Kylie's Showgirl Homecoming Concert

For those of you who didn't get the chance to see Kylie's fabulous Showgirl Homecoming Shows don't forget to tune into channel four tonight at 10.10pm to see the diminutive icon's fabulous comeback concert. Recorded in front of a capacity crowd in Australia this really was a homecoming for Australia's own showgirl and superstar.
With all new choreography and stunninning costumes the show is absolutely spectacular. The Queen of Pop is back and better than ever. Welcome back Kylie!

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Drama Queen- Rank & Bile At The Theatre - Kiki & Herb Christmas Happens

So last night Mike and I went to see the always fabulous Kiki and Herb in their “Chritmas Happens” show at the Reindeer Theatre. What a great evening! Although Kiki herself described the Transistion from Broadway, to The Truman Brewery in London’s East End as her Come-down concert!

It’s a year since we last saw them in London (for their Christmas show at The Festival Hall in 2005) and it’s been far too long.

Kiki was in fine form and old favourites like “Frosty The Snowman” and “Crucifying Jesus” brought the house down while the finale featuring her now legendary performance of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” and Gnarls Barclay’s “Crazy” earned Kiki a well deserved standing ovation.

Lets just hope the rumoured retirement of the cabaret terrorists, is just that, a rumour because Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a festive offering from the fabulous Kiki and Herb

Check out a bit of Kiki and Herb in action below

Kiki and Herb at My Space

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You Tube Favourite - Ann Miller Commercial

You Tube is a bloggers dream especially when you can't be bothered to post much! There are some real gems on there so I thought I'd post my favourite each month. This months favourite is a clip of the fabulous Ann Miller in a commercial she did for Campbell's Soup in the 1970's and written and directed by Busby Berkley no less. Watch her tap up a storm without a single hair moving on her trademark coiffure!



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A Few Of My Favourite Things - Dynasty

No not raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens! This monthly random post is about some of my favourite things. Some I'm passionate about others just tickle my fancy and make me laugh.

I’m currently wading my way through all nine seasons of iconic 80’s TV show Dynasty, (I’m up to season 6 already and totally addicted!) The story of simple Denver oil billionaires and I’d forgotten just what delicious nonsense it was!

From its somewhat drab and almost “realistic” beginnings in season one, to the complete absurdity of the final seasons it’s a roller-coaster of camp madness.

The show didn’t really come into its own until the arrival of Joan Collins as Alexis Morrel Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan, in season two and then there was no stopping it! And it wasn’t just our Joanie who livened things up, everyone from Henry Kissinger, President Gerald Ford, George Hamilton and Rock Hudson guest starred at some point.

The budget may have been a million dollars an episode but they obviously only spent about $5 on the scripts and the plots are hilarious high drama, from alien abduction, catfights, long lost relative, Royal Wedding massacres and Krystle’s double replacing her for months un-noticed.

The characters all suffered ludicrously but my god suffering never looked so good, thanks to Nolan Millers extravagant clothes. Like the 80’s itself, it’s a testament to shoulder pads, money, greed and glitz and mores the pity, they don’t make em like that anymore.

Right I’m off! I have to find out if Dex and Alexis succeed in a two person guerrilla raid on Moldavia to rescue the King…travelling by the Colbyco jet of course!

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A Few Of My Favourite Things - 1970's Disaster Movies

No not raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens! This monthly random post is about some of my favourite things. Some I'm passionate about others just tickle my fancy and make me laugh.

What do you do with a Hollywood star who hasn’t had a hit since 1954?
Well in the 1960’s buoyed by the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane you cast them in Grand Guignol shockers and turned them into Scream Queens. In the 1980’s you cast them in soap operas like Lana turner and Jane Wyman in Falcon Crest but in the 1970’s you cast them in Disaster Movies.


They were big block busters with a host of legendary stars. Who can forget Ava Gardner and Chuck Heston swaying about on wobbly sets and showered in papier mache rubble in Earthquake! Or Fred Astaire, William Holden and Steve McQueen covered in fake soot for The Towering Inferno. Even classy Olivia De Havilland and Henry Fonda got in on the act, getting savaged by killer bees in The Swarm. Then Shelley Winters famously capsized and sank in The Poseidon Adventure and a whole slew of stars were hysterical at high altitude in Airport 1970 and its spin off’s Airport 75, Airport 77 and Airport 79 The Concord!

The Airport films are my personal favourites the plots got sillier as they went along and the calibre of stars smaller (From Gloria Swanson and Myrna Loy to Charo and Martha Raye!)But Airport 1975 is a gem of a disaster movie and my personal number one. It boasted Gloria Swanson (re-united with Sunset Blvd co-star Nancy Olson) Dana Andrews, Sid Caesar and Myrna Loy amongst it’s petrified passenger list, whilst the fabulously boss eyed Karen Black was the stewardess forced to land the plane with help from good old Chuck Heston on the ground. Who can forget Gloria Swanson (playing herself) screaming “The Mountains, we’re too close to the mountains” as a blatantly projected piece of footage wobbled past her window!

Olivia De Havilland in Hysterical Disaster Movie Mode!

Special mention should be made of Chuck Heston who almost single handed, saved the day in half of the 70’s great disaster films, or so it seemed! He landed the stricken plane in Airport 1975, stopped the sniper threatening a football stadium in Two Minute Warning, rescued Ava Gardner in Earthquake, saved the plane in Skyjacked (a poor man’s Airport) and was the only survivor after a deadly plague in the Omega Man. Not bad for a man who also found time to battle his way through the Planet Of The Apes franchise all in the same decade. Hardly a week in the 70’s went by, when he wasn’t found with jutted jaw, covered in fake blood/dirt/soot (toupee askew) and with his clothes in tatters.

So why were these films so popular? Well part of their success lay in their crowd pleasing plots. The people responsible were always killed and often horribly. Richard Chamberlains faulty wiring in Towering Inferno got him fried. There was also, always one of the cast favourites killed off, to ensure a tear-jerking reaction, like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure and finally there was always a chance for some “ordinary Joe” to become a hero. Like Fred Astaire as the con-man who saves the children in Towering Inferno and simple stewardess Karen Black manoeuvring the plane through the mountains, single handed, in Airport 1975.

The other reason people loved them, was the chance to see great stars in distress, in the same way they had loved them a decade before devoid of make up and as demented purveyors of horror in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s they got to see them dirty, wet, and bleeding, with their clothes in tatters and under duress and what fun it was. Add to this, huge special effects, outlandish scripts and high drama and you have a recipe for success that lasted a whole decade.

They sure don’t make em like that anymore! Mores the pity!

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Kylies Back!

Kylies back! and continuing with her Showgirl Tour. The tour was interrupted last year after her breast cancer diagnosis. I was lucky enough to catch her (the night the show was filmed) last time and she was absolutely fantastic!

Tickets for the first two UK concerts sold out in minutes, but more dates have been announced. So if you didnt get to see her last time make sure you dont miss out this time. The tour starts in Australia in November, and hits the UK in January 2007.

Welcome back Kylie!

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A Few Of My Favourite Things - Ann Miller's Hair

No not raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens! This monthly random post is about some of my favourite things. Some I'm passionate about others just tickle my fancy and make me laugh.

Ann Miller was a minor MGM movie Star mostly famous for tap dancing and singing her way through the kind of musicals that the major stars turned down. Her crowning achievement was probably Kiss me Kate but whilst her mark in the annals of Hollywood history may be small her hair was huge! Lacquered within an inch of its life it practically had a career of its own and was certainly deserving of separate, if not star billing!

Like Ann herself her hair achieved its own kind of immortality, in the stage show Forbidden Broadway, one of the performers does an impression of Ann set to the music of That’s entertainment it contains the classic lines:

I guess I really showed them
When I killed L. B. Mayer
By hitting him with my hair

A Dominick Dunne’s mini series also once listed an un-named baddie in the credits as “Man with the Ann Miller hair!”

It isn’t just the size of the hair that fascinates me it’s the helmet like immobility; it has to be set with super glue, as it simply never moves.

A dear departed friend of mine once told me a story relayed to him by a TV stylist who once did Ann’s hair for a TV show. Apparently the hapless guy suggested Ann being “more mature” might want to try something a little softer. After giving him a look that could stop a Sherman tank in its tracks Miss Miller replied.

“Listen buster! I wanna be able to go out there and tap for two hours in a tornado and the hair doesn’t move! Got it? Now get the damn lacquer honey!”

Long after Ann has been forgotten her hair will live on as a true Hollywood legend.

Ann Miller’s hair we salute you!

See Ann's hair in action below in a clip from The Loveboat



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Judy Garland - A Podcast Star Is Born!

She may have passed on to the great concert hall in the sky but Judy garland is alive and well and Podcasting!

It seems Rufus Wainwright isn’t the only one channelling Judy garland at the moment.

Podacster BillyBoy a 24 yr old hottie from the US brings us his fantastic “The Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm” The Podcasts are an irreverant take on Judy as she and her guests discuss current hot topics and even get to sing some of the songs she never got to record like Enough Is Enough! This time rather than Donna and Barbra its Judy and Carol Channing! Judy is in fine form considering she’s been dead since 1969! and funny as ever. There are special guests galore including Bernadette Peters, Patti Lu Pone, Katherine Hepburn and Madonna.

Having debuted in mid December, the show already boasts 6,500-plus subscribers because, as “Garland” herself quips on one recent podcast, “it’s more fun than an afternoon in Lana Turner’s sweater.” Catch the podacsts or go to BillyBoy’s blog and download all the episodes there.

Demented genius!

The Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm

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Kiki & Herb - The Comeback!

The cabaret terrorists are back!

Despite their sell out farewell tour at Carnegie Hall, Kiki and Herb (The fabulous Justin Bond & Kenny Mellman) are back out of retirement , this time on Broadway, for a limited run. The irony is Kiki is supposed to be a washed up cabaret chanteuse who's audience has long since deserted her but in reality she can sell out Carnegie Hall. Whilst I'm really pleased by Kiki & Herb's success they are in danger of losing their cabaret terrorist reputation and becoming main-stream.

I've been lucky enough to catch them many times but theres no doubt they work best in a small venue, as opposed to somewhere like the Helen Hayes Theatre where they are due to perform in August.

Justin may be keen to put his alter ego Kiki aside but it seems the fans are having none of it!

Lets hope they drag their fabulous asses back over to London real soon! Their last christmas show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall was the highlight of the festive season in London and they are still the best act around.

Buy Kiki & Herb Will Die for You (The Farewell Tour, Live at Carnegie Hall) at Amazon

Click here for Kiki and Herb's website

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Screen Queen-Some of what I'm watching this Month

Mommie Dearest (Hollywood Royalty Edition) (1981)
Starring: Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid
Director: Frank Perry

In 1977 Joan Crawford, Hollywood Royalty, died, less than a year later her daughter Christina wrote the most scathing attack on a Hollywood star ever published. Mommie Dearest, whether that book is either accurate or fair is another matter, personally I think Christina was such a loathsome child she could have driven Mother Theresa to child abuse but I digress, it was of course, a publishing sensation and a movie inevitably followed and what a movie.

Mommie Dearest is the campest cult film ever made and for good reason. I’m sure its director and star (Faye Dunaway) thought they were producing a serious and dramatic film but instead they delivered a movie so over the top that it’s hysterical. Where did it go so wrong, or if you are a lover of camp so right?

Well like most camp movies it takes itself very seriously indeed and that’s what makes it so funny but its Faye Dunaway who really turns the whole thing into a camp-fest of the first degree. Lumbered with a script that is a drama queen’s dream she attacks the lines with a relish bordering on the salacious and delivers a performance that doesn’t just chew the scenery it chews it, swallows it and then spits it out again.

Whilst the rest of the cast play it in a somewhat understated fashion, Faye’s performance comes at the audience like a juggernaut with failed brakes lurching from one set piece of high octane hysteria to another. Who can forget her delivery of such lines as “No wire hangers eveeeeer!” and “Tina bring me the Axe!” Lines that have now entered the Gay lexicon and launched a thousand drag acts. No other major star has ever delivered such an over the top performance in fact, after this film those other great over the top creations, Margo Channing (Bette Davis in All About Eve), Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard) and Baby Jane are not only forced to surrender their Grand Guingol crowns but seem positively suburban by comparison.

Add to this some fantastic sets and costumes by legendary MGM designer Irene Scharaff who came out of retirement to dress Faye (as she had done the real Crawford) and you have a production that perfectly frames Faye’s melodramatic performance in which she frighteningly channels Crawford at her melodramatic best.

The irony is that Christina Crawford attempted with her book and the subsequent film to destroy her mother’s reputation…she failed. Joan has now, as a direct result, of the film gathered a new generation of fans who after viewing the film went out to seek the real Joan in her many films and fell in love with her. She lives on not as just a forgotten old star but as a saint Joan Patron Saint of camp and whilst it may not be the way Crawford chose to be remembered she is definitely remembered.

As for Dunaway, Mommie Dearest almost destroyed her career, no one could take her seriously after “Mommie” and if mentioned in her presence you are likely to exact a reaction worthy of the wire hanger scene. Dunaway needs to have more of a sense of humour about it (not her strong point!) t and laugh along with us, it may not be Shakespeare but it has a huge following and will guarantee her screen immortality.


This new DVD release which includes interviews with many of the cast and a very funny commentary by huge “Mommie” fan Jon Walters doesn’t really give the film “the respect it deserves” it would have been nice to see the deleted scenes and maybe a documentary on the real Crawford included but its still a great package and if you’ve never seen it shame on you buy it at once! If you have, take a couple of hours to enjoy it all over again. You’ll never look at wire hangers the same way again!

***** Stars

Mommie Dearest The Music Video!



Mommie Dearest (Hollywood Royalty Edition) Buy It at Amazon
Mommie Dearest Camp Classic

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R.I.P. Aaron Spelling

Über producer Aaron Spelling passed away yesterday aged 83 and the world is a little less glamorous for his passing. Almost single handedly he revived the glamour of 1930’s and 40’s Hollywood and brought it to the small screen in a succession of wildly successful and glitzy shows which defined the excess of the 1980’s.

Spelling, his wife candy and daughter Tori would become almost as famous as the fictional families he created in his legendary soaps. Tori herself would play a major part in his Beverly hill 90210 soap in the 90’s. They also lived the life he portrayed with a 123 room mansion, the biggest in Hollywood which famously had an ice rink, doll museum and two present wrapping rooms!

A purple heart war veteran , he began his Hollywood career in front of the camera playing villains in shows like Gunsmoke then graduated to writing but it is was as producer he would truly make his mark and eventually become one of the richest and most powerful men in Hollywood and the most prolific producer of all time.

His hit shows dominated the world and were some of the campest of all time including, Starsky and Hutch, The Love Boat, Hart to Hart, Charlie’s Angels, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Hotel, Charmed, Vega$, 7th heaven, Models Inc, Life with Lucy, Titans, The Colbys and his biggest hit of all Dynasty. They were huge successes and paved the way for today’s shows like Desperate Housewives and The O.C.

So Aaron Spelling we salute you! R.I.P. The King of Camp.

See a classic clip from Aarons biggest success Dynasty




Dynasty - Season 1 DVD Available at Amazon

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Eartha kitt

This Months Queens of Camp Hall of Fame Inductee

Even if Eartha Kitt had retired in the early 70’s she would probably have still earned the title Queen of camp, if only for her sultry renditions of such hits as Santa Baby and Old fashioned Girl, both gold digging anthems long before Madonna’s Material Girl. Then there was her stint growling and purring as Cat Woman in the original Batman TV series and success in concert and on stage. Throughout the 50's and 60's Eartha was the original sex kitten untill an anti vietnam war remark at the White House saw her blacklisted for most of the 70's.

But you cant keep a good sex kitten down and 9 lives Eartha launched the campest pop comeback ever in the 1980’s with her boys town anthems, including "I love Men", "Where is My Man" and later "Cha Cha Heels".
Out of nowhere, acompanied by a pounding dance beat, she growled and purred her way back to the top of the pop charts.


Where is my Man charted in every European country and introduced Eartha to a whole new generation of fans and was quickly followed by further singles, an album and the peak of pop camp, the single, "Cha Cha Heels" a homage to legendary drag performer Divine on which she duetted with Gay pop group Bronski beat.





Eartha’s career not only got a shot in the arm she also kept the momentum going and now at 80 yrs old she is still working the legendary Carlyle Room in New York.In the last few years she has had success on Broadway, in several great shows, in Print with bestselling Books and in cabaret and concerts. It takes a lot of chutzpah to stage a comeback at the age of sixty and garner a whole new generation of fans but it takes even more, to ride that comeback trail for a further twenty years and keep adding new generations of fans along the way.Eartha Kitt is an Original! No one sounds or looks like her and let’s face it in a world of packaged, reality show, stars we need all the Originals we can get. So we salute you Eartha Kitt a true Sex Kitten and Queen of camp!



More Eartha at:
Eartha at Amazon
Eartha's Own Site
Eartha Kitt Queen of Camp

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Danni and Kylie Minogue at G-A-Y

At the risk of sounding like a one fag, fan club you have to, albeit grudgingly, take your hat off to Mr Jeremy Joseph ….again!
This Saturday he managed to squeeze a Personal Appearance out of not one but two Minogue Sisters as Kylie joined her sister Danni at the end of her set at G-A-Y, to possibly, the most rapturous reception the club has ever seen.
Kylie looking absolutely fantastic, joined her sister for a few lines of her hit Jump to the Beat and the crowd went wild.
Whatever you say about Jeremy and there’s been enough sneering at him and his club over the years. The man is a great promoter who else can boast they snared Madonna, Christina, Mariah, Donna Summer and Debbie Harry and pretty much every major Diva in between to do PA’s for a London Club.

Now if they’d just play the odd tune that wasn’t by Stock, Aitken and Waterman the sneering might stop!



Some footage of the Minogue Sisters at G-A-Y or more accurately some footage of several thousand queens getting hysterical!

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Joan Crawford - Hollywood Martyr

Joan Crawford was the greatest of all Hollywood Stars and I will brook no argument on this point. I will concede she possibly wasn’t the greatest actress but she was the ultimate Star and Glamour Girl as she herself said “if you want the girl next door, go next door”

Over the years I have read every book published about her. From her own frank autobiography, a Portrait of Joan to her Daughter Dearest’s monstrous hatchet job and every sugar coated biography in between.

So far no one has written the definitive biography that this vastly underrated talent deserves. I would like to say David Bret’s new biography Joan Crawford Hollywood martyr is it but sadly we are still waiting for someone to do Joan real justice, however David Bret does take a good stab at it and for once explores, at length, her relationship with and adoration by, so many gay men and along the way gives us one hell of a gossipy and entertaining read. It may not be definitive but it’s definitely one of the better ones.

Many people only know of, or remember, Joan from Mommie Dearest her daughter Christina’s barbaric and cruel "memoir" written after her Mother’s death but we shouldn’t forget that in a career that starred her firstly, as a flapper in Silent films and progressed through Shop Girls, Businesswomen, Suffering Mothers and finally Scream Queens. Joan Crawford kept her Star Billing, Glamour and Fuck Me Shoes for over 50 years and was the undisputed Queen of Hollywood.

If you don’t know much about Crawford do yourself a favour and pick up David Bret’s book and learn what real stardom is all about.

Trailer for Joan in Torch Song



Buy The Book at Amazon Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr
Read more about Joan at Joan Crawford Queen of Camp
Visit the excellent site http://www.joancrawfordbest.com/

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Zsa Zsa Gabor

This Months Queens of Camp Hall of Fame Inductee


Long before the Hilton girls came their Great Aunt Zsa Zsa and her sisters the fabulous Gabors. Mother Jolie, and sisters Zsa Zsa , Eva and Magda were once the most glamorous family in Hollywood and Hungary's most famous exports



Zsa Zsa was born Sari Gabor in…..well dates range from 1915 to 1919! In Hungary. Zsa Zsa came to Hollywood on the heels of her sister Eva Her first film was at MGM in Lovely to Look at followed by a comedy called We're Not Married! at Twentieth Century Fox, neither of which were exactly classics! In fact She would only really ever have one major role, opposite Mel Ferrer in Moulin Rouge but it would prove to be a flash in the pan and Zsa Zsa would be destined for a career comprising walk-ons cameos and supporting roles in such nonscence as Queen of Outer Space and A Nightmare On Elm Street 3 .

Zsa Zsa star would shine much brighter as the un-disputed queen of the chat show circuit. Where her legendary number of marriages, former Miss Hungary Title, love of diamonds, Dahlink! catchphrase and ludicrously glamorous Hungarian accent would be turned into witty fodder and bon mots for adoring TV audiences.

Her legenday list of Husbands and lovers included Profirio Rubirosa , The inventor of the Barbie doll, Conrad Hilton, Actor George Sanders who would also marry her sister Magda and most recently Prince Von Anhalt, making her, Princess Von Anhalt, Duchess of Saxony (she claims) though many dispute the validity of the title.


Zsa Zsa is famous for being fiery and has been sued by Elke Sommer for defamation. Thrown out of a hotel for abusing a bellboy and removed from an airliner for causing an affray and then in 1989 her most famous hissy fit saw her end up in jail for 3 days for slapping a Beverly hills cop who pulled her over for suspected drunk driving.


Whilst her jail term may have been humiliating for her it sparked a small resurgence in her career and provided her with endless anecdotes for her chat show appearances.

Zsa Zsa like her sisters lived a life only dreamed of by many, a life of furs diamonds and glamour and when Zsa Zsa jokes “Dhalink I never take diamonds form perfect strangers….but then Dhalink nobodys perfect!” or “I am a brilliant Housekeeper….I divorce them, then keep the house!” The funny thing is you know she probably really means it!



Sadly Eva Gabor who had a reasonable career of her own and would find lasting fame as the star of TV’s Green Acres, (and purveyor of wigs beloved of drag queens everywhere) died in 1995, from food poisoning, two years later her mother, the amazing 102 yr, old Jolie Gabor died as did Zsa Zsa’s lesser known sister Magda.

Zsa Zsa is now the only surviving Gabor sister and she has had a run of bad luck recently a car accident in 2002 left her partly paralized (she successfully sued the driver, her hairdresser for $2m) Then in 2005 a stroke confined her to her fabulous home in Bel Air (formerly owned by Elvis). She was also forced last year to sue her daughter for attempting to illegally access her somewhat confused mother’s fortune. Thought he glamour may have faded a little, no one can deny the Gabors were pure magic they were the first of what we now call celebrites i.e. no real talent but huge personalities and famous for just being their fabulous selves.

So Zsa Zsa Gabor along with the other fabulous Gabors we salute you Dhalink as a true Queen of Camp!

Click below to see one of Zsa Zsa's Hissy fits


See a Clip Of Zsa Zsa's hilarious workout video here
More Queens of Camp here

Zsa Zsa at Amazon