‘Murphy’ making comeback
CANDICE Bergen is coming to a CBS-TV station near you. Remember 30ish years ago? “Murphy Brown”? A 10-year run before streaming, Netflix, digital, cable, fake news?
“Can you believe it?” she says. “We’ve talked about this for years because of revivals lately. We even met with Warners, the show’s creators. CBS said they’d give us whatever we wanted, even our old time spot back.
“We start shooting July. Only 13 episodes. A whole season’s too much. And they agreed to film in New York. My life’s here. My husband’s here. We’ll work in Queens. Kaufman Studios in Astoria.
“It’s lots of work, but I’m excited. In those days, we had the biggest guests. Bette Midler, Julia Roberts did cameos. George Clooney acted as a surgeon. When John Kennedy Jr. played a secretary, every real secretary tried to get on our Stage 4 in Burbank, Calif. Ellen DeGeneres taped across from us.
“We’re no political party flinging politics around. We had a
Dan Quayle tangle. With threats. We hired security. We’d written in a childout-of-wedlock, right-to-life issue. Campaigning with
Bush for president, he wanted this deleted. The press went nuts.
“It became a familyvalues platform. Headlines. Front-page photo of me above the fold with the baby. Quayle called Murphy a slut.
“And today in terms of wardrobe, I’m not exactly the sample size I was. I’m like hundreds of sizes different now. Then we bought everything. In bulk. Blitzkrieg. I’d order from designers’ incoming lines. Six a show. Armani, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan. These days, it’ll be more affordable wardrobe.” And with all these revivals, what might viewers expect next? Yet another “Lone Ranger”? Tonto with long blond hair over one ear?
Done with Russia
PLEASE. Pozhaluysta — that’s Russian for “please” — now comes the movie “The Death of Stalin.” Director’s the fine Ar
mando Iannucci. Company’s the fine IFC. Not fine is Pozhaluysta. Please. Shove the Russians. Bo
ris, my Russian techie, taught me the word pochemuchka. It means “You ask too damn many questions.” So our legal counsel? Pochemuchka. Enough already with the Russians.
NY’s got it all
TRANSPLANTS, napping between prunes and farina, keep yawning, “Y’know how cold it is in New York?”
Oh, get a sweater, up your home heat, and it’s also warm here. And shove retirement nooks with cutesy names like Sunshine Sunset Villa by the Sea. Brochures say they’re waterside. Yeah, like the Mississippi.
I’ve lived there. Residents were older than the ocean. Outings? A brisk game of checkers. And bathing suit? The bikinis had cuffs. My neighbor’s husband took iron pills. Even if she was ready, he was rusty.
Stop babbling about Florida! Stick the Russians there.
MADISON Avenue. The 60s. Morning time. Inside high-class jeweler Chopard’s glass door, staring into the street, a security guard. Watching a dog owner.
Her big big leashed dog, on the sidewalk, near the curb, directly exactly smack in front of elegant expensive Chopard, has selected that precise spot to relieve himself of the night before’s sumptuous meal.