Before I begin to vent my spleen, I wish to offer my most sincere condolences for the passing of a Hollywood Icon. Ann Miller, one of the last of the great musical movie stars of Hollywood’s golden age, lost her brave battle with cancer last month at the age of 81. The star of innumerable movies and stage extravaganzas including the award winning Broadway musical “Sugar babies” ( with her old friend and MGM alumnus Mickey Rooney,) in which she danced her taps off at the age of 65, will be missed by several generations who delighted in her brilliant talents.

Also departed to that gezunte beauty salon in the sky, is Jan Miner, better known and loved as ‘Madge the Manicurist’. Miner died at her home in Bethel, Connecticut at the age of 86. Noteworthy is the fact that her tenure as the spokesperson for Palmolive dishwashing soap (you’re soaking in it!) ran uninterrupted from 1966 to 1992, making it the longest running commercial series in the history of television. Miner retired from the successful run after suffering a mild heart attack at the age of 72. And, unlike many celebrities who kvetch about typecasting, Miner often said, “I love being Madge, and wouldn’t trade my ‘Cleos’, (the award given to best commercials and their performers,) for all the Oscars in Hollywood!”

Okay, now on to the heavy schmutz.

As many of you know, my time is divided between my home in Las Vegas and my apartment in Hollywood, where I dig in the mire of my back lot, compelling my little birdies to sing me sweet songs of scandal. And this month, I was afraid I would have to disappoint my readers because Hollywood has been unusually decorous.

But while I was in Vegas, a friend invited me to go with her to see eighties rock mensch, Eddie Money. Not that I was a gezunte fan of his, but I figured, what the hell, it’s free, so I put on a suit and tie, (which will give you some idea how long it’s been since I went to see a show in Vegas,) and schlepped along.

Bear in mind, the era in which I grew up. A time when stars spent hours getting ready for their show, (I once clocked Elizabeth Taylor painting on her eyebrows, at fifteen minutes each,) and making sure that no stone was left unturned to give the audience what they came for. This tradition has been carried on by such stars as Bette, Cher, and our own Babs, and even such aging icons as Led Zeppelin and David Cassidy do their damndest to conceal the ravages of time, and try to turn back the clock to give their audiences a trip down memory lane.

But this concert was the most tragic attempt at recapturing faded glories that this reporter has ever seen. The once sexually dynamic Money came out disheveled and fardrey, as if he’d just finished his between-shows drimmel, in a shirt grossly oversized ( to cover an equally oversized gedyrim,) and unkempt, with hair that made him look as if he’d just fallen off a can of house paint. The once seductive moves were arthritic and uneven, and the face looked like an unmade bed. While he was actually singing, he seemed more or less lifelike, although he gave the impression that he hadn’t attended any rehearsals, and during the breaks in the lyrics, he meandered around the stage aimlessly, as if he was having tsores getting his bearings, turning his back toward the audience and puffing a cigarette. Then, forty minutes into the show, he began greeting the audience goodnight, (usually in the middle of the song he was singing,) and at one point actually left the stage, with his back-up band finishing the song without him. They followed him off the stage eventually, then he reappeared, again with the band straggling behind, did two more songs, his voice becoming more and more slurred and weakened, as if being there was either the biggest strain or the biggest bore in his life.

The whole thing took me back to 1976, when I had a cameo role in Mae West’s last movie, “Sextette”, with the ancient sex symbol playing almost a parody of herself, in a laughable mock-scandalous exercise of mutton trying to pass its self off as lamb, and failing miserably. The big difference was, in “Sextette”, Mae knew it was a joke, and that the joke was on her. But Eddie Money had no idea how absurd he came across, was blissfully unaware of the comments I overheard in the audience, such as, “Good God, he looks old!” or, “Jesus, what’s he been smoking?” The four hired groupies they had bumping and grinding at the foot of the stage, (Nu? You thought only Sinatra and Elvis did that?) Worked well, enticing others to join them, if only to get a better look at Money’s state of decay, (he’s fifty five and even with the make-up and special lighting, looked sixty,) and apparent disinterest in what he was doing.

Then, got zu Danken, it was over. Feeling like a lifer whose conviction just got overturned, I fled the scene, vowing never again to subject myself to a misheveh like that again.

So, you may ask, why is this mishugganer alta mamzer carrying on so? Simple. With stardom comes responsibility. Responsibility to one’s fans to give them your all. Responsibility, especially when you’re a staple of a bygone era, to look your best so as to keep your fans from realizing how many years have passed, and that they too have aged. And finally, responsibility to realize that if you can’t maintain the image and the illusion, you should bow out gracefully, and like the old soldier, just fade away. Lucille Ball learned that the hard way when she did “Mame!”, and she was far bigger and better loved than Eddie Money. Yet, the fact that she was twenty five years too old for the part brought down the wrath of the critics so, that her career came crashing down around her. But in “Mame!”, at least Lucy did her best to conceal her aged punim with special make-up and soft focus lenses. Eddie Money had no such luxuries in his live show, and indeed didn’t seem to care. His indifference was almost an insult to the throng of fans who had come to see their ‘Fave’, and who were subjected to a farmisht old man who seemed as if he might not make it through the set.

So in future, m’dears, if you happen to see in your local newspaper that someone you loved in your youth is going to be appearing at a venue near you, just remember what you read here. Your trip down ‘memory lane’ might turn out to be an excursion into the Twilight Zone, only without the late Rod Serling to save you with a commercial break. The star, who used to look like the first day of spring, may well look like the end of a very hard winter. In short…be afraid. Be very afraid!

See you all next month!