Hot Pink is a regular column on nzgirl that's sure to have you in stiches! Don't miss your weekly fix.
To find out all about its author, Penny Ashton, just click here
Well it certainly has been a month of golden oldies.
Just when I’d fully recovered my hearing from menopausal woman screaming “Donny Donny, Donny!” my friend rings me to say he has Debbie Reynolds tickets and do I want to go.
“Hell yes,” I say.
Now as with Donny Osmond I feel I may need to explain who Debbie is to some of you young 'uns out there.
She is pretty much Hollywood royalty from a bygone era. She was plucked from obscurity in a Miss Burbank California beauty pageant in 1948 and was thrust into movie stardom.
Her first massive break came in the form of one of my favourite musicals; Singing in the Rain.
Now at this point I feel I need to defend my love of musicals. Many people think that their only fans are either incredibly camp homosexuals coveting Judy Garland’s ruby red slippers while they practice Bab’s smile for their drag act, or pensioners who remember back to “their day” when Debbie first arrived and when music had words, none of which were f**k, c**t, s**t or McDonalds.
I, however, love the pure escapism of musicals. The fact that all heartbreak can be fixed with a little mambo and a box step down Hollywood Boulevard is a fantasy I want to hold onto if you please.
AND Singing in the Rain is one of the best of all time. The woman I saw onstage tonight was directed in it by the even more legendary Gene Kelly. In the Good Mornin song she told us he made her dance the sequence 50 times only to print the first take... A I think spitting one of these columns out once a week is hard!
But how was the show?
Well to be perfectly honest her voice isn’t what it used to be. She struggled with some high notes and I think there may have been a recording at one stage, but for a 74-year-old broad, she was hysterical. She took the piss out of herself endlessly, told the people in the front row they had a great view up her skirt, and took digs at Elizabeth Taylor; “I’m three months younger than sheeeeee isssssss.”
Taylor nabbed Debbie's husband, Eddie Fisher, only four years after they got married so she had a few lines for him too; “You remember him? What a shame I wish I could forget”. She then went onto impressions. She did Babs with a fake nose attached and Judy Garland, but the best was Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Zsa Zsa, who is Paris Hilton’s great aunt, had the following to say about her niece; “Ahh yes my niece Paris, now that’s one Hilton that’s always occupied” and my favourite line of the night “It’s so nice to see she’s achieved so much on her own two knees".
I love a bit of dirty comedy but wasn’t really expecting it from Princess Leia’s mother (Carrie Fisher is her daughter with love rat Eddie). But then again people obviously had a lot of sex in the 50s so why not talk about that.
In short, after 59 years in showbiz she may not have the voice she once had, but her tongue is as sharp as it ever was, and the split in her skirt is just as high.
I hope the front rows are alright.
Penny
Last updated: 29/04/2008
nzgirl archive:
White Christmas It’s the year’s biggest party week and Hot Pink’s ...
The End What if the answers to your weight problems were a...
