Grandma's Celebrity Gossip

Grandma

Our popular columnist continues her discussion of celebrities who have died in recent months.

Donna Douglas, the happy yekl on “The Beverly Hillbillies” died.  She was 81 and a real estate agent who sold a house in Cheviot Hills to my son-in-law David’s brother Morty. Long story short, the house had mold, and like Ed McMahon’s place, it was a big mish-mosh and tsuris for all.

Dick Van Patten was in a couple Mel Brooks (who’s still alive) movies, on TV with infomercials for the Beano pills, and the show “Enough is Enough” (“Eight is Enough”). He was 86.

Jackie Collins was 77. A lot of schmuz she wrote. So bad were her books that the other yenta schmuz writer, Barbara Cartland, called them “nasty, filthy, and disgusting.” 

Jackie’s sister, Joan Collins, appeared in some of her TV movies. She’s still alive and was in “Dynasty” and married that short English shikker with the Groucho eyebrows (Anthony Newley) who did that song I liked about the shmegegge (“What Kind of Fool Am I?”).

Jack Carter, the Catskills shvitzer, was 93. Him I remember from “Match Game” and “Ed Sullivan.” Your head he could make spin, so fast he spit out the jokes.

Another Brooklyn comedian to go was Joan Rivers. Before her it was Totie Fields. In nightclubs is where Joan got her start. Then it was TV talk shows and the red carpets. So much work she’d had done to her face that in the end she looked like the puppet from Wayland and Madame. She once said, “No more Botox for me. Betty White’s bowels move more than my face.” Always the kibbitzer, she was 81.

Madame, left, and Joan Rivers: Separated at birth?

Maureen O’Hara was 95. She was the one with the red hair and lots of chutzpah, (like Barbara Stanwyck, but with a better nose job), but she’s dead too. 

Olivia de Havilland from “Gone With The Wind” is still around, but she’s 99. At that age, it’s hard to tell if they’re dead or alive. I think they should wheel them all out (the living ones, that is) at the Oscars and let us get a good look at them. 

That way we can decide whether or not it’s worth living that long.

I’ve said enough already.