Tampa Bay Online
‘Celebrity Biography’ takes page from stars
wbelcher@tampatrib.com
Published: January 4, 2011

Celebrities write the darnest things — especially in their autobiographies.

Take Vanna White‘s detailed description of her letter turning skills on “Wheel of Fortune.”

In her 1989 memoir, she painstakingly recounts what we’ve all seen: how she gets excited when she hears Pat Sajak announce, “Oh, Vanna,” how she shows off her gowns; how she “must concentrate on every word a contestant says” so she can spring into action to turn the letters; and how she has to “rush like crazy” when the puzzle is a long phrase.

“Sure, it’s not the most intellectually challenging job in the world but it is hard work. … What’s my secret? As I told ’60 Minutes,’ it must be in the wrist,” she wrote.

That book, published at the height of her fame, was the inspiration for “Celebrity Autobiography,” a night of laughs based on insipid passages from memoirs.

Producer, actor, and playwright Eugene Pack created the long-running off-Broadway show more than 10 years ago after reading “Vanna Speaks” and realizing the comic potential in dramatic readings of celebrity drivel.

“We started performing these at a little restaurant in Hollywood on Monday nights and it grew from there,” says writer/actor Bruce Vilanch, who is part of the ensemble performing “Celebrity Autobiography” tonight through Saturday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater (call 727-791-7400 or visit www.rutheckerdhall.com for information).

Vilanch will be joined by various performers during the run, including Vincent Pastore (of “The Sopranos”) and Dawn Wells (on Saturday) of “Gilligan’s Island.” The show’s creator Eugene Pack also will perform.

The cast of six changes with just about every performance, Vilanch said in a telephone interview. “So does the material because new celebrity memoirs are published every year,” he adds, noting that the words of Tiger Woods, Miley Cyrus and Sarah Palin are in the act.

Vilanch, one of Hollywood’s most prolific gag writers, says that what makes it work are trivial passages from celebrities with an inflated sense of self-importance.

“These famous people have been given large sums of money to write so they think that what they have to say is important and they think people care about every little thing that they do,” he says.

Audiences will be treated to Suzanne Somers’ poetry; how Joan Lunden picks the clothes she wears; and romance advice from Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee.

The post Celebrities say the darnest things first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

What makes a good celebrity autobiography? “When stars take themselves seriously and believe that people truly care about what they have to say,” Bruce Vilanch told us at Barefeoot Wine’s gay pride edition of off-Broadway series Celebrity Autobiography, in which celebrities read from ill-advised autobiographies and other writings of their peers. In Vilanch’s terms, then, the evenings works, which included Suzanne Somers’ poetry and David Hasselhoff‘s memoir,Don’t Hassle the Hoff, was full of literary treasures. Vilanch, who read a tediously uneventful passage from Star Jones‘ memoir, You Have to Stand For Something, Or You’ll Fall For Anything about an ex-boyfriend, was joined by John Cameron Mitchell, Cheyenne Jackson,Kristen Johnston, Mario Cantone, B.D. Wong and Rachel Dratch, who read from formerGood Morning America anchor Joan Lunden‘s Good Morning, I’m Joan Lunden, in which the author goes into agonizing detail about the clothes she lays out for herself every morning. (In keeping with the evening’s pride theme we asked Dratch, who is straight, about her frequently being offered lesbian parts. “I guess Hollywood thinks I’m gay,” she laughed. “I’ll consider those parts if I think they’re funny and not stereotypical. It can work with broad humor.” More cat wrangler, please, 30 Rock!)

Celebrity Autobiography‘s organizer Eugene Pack told he got the idea to do the show, which has been running in New York for ten years and is slowly making its way to L.A., after readingVanna White‘s memoir, Vanna Speaks. “There were these very serious scenes about how hard it is to turn the letters on Wheel of Fortune and, when read aloud, I knew it would make a fantastic comedy monologue.” Pack, however, said the series is not meant to make fun of the celebrities whose works they read, but to serve as a “wink at the memoir.” Sometimes, Pack says, even the most well-intended writers share information “you can’t believe they revealed.”

This perhaps, was best exemplified in a book a bizarre passage from Geraldo Rivera‘sExposing Myself, read by B.D. Wong, in which Rivera recounts a short-lived love affair withLiza Minnelli, and in which he congratulates himself on not “forcing” himself on her when she shys away from sex. “He said, she said” is also a theme Celebrity Autobiography favors, as shown in their evening’s finale, in which Kristen Johnston, reading Elizabeth Taylor‘s memoir, Celebrity Autobiography co-creator Dayle Reyfel, reading from Debbie Reynolds‘ memoir, and Pack reading from Eddie Fisher‘s memoir, all discuss Fisher leaving Reynolds for Taylor from very different perspectives. In Reynold’s memoir, she writes that she caught Fisher cheating on her with Taylor when she called Taylor’s hotel room late at night and Fisher answered. Fisher, however, says he and Taylor decided to tell Reynolds themselves. That was, after all, “the fair thing to do.”

The post What makes a good celebrity autobiography? first appeared on We Got Bruce!.