling she picked it out years ago and it was waiting in her closet.

I’m sure this is not the first time the Governor had to choose between his wife and a hooker; Spitzer or Swallows.

That Eliot was cheating on Silda is almost incomprehensible to me. Just looking at her, I can’t imagine any man not wanting to come home to rest his troubled head on those big, soft bags under her eyes.

What I really want to know is what everyone is so freaked out about? Come on, he’s the Governor of New York and he had sex with a hooker. Although I would feel better if he’d had her whacked and dumped into a landfill, but I’m old fashioned that way.

What did upset me, however, is that he tried to pass it off as a really deep, under cover, internal investigation. It was not so much a stake-out as a salami in.

So what are the end results? New York gets a new governor who’s blind and, thanks to all the press coverage, is probably just finding out that he’s also black. The good news is that as he is visually impaired, he can probably save the state a lot of money by going to cheap whores because he’ll never know that difference.

I hate LA. It isn’t a coincidence that “Los Angeles” and “Liar” both begin with the letter L.

I’ve discovered since living in here these last couple of weeks that there is nothing worse than the perpetual cheerfulness of all of these gorgeous, loose-brained people. Wherever you go, they wish you, “Have a nice day.”

 And it doesn’t seem to matter under what circumstance they are wishing it to you. It can be a cop at the scene of an accident yelling to the back of an ambulance. It can be a nurse telling a patient who is sprattling through the doorway of a proctologist’s office grimacing with pain. It can be jogger saying to a mother juggling twins turning purple with tantrums. It can be a landlord as he evicts a blind, senior citizen.

Or, in my case, a saleslady at Fred Siegel’s wishing me a “nice day” after telling me that all of my charge cards had been rejected because they were maxed out and that the store, after seeing my latest television appearance, is no longer willing to extend me credit.

Why do they say this? Why not say the truth? The cop should call out to the ambulance, “Don’t bother turning on the siren, he ain’t going to make it.” The nurse should say, “Don’t forget that even if the pain goes away, you’ll always have an anal odor.” The jogger should tell the mother, “Hey lady, just cut your losses and sell those kids to Angelina Jolie.” The landlord should say to his elderly, blind tenant, “What do you mean I’m evicting you, Mr. Schwartz, you’re still inside.” And, finally, the saleslady should say to me, “It isn’t that your cards are really maxed out, we don’t want our clothes being seen on anyone as old and ugly as you.”

Friday I taped an episode of Shootout which is an interview show on AMC hosted by my old friend – who is also the editor of Variety - Peter Bart and his friend, Peter Guber.We talked about the Red Carpet and interviewing stars, Hollywood publicists and the overgrown garden that is awards shows and, of course, my play. It was a pretty serious interview which, as you all know, was not necessarily my choice. I had a good time practicing my serious face during the taping, but on the way home I started to think of jokes that I would have liked to have said:

Talking to Stars:

You can never go wrong when you say to a starlet, “You’re so thin.” The Red Carpet looks like a reunion from Schindler’s List.

I would love to ask questions like, “What’s it like having sex with Tom Cruise,” and after the guy answers, ask Katie Holmes.

I would like to ask, “Is this your daughter?”

I would also like to ask, “What’s it like sleeping your way to the middle?’

When you’re on the Red Carpet I have to kiss so many asses that I now wear Preparation H as a lip gloss.

Public Relations:

There is more spinning in Hollywood than there is in Rumpelstiltskin.

Publicists are always trying to get us to believe the most outrageous things about their stupid clients, they tried to make us believe that Paris Hilton’s lobotomy was elective surgery.

The interesting thing about publicists in Hollywood is that they know where all of the bodies are buried. Pat Kingsley can tell you that most of them are in the Scientology cemetery.

Publicists are now trying to convince us that former stripper Diablo Cody - who wrote Juno - is an intellectual. Sure she is, she wrote the screenplay on her ass.

Awards Shows:

There are so many awards shows that it is becoming boring. Half way through this year’s Oscars, Dr. Kevorkian tried to kill himself.

I was on the Red Carpet at the Porn Awards. Not only was the carpet shaved, but the awards all required two Double D batteries.

The dresses at this year's Oscars were so skimpy. The problem is that older women are not sexy…just look at Tony Curtis.

The Oscar’s ratings were so bad this year. I haven’t seen numbers that low since the Olsen Twins got on a scale.

Theatre:

In my play, I have more lines than Lindsay Lohan’s coffee table.

In my play, I break the 4th wall….well, I’m Jewish so, I pay someone to break it for me.

I flew from Tampa to Philadelphia on Saturday morning where my assistant met me at the airport with two of my favorite people in the whole world, my dogs, Max and Lulu. I was so happy to see them that I couldn’t stop wagging my tail. They, however, were indifferent.

Our little canine caravan drove from Philadelphia to Hershey, PA where our first stop was Chocolate World. I have to tell you that although I’ve never been a huge fan of Science Fiction or been fascinated with space exploration, I would happily give up life on Earth to live on Chocolate World. My only fear would be that Chocolate World might also experience Global Warming and, as the chocolate melts, fondue levels would rise and drown us all. While I was there I bought some novelty sized gifts – mainly a couple of Hershey Kisses that are as big as your head and several 5 pound Hershey Bars that could pass for skateboards – for my grandson and some of my seriously sugar addicted friends.

When I was finally able to tear myself away from the gift shop, we drove up the hill and checked into the fabulous Hotel Hershey. I must tell you how truly beautiful and elegant the hotel and grounds are and the staff is top notch – impeccable, professional service.

That night I opened the Hollywood Casino at the Penn National Racetrack in Grantville, PA where I interviewed celebrity Look-a-Likes (and some not so Look-a-Likes) on the Red Carpet. The “celebrities” cracked me up. Some of them were pretty good and others were just plain sad. My favorite was “Johnny Depp” who took his role a bit too seriously to the point of being “Sibyl-ish” about it. When I asked him what his favorite role was he didn’t say Captain Jack or Edward Scissorhands, his response was, “Being a father to my daughter, Lily-Rose, and my son, John-Christopher.” Okay…

I also attended an amazing cocktail party reception in the grand ballroom where I posed for about 8 million pictures and signed about 2 million autographs. Towards the end of the evening we got to watch two horse races from the ballroom's giant back windows which overlook the newly renovated track. The event drew over 10,000 people to the casino that night and was a huge success. I had a ball!

All the glamour and fake celebrities aside, the best part of the whole weekend was getting to see my darling dogs. Since I left them last month to go to Los Angeles to do the play I have missed them both terribly and to get 24 hours of barking, begging and burying bones was almost more than this old bitch could stand!

Okay, here I am at one ‘o clock in the morning, semi-asleep in Robert Rauschenberg’s beach house. I am lying in his old bedroom, in his old bed with all kinds of art work and books surrounding me that either he or artist friends of his have created. My WINDOWSHADE is made up of old images of Bob’s pasted together. Of course I can't sleep. 

We (my friends who are traveling with me on this semi-tour around Florida) got to Darryl Pottorf’s house - sorry, Darryl Pottorf’s glorious house - in time for drinks and a tour of his studio. We had the joy of actually sitting and chatting surrounded by his truly beautiful works (many of which are being sent off to the I.V.A.M. (the modern art museum in Valencia, Spain) for a one man show at the end of this month). We then walked across the compound and went over to pick up Bob for dinner. 

I had the absolute joy of seeing Bob in his creative environment, surrounded by his paintings and sculptures old and new. Some of these have never yet been seen by the public and having him explain to me what he was attempting to do or accomplish in them was amazing!!! For an amateur artist like me, it was heaven.  We all went out for a very happy, wine splashed dinner. I sat between Robert R and Darryl P who are both smart, both witty, both charming and both soooooo talented. My Crayola cup runneth over. We’ll be up early tomorrow to continue my Florida dates. As I lie here in the masters bed, I keep thinking, "Not a bad place for a little Jewish girl from Brooklyn to end up in!!!”