‘Kim Possible’ has puppet sex on Broadway
NEW YORK (AP) — Christy Carlson Romano, the voice of the Disney Channel’s animated “Kim Possible,” laughed hysterically while rehearsing her first big sex scene on stage. Later, she felt dirty.
Intimate interludes are always uncomfortable for actors, but this one was a little different. Puppets in, ahem, compromising positions.
It’s not puppet porn, though. It’s “Avenue Q” on Broadway, where Romano recently debuted in dual roles as “Kate Monster” and “Lucy the Slut.”
The 24-year-old actress — who is onstage for much of the Tony-winning musical about a world where people and furry beings coexist — worried about pulling off the shocking scene between Kate and her love interest, Princeton, portrayed by actor and puppet master Howie Michael Smith.
“I learned it for maybe an hour and I was, like, done with it,” Romano says of the X-rated romp. “I was like, `That’s it. I never want to do that again. I feel so dirty.’ … And I would watch it every night and I’d go, `I can’t do that. I can’t do that.’ And then, basically, you just start laughing. … You just get sucked into the world that is `Avenue Q.“’
By the end of the scene, a crowd-pleaser for wide-eyed tourists and jaded New Yorkers alike, “you feel like everyone in the room shared something really special,” Romano says over a midday omelet at theater district hangout Angus McIndoe.
At a recent performance, Romano worked overtime using puppeteering skills she learned from her cast mates. A human backdrop to her colorful characters, she wore an all-gray outfit, tailoring her performance for sweet schoolteacher Kate and femme fatale Lucy, a lounge performer. The slender star’s oversized features — dark Bambi eyes, wide smile and chiseled jaw — add to the whimsy.
“The puppetry for me right now is the easiest thing,” says Romano, looking like an urban cowgirl in frayed jeans, boots, a loose red top and the word “GRACE” tattooed on the inside of her right wrist. “Once you actually feel yourself integrated with the puppet’s movements, it’s like, `Omigod, that’s what that’s about? I can do that again.’ And then you continue to do it and then it’s like you don’t even think about it.”
Romano is somewhat of a theater veteran. The Connecticut native booked her first show — as Molly in an Atlanta production of “Annie” — at 8 after being discovered in a dance competition. She has appeared in a national tour for the musical “Follies” and on Broadway as Belle in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”
But she is perhaps best known for her Disney Channel roles as Shia LaBeouf’s strait-laced older sister on the sitcom “Even Stevens” and the animated “Kim Possible,” for which she voiced the title character. “Even Stevens” ran from 2000 to 2003; “Kim Possible” bowed last year after a five-year-run.
Ever the TV sibling, Romano feels protective of LaBeouf, now a full-fledged movie star, and jokingly scoffs at the 22-year-old actor’s heartthrob status.
“That started happening a while ago before he really even hit it big and girls were saying, `Oh, I love Shia. He’s so cute.’ … I know stuff about Shia that would gross you out. … I know stuff that I could blackmail him so good,” she says, a “gotcha!” glint in her eye.
Romano, who is based in Los Angeles, struggled to find work as a result of the four-month Hollywood writers strike that ended in February. So her manager hooked her up with “Avenue Q,” her first trip back to Broadway since “Beauty and the Beast” four years ago.
She says she’s graduated from playing Disney princesses.
“When I was Belle, I was treated like a kid,” she says. “And, I mean, I had the responsibilities of an adult but I was 19 and a lot of people were a little worried about whether I could handle it or not.”
But “Avenue Q,” she says, is “a different animal altogether and I’m not a princess. … I never wanted to be treated like a princess. I like to get my hands dirty and I like to work … and I like to meet my fans and I like to just really be committed 110 percent to the point where I’m exhausted. And that’s what I missed (about theater).”
“Avenue Q” producer Robyn Goodman said she “fell in love” with the actress, whose final performance is Nov. 23.
“She has the purity of spirit you need (in the show) because there’s a kind of innocence about those puppets. … Some people come in and they’re wonderful singers, dancers, actors and they just can’t get the rhythm of the puppet. It’s a kind of coordination — it’s either in your body or it isn’t. And she was good right away, I have to say,” Goodman said.
Romano has written a young adult novel “Grace’s Turn,” recorded songs for Disney movies and TV shows and mimicked the voice of Angelina Jolie for the “Kung Fu Panda” video game. Now she’s considering a cabaret act in New York.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended my career in theater, like, if my last job I ever did was some amazing production — some straight play or something like Patti LuPone’s `Gypsy,“’ she says. “It would be awesome to go out with a bang like that.”
Mr. Blackwell is dead.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mr. Blackwell, the acerbic designer whose annual worst-dressed list skewered the fashion felonies of celebrities from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Britney Spears, has died. He was 86.Blackwell died Sunday of complications from an intestinal infection, publicist Harlan Boll said.
Blackwell, whose first name was Richard, was a little-known dress designer when he issued his first tongue-in-cheek criticism of Hollywood fashion disasters for 1960 — long before Joan Rivers and others turned such ridicule into a daily affair.
Year after year, he would take Hollywood’s reigning stars and other celebrities to task for failing to dress in what he thought was the way they should.
Being dowdy was bad enough, but the more outrageous clothing a woman wore, the more biting his criticism. He once said a reigning Miss America looked “like an armadillo with cornpads.”
A few other examples:
Madonna: “The Bare-Bottomed Bore of Babylon.”
Barbra Streisand: “She looks like a masculine Bride of Frankenstein.”
Christina Aguilera: “A dazzling singer who puts good taste through the wardrobe wringer.”
Meryl Streep: “She looks like a gypsy abandoned by a caravan.”
Sharon Stone: “An over-the-hill Cruella DeVille.”
Lindsay Lohan: “From adorable to deplorable.”
Patti Davis: “Packs all the glamour of an old, worn-out sneaker.”
Ann Margret: “A Hells Angel escapee who invaded the Ziegfeld Follies on a rainy night.”
Camilla Parker-Bowles: “The Duchess of Dowdy.”
Bjork: “She dances in the dark — and dresses there, too.”
Spears: “Her bra-topped collection of Madonna rejects are pure fashion overkill.”
The critic acknowledged he had mixed feelings about appearing so publicly mean. Most of the women he put through the wringer, he said, were people he genuinely admired for their talent if not their fashion sense.
“The list is and was a satirical look at the fashion flops of the year,” he said in 1998. “I merely said out loud what others were whispering. … It’s not my intention to hurt the feelings of these people. It’s to put down the clothing they’re wearing.”
He told the Los Angeles Times in 1968 that designers were forgetting that their job “is to dress and enhance women. … Maybe I should have named the 10 worst designers instead of blaming the women who wear their clothes.”
Surprisingly, the woman who topped his worst dressed list for 1982 (announced in early 1983) was the newly married Diana, Princess of Wales. He said she had gone from “a very young, independent, fresh look” to a “tacky, dowdy” style. She quickly regained her footing and wound up as a regular on Blackwell’s favorites list, the “fabulous fashion independents.”
Blackwell had started out as an actor himself, having been spotted by a talent agent while still in his teens. He landed a job as an understudy in the Broadway production of Sidney Kingsley’s heralded drama “Dead End.”
Although he got to the play the role of the Dead End Kids’ leader on stage only one time, it led him to Hollywood where he landed bit parts in such films as “Little Tough Guy” (uncredited) and “Juvenile Hall” (as Dick Selzer).
He abandoned his acting career in 1958 after failing to make it in movies and switched to fashion design. He claimed to be the first to make designer jeans for women, and his salon had begun to attract a few Hollywood names when he issued his first list covering the fashion faux pas of 1960. (Italian star Anna Magnani and Gabor were among his early victims.)
It quickly brought him the celebrity he had long coveted, and he quickly became a favorite on the TV talk show circuit. He also became for a time, in his words, “The worst bitch in the world.”
He hosted his own show, “Mr. Blackwell Presents,” in 1968 and appeared as himself in such TV shows as “Matlock” and “Matt Houston.”
In 1992, he sued Johnny Carson for claiming that he had added Mother Teresa to his list, saying the comment exposed him to hatred and ridicule. NBC’s response was that the “Tonight Show” host was obviously joking.
“Did you see what he said about Mother Teresa? ‘Miss Nerdy Nun is a fashion no-no,“’ Carson had said. “Come on now, that’s just too much.”
During his heyday the issuing of Blackwell’s annual list was an eagerly anticipated media event.
On the second Tuesday in January he would assemble reporters at his mansion for a lavish breakfast before making a dramatic entrance for the television cameras.
By the turning of the millennium, however, the list had lost its juice and Blackwell took to issuing it by e-mail.
Born Richard Sylvan Selzer in 1922, Blackwell recounted in his autobiography, “From Rags to Bitches,” a troubled, poverty-ridden childhood in which he was variously a truant, thief and prostitute.
Some of Mr. Blackwell’s fashion zingers
Some of fashion critic Mr. Blackwell’s meaner celebrity put-downs:
— Cameron Diaz: “Looks like she was dressed by a colorblind circus clown, and when it comes to fashion, it’s chaos when Cameron’s back in town.”
— Madonna: “From Ghetto Glam to Rhinestone Cowgirl to Mrs. Guy Ritchie. Any way you label it, she’s still just kitschy, kitschy, kitschy.”
— Christina Aguilera: “Is she a boring and body-baring bungle — or just auditioning for ‘Sheena, Queen of the Jungle?“’
— Courtney Love: “When push comes to shove, no one’s fashion is tackier and wackier than funky, punky Love!”
— Mary Kate Olsen: “She resembles a tattered toothpick trapped in a hurricane.”
— The Dixie Chicks: “They look like a trio of truck-stop fashion tragedies trapped in a typhoon.”
— Rene Zellweger: “A painted pumpkin on a pogo stick.”
— Ann-Margret: “Marlon Brando in a g-string.”
— Bjork: “She dances in the dark — and dresses there, too.”
— Martha Stewart: “She dresses like the centerfold for the Farmer’s Almanac.”
— Sharon Stone: “She looks like an over-the-hill Cruella de Ville.”
— Elizabeth Taylor: “Looks like two small boys fighting under a mink blanket.”
— Amy Winehouse: “Exploding beehives above, tacky polka-dots below, she’s part 50’s carhop horror.”
— Cher: “A million beads and one overexposed derriere.”
— Sarah Jessica Parker: “From ‘Sex and the City’ Sarah’s fashions are a mix-and-match pity.”
— Mariah Carey: “Shrink-wrapped cheesecake.”
— Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham: “Forget the fashion spice — wearing a skirt would suffice! In one skinny-mini monstrosity after another, pouty Posh can really wreck-em.”
— Queen Elizabeth II: “Was she the palace Christmas tree or just a royal clown?
— Camilla Parker-Bowles: “In feathered hats that were once the rage, she resembles a petrified parakeet from the Jurassic age.”
— Dennis Rodman (for his drag outfits): “The Fashion Menace may be the Bad Boy of basketball — but in fishnet and feathers he’s a unisex wreck.”
Mr. Blackwell’s worst-dressed list, year by year
Mr. Blackwell’s worst-dressed list, year by year.
1960: Anna Magnani
1961: Debbie Reynolds
1962: Zsa Zsa Gabor
1963: Zsa Zsa Gabor
1964: Barbra Streisand
1965: Princess Margaret
1966: Mia Farrow
1967: Barbra Streisand
1968: Julie Andrews
1969: Queen Elizabeth
1970: Sophia Loren
1971: Ali MacGraw
1972: Raquel Welch
1973: Bette Midler
1974: Helen Reddy
1975: Caroline Kennedy
1976: Louise Lasser
1977: Farrah Fawcett
1978: Dolly Parton
1979: Bo Derek
1980: Brooke Shields
1981: Barbara Mandrell
1982: Diana Spencer (Princess Diana)
1983: Joan Collins
1984: Cher
1985: Princess Stephanie of Monaco
1986: Meryl Streep
1987: Lisa Bonet
1988: Sarah Ferguson
1989: LaToya Jackson
1990: Sinead O’Connor
1991: Julia Roberts
1992: Madonna
1993: Glenn Close
1994: Camilla Parker Bowles
1995: Howard Stern
1996: Dennis Rodman
1997: Spice Girls
1998: Linda Tripp (Clinton scandal figure)
1999: Cher
2000: Britney Spears
2001: Anne Robinson (“Weakest Link” host)
2002: Anna Nicole Smith
2003: Paris Hilton
2004: Nicollette Sheridan
2005: Britney Spears
2006: Paris Hilton, Britney Spears (tie)
2007: Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham
How to bring joy back into your life
By Judi Light Hopson, Emma H. Hopson, R.N., and Ted Hagen, Ph.D.
Does life feel overwhelming and weird these days?
Has it been years since you felt a sense of peace and harmony?
Many people say they feel locked into a life struggle that leaves them without joy.
A woman we’ll call Katherine told us, “I don’t remember feeling happy in a long time.”
The truth is that too much responsibility, too little relaxation time, and a sense of urgency can erase one’s joy.
Here’s how to take back joy you’ve lost:
—Take time for joy. Even if you have only five minutes to take a walk or read a magazine, allow yourself to focus on what pleases you.
—Reflect on happier times. Even if you suffered a painful period in life, try to dwell on the happy moments that came during that time.
—Focus on creating joy now. For example, do take 10 minutes to watch children play or carve out time to watch an old “I Love Lucy” rerun.
A man we’ll call George is sitting by his wife’s hospital bed these days. He is trapped in a world of watching her die.
“I do go outside the hospital and look at the sky and trees,” says George. “I focus on nice paintings in the hospital hallway, and I get a real kick out of having my favorite coffee before I go into the hospital chapel to meditate.”
George knows that joy is all about focus. He finds small bits of time to focus on what feels harmonious and right. Without these moments, his spirit would die.
A divorced woman we’ll call Sandy says she hated reflecting on the town she grew up in. Sandy had bad memories of her first marriage there.
“But,” says Sandy, “one day I called my 83-year-old mother. I told Mom that we should walk around our hometown and reflect on the good times. We talked about the joys of my grandmother’s house, hiding Easter eggs, and how we grew ecstatic when the carnival came to town.”
Sandy emphasizes that focusing on joyful moments in the past, present, and future makes her now feel in control of her life.
“Hard days are a lot easier if you’ve had an ongoing infusion of joy,” says Sandy.
“I practiced finding joyful moments a lot over this past summer,” says Joy. “It’s a good thing I did. When I ran into my ex-husband’s sister, she tried to slam me with hurtful words. I kept smiling and told her I was sorry she was having such a bad life!”
Sandy knows that joy is an armor of self-protection. If we layer it on often enough, it begins to ooze out of our pores.
“When I ran into my ex-sister-in-law, I had just had my hair done and I had been working out at the gym,” says Sandy. “Looking good always helps ward off an enemy attack!”
Before Sandy started trying to access joy, she says she was too tired to exercise and didn’t take much pride in her appearance.
If your physical appearance needs work or your house is messy, you might ask yourself if you’re lacking joy. It’s the ticket to turning things around.
Ever notice that it takes less energy to spiff up things when you’re feeling good? You can whiz through bed making, bathroom cleanups, and carpooling with less stress.
Most of us can stick with a diet, stick with exercise, and get more work done for our employer if we energize ourselves with joyful thoughts and feelings.
———
(Judi Hopson and Emma Hopson are authors of a stress management book for paramedics, firefighters and police, “Burnout To Balance: EMS Stress.” Ted Hagen is a family psychologist. Write to them in care of McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 700 12th Street NW, Suite 1000, Washington D.C. 20005; please enclose a copy of the column and the name of the newspaper you saw it in. You can also contact the authors through the Web site www.hopsonglobal.com.)
So much to say, so little time
Greetings, blogosphere! I am thrilled to launch my new blog–Of Interest. I figure, if it’s of interest to me, it’s probably of interest to someone else out there. So, on my blog, I’ll be posting news of entertainment, news of lifestyle, news of the weird– basically anything and everything that strikes my fancy. This will be fun! I welcome your input so if you have something to say, share or offer bring it on.
Blog on,
Heather
