The ever-sharp and courageous Alison Arngrimspills on "Little House on the Prairie" titillation, triumphs and travails -- from Michael Landon going sans underwear in Wal-nut Grove (!) to Matthew Laborteaux's breakthrough experiences as a highly-functioning autistic child to pondering how challenging tragic Ingalls sister Mary to a free-spirited mudwrestling match might well have brought down an aloof, teenaged Melissa Sue Anderson's self-erected "wall." Alison also speaks out about Melissa Sue's memoir dish (diss?) on her TV Ma, Karen Grassle; offers fascinating insight into the colorful world of Miss Beadle's portrayer, Charlotte Stewart; reminisces on good times with TV's Half-Pint (and soon-to-be-"Dancing with the Stars" sweetheart), Melissa Gilbert; and, once and for all, answers the question that has plagued "Little House" lovers for years: Did Baby Carrie fall during the opening credits ... or was she PUSHED?!?
Alison also reveals how her late parents' Hollywood careers (Liberace and Casper and Sweet Polly Purebread, oh my!) influenced her reality at a young age that showbusiness was indeed a business. She then opens her heart about late TV husband Steve Tracy ("Percival") and how his struggle with and death from AIDS in 1986 propelled her to become a pioneer AIDS activist in an age of widespread fear and ignorance about the disease. And finally, the bicontinental bestselling "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" author previews her wordly tours in March through July from Europe to Walnut Grove and beyond.
In addition, Chris gives a roundup of retro TV star appearances this spring on "Dancing with the Stars" and "Celebrity Apprentice" and potentially next fall in a slew of hopeful new series (including Roseanne's proposed NBC sitcom "Downwardly Mobile"). He also touches on Nicollette Sheridan's wrongful termination and battery lawsuit against ABC and "Desperate Housewives" exec producer Marc Cherry. As her case finally goes to trial this week with rumors that her co-stars will testify against her, Chris compares Nicollete's fight with the storied battle that pitted Suzanne Somers against ABC and her "Three's Company" producers and co-stars -- and which led to Somers' decade-long industry blacklisting. (For the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Suzannegate, read Chris's acclaimed 1998 tell-all "Come and Knock on Our Door" -- and stay tuned this fall for his updated edition in connection with "Three's Company"'s 35th anniversary.)
Finally, our resident dream weaver, Yvonne Ryba, interprets a series of healing dreams.
Always-witty and outspoken "Little House on the Prairie" star Alison Arngrimspills on everything from hilariously surprising long-estranged co-star Melissa Sue Anderson at her "The Way I See It" book signing (!) to channeling her own inner bitch (in a good way!) through Nasty Nellie Oleson to finding her own voice as a childhood sexual abuse survivor-turned-victims rights advocate closely aligned with PROTECT.org. In the first half of her two-part "Reimagine That!" interview airing this month, Arngrim sounds off on pedophilia in Hollywood and recent disturbing reports of sexual abuse in the Los Angeles school district. The "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" bestselling author also dishes on turning 50, taking her one-woman show overseas this spring and teaming up with "Waltons" star Mary McDonough in a kick-ass "Good Girl vs. Bad Girl" joint book tour in late 2011 and 2012. (How you like them apples, Mary Ingalls?!)
Also, Chris shares his recollection of the late Whitney Houston's impact as the voice of a generation during her "Bodyguard" hey day ("And IIIIIIIIIII-eee-iii-eee-iiii will always love youuuuuuu...) while he was editor of his student newspaper in 1992-93 at The University of Tulsa. (RIP, Ms. Houston -- we'll always, we'll always, loooove youuuuuuu-ooooooh-oooooooooooooooh...)
Finally, our resident dream weaver, Yvonne Ryba, interprets one more "house" dream while introducing us to the concept of lucid dreaming.
Alexandra Breckenridge brings a scary etherealness to her role as the seductive dark side of spooky housekeeper Moira in FX’s new drama series “American Horror Story.” Off set, though, the Connecticut-born actress sustains a much earthier presence. The 29-year-old red-haired beauty, last seen on HBO’s vampire hit “True Blood,” cut her teeth on acting in local theater outside San Francisco at the tender age 12. During those formative, lean years, she also learned how to eat healthy on a budget, thanks to her resourceful mom’s penchant for health-food shopping. The family’s produce-minded frugality paid off: Breckenridge not only saves money and time having organic fruits and veggies delivered toher home, she smartly navigates the snack table on the set to find healthy selections in-between scenes.
Actor and funnyman Bronson Pinchot reimagines unscripted entertainment by giving his very first INTERNUDE! TV's Balki Bartokomous -- who's back this weekend in the premiere of his new DIY home-restoration series, "The Bronson Pinchot Project" -- goes au naturel in this hysterical interview that exposes his thoughts on everything from reality TV, his love of "Wizard of Oz," overcoming childhood adversity and sharing his "deeply personal and very secret" connection with Balki and "Perfect Strangers" fans. In addition, he shares his creative passion for renovating vintage houses and buildings, and discusses his memorable experience getting a disturbing "house dream" analyzed on Bio's "Celebrity Nightmares Decoded."
Also, Chris gives his assessment of Suzanne Somers' recent reconciliation with Joyce DeWitt -- for more info, see his new Retroality.TV blog post -- and previews his upcoming two-part interview with "Little House on the Prairie" star turned bestselling author and childhood abuse survivor Alison Angrim.
Finally, our resident dream weaver, Yvonne Ryba, interprets some of her fascinating "house dreams" while trying to make sense of Chris's bizarre, circa-early-Eighties dream involving TV's Janet Wood and Chrissy Snow, his front porch and a stampeding bull (!).
Re-Joycing in the Somers time ... O, My God, you can almost hear Oprah yell,
"THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE'S COMPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANY!"
News analysis
By Chris Mann
Last week, two sixtysomething Seventies sitcom stars—one still girl-next-door-lovely, the other leather-skirted-Sexy Forever®—emotionally buried their infamous 31-year hatchet in a series of now-viral YouTube videos.
Soon later, there were likely more Aha! Moments at the ratings-challenged, celeb-retrospect-driven Oprah Winfrey Network than at a 1980s David Copperfield special.
And if there weren’t, well, then there should’ve been.
By Saturday, virtually every major media outlet teased, touted and/or embedded footage of media-savvy Suzanne Somers hugging it out with her Three's Company co-star Joyce DeWitt for the first time since the then-third-billed jiggle queen (and future ThighMaster millionaire) was booted from their top-rated ABC comedy after demanding a 500-percent pay hike and then staging a sick-out during the show’s fifth season in fall 1980. Her producers struck back, relegating Somers each week to a humiliating one-minute “phoned in” scene taped apart from her co-stars before firing her in spring 1981.
Stunningly, after extending an olive branch to Somers, 65, multiple times over the last fifteen years—to no avail—DeWitt, 62, accepted an invitation from Somers’ producers in early December to appear on her new talk show, Suzanne Somers Breaking Through, on YouTube’s CaféMom channel.
The historic Company contract battle alienated the theater-trained DeWitt—whose focus on her craft clashed with Somers’ fixation on celebrity—and deeply angered the series’ Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning star, John Ritter, who died days shy of his 55th birthday in September 2003 after trying to reunite the trio in a dream-sequence cameo on his hit ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.
(Somers, unmoved by what she deemed an insignificant cameo, declined Ritter’s invitation—which he delivered via personal phone call in late 2002—saying she wasn’t “ready” to reunite. Few know she also turned down opportunities to join him and DeWitt in a proposed FOX special in spring 2002 and a CBS Early Show segment in 2001.)
In spring 2003, DeWitt co-produced a somewhat anti-Somers telefilm spun from a hit Company episode of The E! True Hollywood Story, which itself grew out of my 1998 book Come and Knock on Our Door. Somers previously released her own tell-all, After the Fall, which portrayed DeWitt as deeply insecure and jealous of her fame (DeWitt has adamantly denied the latter claim, saying she has long been confident in her chief showbiz pursuit--her work as an actor.) The women then battled it out on Extra, Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight.
“For you and me, but also for those people who were aware of the ‘ick,’” an at times choked-up, at times soft and at times somewhat steely Somers told DeWitt of their YouTube reunion, “I think it’s a teaching moment in reconciliation (and) resolution.”
“I think that you gave me the opportunity to make sure I walk my talk,” DeWitt told Somers, stressing that CaféMom producers invited her to partake in celebrating their sitcom and their “cherished” co-stars. Since Ritter’s passing, DeWitt has in essence served as the show’s goodwill ambassador, speaking for everyone from late, original cast member Audra Lindley to brief Company player Ann Wedgeworth.
“For the last thirtysomeodd years,” DeWitt added, “I have relentlessly said that it is my opinion that the only reason Three’s Company is worth remembering is that it created an opportunity for all of us to laugh together ... to celebrate joy together, to open our hearts together, to share in such a healing, beautiful thing as laughter.”
But Somers, for the most part it seems, continues to maintain a different focus.
“None of us expected the kind of explosion that happened. I was always afraid that I wasn’t worth it, that I didn’t measure up,” replied the actress turned bestselling self-help/alternative health author, who was a single mom for nearly a decade before marrying Canadian celebrity—and, by 1980, her hot-tempered, in-over-his-head manager—Alan Hamel during the sitcom’s second season. “It was, how do you go from, ‘I just want to make some money,’ to the three of us on the cover of Newsweek (in February 1978)?”
Suzanne Somers' Newsweek covers, 1978 and 1970 (below)
DeWitt, intent on avoiding contentious matters, brushed past the Newsweek reference. And for good reason: She and Ritter appear as also-rans respectively leaning into and leering over Somers’ scantily-clad body on the magazine cover. In my book, Ritter called the magazine’s shoot “creepy"; DeWitt said she and Ritter felt “used, lied to."
Somers said she, too, was innocent of Newsweek’s focus—and blamed their male, middle-aged producers for keeping the divisive agenda a secret. “I walked into that photo setup as part of an ensemble that night,” she told me in 1997, “and when I walked away, we were removed from one another. It was really never quite the same again.”
"I was told that a second photo session was held secretly with just Suzanne," DeWitt said in the book. "If that's true, then her feeling manipulated is a mystery to me." Countered Somers, "The shot they used was the three of us there that night, and I never shot another [pose]."
Not exactly an International Coffee moment. But, for those who know the compelling back-story, definitely an “aha!”
(Minutes before introducing DeWitt during their December 2011 taping, Somers told TV Land executive Tom Hill—in a Breaking Through episode premiering late last month—that she sent her as-seen-on-Newsweek negligee to the Smithsonian to display with the cover. Hmmm …)
But that was then, and this is now, right? And all’s well that evolves well. DeWitt and Somers’ lengthy Internet sit-down occasionally segued to areas of common ground: They both sadly lost younger brothers, they both loved and miss Ritter and they both did not appreciate their now-deceased producers’ chauvinism. Oh, and they both still playfully accuse the other of passing gas in a pup tent seconds before Ritter crawled in (!). These moments of genuine connection were truly heartening and encouraging for fans of the show, yours truly included.
DeWitt also fondly brings up co-stars Norman Fell, Don Knotts and Richard Kline. But Somers, while offering a friendly ear, gives little feedback. (Perhaps wisely, neither made mention of Somers’ respective temp and permanent replacements, Jenilee Harrison and Priscilla Barnes—the latter DeWitt’s best friend of 30 years.)
Invariably, Somers returns the discussion to herself. She explains—as she did in her 1988 book Keeping Secrets, its 1991 TV movie, her ill-fated 2005 Broadway showThe Blonde in the Thunderbird and at points in between and since—that she’s spent years in therapy to overcome the effects of growing up with an alcoholic father. And how playing the mind-numbingly naive Chrissy Snow gave her a chance to live out her lost childhood. And how, as per DeWitt’s compliment, that she was, indeed, “fabulous.”
DeWitt offers plenty of affirming comments and gestures—they even sweetly hold hands—and Somers sincerely acknowledges she respected her co-star’s masters-level actor training. Their teary-eyed chat ends with “love you’s,” hugs and Somers saying, “Come and knock on my door again.”
So everything’s good now … right?
Well … not exactly “Oprah and Gayle good.”
Apparently bruised by the mixed reaction she received in online comments—some posts said Somers appeared to be repressing anger and at times “standoffish”—the home shopping guru and new media maven took to Facebook on Friday afternoon.
“I was the one who was fired for asking to be paid commensurate with the men,” Somers says of her reunion with the clearly more relaxed DeWitt. “I don't believe it was fair that the producers and the network used me to make an example so other women in TV would not have the audacity to ask for parody (sic). At the time I felt that the cast left me hanging and that is why I was initially hurt, and then hurt always turns to anger. So if I wasn't as animated as usual, it's because you were watching true feelings and I was working them out in front of you. Forgiveness is a process.”
Somers made similar comments late last month on Access Hollywood and CBS's The Talk--more than six weeks following her reunion with DeWitt. On The Talk, she said she still doesn't think she did anything wrong at Three's Company. That men in television made ten times what she was making, and that she was treated like "a pariah" when her co-stars and crew gave in to her producers' "mob fury" after she asked for a raise. And that the cast, all serious acting vets, already seemed put out with her for her various award-show accolades. (Somers received a People's Choice Award in 1978 and a Golden Globe nomination the following year.) And that, well, it was her producer's idea -- not Somers' -- to invite DeWitt onto Breaking Through. (Of course, no mention was made that DeWitt had personally reached out to her in 1996 and again in 2001/2002 and, at least via media interviews, numerous times since.)
Co-star Richard Kline told me in my Retroality.TV “Reimagine That!” podcast last week that Somers’ “the men” comment is inaccurate. “She wanted what the man got. She wanted what John got,” Kline said. “No matter the title ‘Three’s Company,’ let’s face it, it was really John’s show. He was the pivot, he was the focus off of which the girls bounced and reacted. There would be no show without John.” (Somers has indicated that Ritter made up to ten times her salary. In fact, Ritter received $50,000 per episode to DeWitt and Somers’ $30,000 in 1980-81.)
If, despite her very considerable post-Company accomplishments, Somers connects her sense of self-worth to her net worth, the fact that Ritter ended their friendship when she demanded three times his pay and 10 percent of their show’s profits may remain the toughest pill to swallow. Especially since the very person whose understanding, approval and forgiveness she seems to have wanted the most is no longer here to give it to her.
This isn’t the first time Somers has staked a claim for helping women break through Hollywood’s glass ceiling. "I thought [after being fired], 'Oh, I can't win. They want to make an example of me so no other women get uppity,'” she told the Los Angeles Times in a 2007 story titled “The Unsinkable Suzanne Somers.” “I have to say when women get paid big salaries in television now, I take personal pride in it.”
Sadly, a significant part of Somers’ wounded pride and residual anger—stemming from broken relations with the once-close Ritter—may never find external resolution. In a recent appearance on CBS’s The Talk, she confessed that the two had only “sort of” made peace—a pretty far cry from previous pronouncements that they’d mended fences.
And here’s where Somers needs one of forgiveness queen Oprah’s “teaching moments” the most. Few could continue and deepen the recently-reunited sitcom actresses’ dialogue in a public forum like Winfrey, whose struggling OWN cable network found some of its highest ratings and publicity in its “docu-reality” reconciliation/celebrity-Aha! series The O’Neals and Finding Sarah. Perhaps Oprah’s Next Chapter: Suzanne and Joyce is calling out to you, Lady O.
The former daytime doyenne seems primed to offer the sometimes-polarizing Somers a public platform anyway. Winfrey took heat in a Newsweek cover story for giving voice to controversial medicine—including, notably, Somers pushing bioidentical hormones—in 2009. "Many people write Suzanne off as a quackadoo," Winfrey said on her former talk show. "But she just might be a pioneer."
“On the first episode of Breaking Through,” Somers, who lost part of her breast to a lumpectomy in 2000, tells her Facebook followers, “I allowed you to actually see me naked for the purpose of advancing science with my stem cell breast reconstruction [an experimental surgery that Somers discusses in this week’s People magazine]. It wasn't easy. On this episode with Joyce I felt more naked than I've ever allowed myself to be seen. For those of you who ‘get’ what I was and am trying to do, I thank you. For those of you who don't understand, know that my heart is in the right place.”
Whether Somers was a pioneer for TV actresses seeking equality in 1980, she continues to beat that drum while pushing medical breakthroughs and cancer and “anti-aging” treatments that some call unproven and potentially dangerous. But her biggest challenge my be as simple—and as complicated—as trying to heal from a three-decade rift with one “very different” person she’s getting to know again, and one she’ll never see again, at least in the flesh.
“We needed to do this,” she told DeWitt, referencing Somers’ lack of on-camera resolution with Ritter, who nixed a TV reunion with his blonde co-star on her 1994 syndicated talk show, the aptly named The Suzanne Somers Show.
Come and knock on her door, Oprah. She’ll be waiting for you.
On the eve of pop culture's historic Joyce DeWitt-Suzanne Somers peace summit, er, YouTube reunion following their legendary 31-year estrangement, "Three's Company" co-star Richard Kline -- TV's lovably libidinous Larry Dallas -- breaks his silence about their reconciliation and offers his insights into Suzanne's contentiou$ 1981 exit from their hit 1977-84 sitcom. The accomplished stage and screen actor/director/acting coach also reveals how he's coped with the loss of his dear friend,"Company" star John Ritter, who tragically passed away in 2003. As the breakthrough sitcom reaches its 35th anniversary this spring, Kline reveals his previous plans for a stage version of the wacky roommate farce and describes his experience as James Franco's special guest last year during the Oscar-nominated actor's bizzare Sundance presentation "Three's Company: The Drama." Finally, find out the hysterical comment Richard made to aPerezHilton.com story quoting Suzanne as saying that "everybody's gone from that show."
Also, host and "Three's Company" tell-all author Chris Mann offers an exclusive, in-depth historical analysis of Suzanne and Joyce's separation -- including Joyce's repeated efforts to reconcile in the last 15 years -- as well as failed attempts at/missed opportunities for "Three's Company" reunions from the mid-'90s onward. You won't get this detailed backstory anywhere else, folks!
Pavan's worked so hard to make Sitcoms Online and its news blog a big success, and I'm honored to have his support, particularly in a Kardashian-glutted, Bieber-ized, celebrity sound-bite-obsessed online media community that is not always supportive of growing enterprises trying to do something fun and different, let alone in-depth and informative.
Check out my new delight! magazine TV Find piece on Showtime's Shameless. The Brady Bunch and Eight is Enough it ain't ... but I like it nonetheless ; ).
Check out my new cover story interview with the According to Jim star in the January issue of Wellbella magazine, available nationally through GNC stores.
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!
There's a reason Dianne Kay was the sweetheart of a generation (or two ... or three, if you ask Dick Van Patten)! The ever-sparkling Eight is Enough star kindly gave us another shout-out on her fun and informative blog, which you can find on her groovy new web site, DianneKayProductions.com.
And she coined a fun new word, "Mannie" (hahaha! love it!) -- which makes me feel sorta-kinda '70s-Mike-Connors-cool. Which, by the way, is a first for me. I was anything but "Mannix" cool growing up in the '70s and '80s. In fact, trying to be so just made me "Mannix"-depressive.
But this fan-o'-Dianne is only happy and grateful today. Thanks a million, Dianne, and we look forward to hearing the latest and greatest about your in-the-works TV comedy Seconds and your other projects and musings in 2012!
So pleased to share my new cover story on Charlie's Angels star Cheryl Ladd -- who, at age 60 (!), continues to shine as an actress, health advocate and now kickboxing grandma! -- in the December issue of Wellbella. This monthly magazine is available nationally at GNC stores and can also be read in its entirety here.
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.
A big thank-you to the delightful Dianne Kay for giving me a kind shout-out on her fun and informative blog on her new, official website, www.diannekayproductions.com!
It was my pleasure to interview Dianne for the new episode of my behind-the-scenes pop culture podcast, "Reimagine That!" Dianne is so easygoing and warm -- and her sense of humor and knack for storytelling made her the perfect guest for our new Retroality.TV audio show. Check out part 1 of Dianne's two-part interview in the YouTube file she's kindly embedded on her blog here, then peruse the rest of her site -- just like Ms. Kay, it's a real gem!
On that note, thanks to my podcast announcer/producer, Linda Kay (no relation -- it's a small world, indeed), for her stellar job in helping execute "Reimagine That!" Linda received a wonderful interview from Dianne in August for Linda's cool website, The C.A.P.E.R. Project, devoted to the cult '70s kids show The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. Dianne tells Linda all about working with the C.A.P.E.R. "kids" (they were grown men!) during her very first TV job: http://www.kidsfromcaper.com/actorsdiannekay.htm
Stay tuned for part 2 of Dianne's "Reimagine That!" interview, which will post within episode four of the podcast in late November.
Gratefully,
Chris Mann
P.S.: Here's a closer-up look at Dianne's kind words ...
Retro pop meets forward thought as "Eight is Enough" star Dianne Kay -- in part one of her exclusive, in-depth interview -- opens her heart about her TV dramedy co-stars, including Dick Van Patten, Susan Richardson, Adam Rich, Grant Goodeve, Betty Buckley, Connie Needham-Newton and the late Lani O'Grady and Diana Hyland. The upbeat and funny blonde beauty also talks about surviving kidney cancer last year as well as surviving the pitfalls of Hollywood. And for the first time ever, she talks about being suspended from an episode of "Eight is Enough" after standing her ground when show writers decided to make her character, Nancy, pose nude for an art gallery and then receive self-esteem talk from the Bradfords after they see the exhibit. (One word: Ewwww!)
ALSO: Chris discusses the upcoming literary event (tour?!?) titled "Good Girl vs. Bad Gir: Mary McDonough in conversation with Alison Arngrim," in which the respective authors of "Lessons from the Mountain: What I Learned from Erin Walton" and "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch" offer behind-the-scenes dish while discussing the events and issues that shaped them as women and as advocates.
Chris also reveals how the "Family Feud" home game brought strife to his house in the late '70s/early '80s, shares his cinammon bun-enhanced fascination with actress-author Carrie Fisher (who once followed him on Twitter -- come back, Carrie, come back!), talks about Showtime's hit new dramedy "Shameless," exposes his true feeling about having bowl-resistant hair in the Adam-Rich-bowl-a-riffic '70s, and previews his plans for an updated edition of his book "Come and Knock on Door" for the 35th anniversary of "Three's Company" in 2012. (James Franco, can we borrow your "Chrissy" wig?)
Finally, in the third installment of a recurring "dream weaver" segment, Chris encourages listeners reimagine their own reality with dream interpreter Yvonne Ryba (http://YvonneRyba.com).
Host: Chris Mann
Announcer: Linda Kay
Created by: Chris Mann
Producers: Linda Kay, Chris Mann
Copyright 2011 by Chris Mann/Retroality.TV (http://Retroality.TV)
Retro pop meets forward thought as Three's Company star Joyce DeWitt, in the conclusion of her in-depth two-part interview, shares her spiritual insights, reveals her "All You Need Is Love"-inspired connection to Beatles-loving John Ritter and tells why she hasn't spoken to co-star Suzanne Somers in 30-plus years -- despite Joyce's repeated efforts to extend an olive branch. She also tells Retroality.TV editor, author and host Chris Mann her fond memories of co-stars Don Knotts, Norman Fell, Audra Lindley, Richard Kline, Priscilla Barnes, Jenilee Harrison and Ann Wedgeworth. And Joyce bares all about still being recognized for having a great pair of L'eggs.
ALSO: Chris dissects the cancellation of ABC's reimagined Charlie's Angels and previews his upcoming Wellbella cover story interview with original Angel Cheryl Ladd. And Chris breaks news about Alana Stewart and her attorneys shutting down the Facebook group "Farrah Fawcett: We Want the Truth" -- the same group that orchestrated a letter-writing campaign this summer that apparently led the California State Attorney General's office to open a reported investigation into the Stewart-helmed charitable organization The Farrah Fawcett Foundation. Finally, in the second installment of a recurring "dream weaver" segment, Chris encourages listeners reimagine their own reality with dream interpreter Yvonne Ryba (http://YvonneRyba.com).
Host: Chris Mann
Announcer: Linda Kay
Created by: Chris Mann
Producers: Linda Kay, Chris Mann
Copyright 2011 by Chris Mann/Retroality.TV (http://Retroality.TV)
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