Word: vilanch
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...were awakened at 3 a.m. for emergency jokes; James Allardice wrote the droll TV monologues that made Alfred Hitchcock a household deity. But these scribes were as anonymous as the Roman speechwriter who whispered into the dying Caesar's ear, "Say, 'Et tu, Brute?'" So it's nice that Vilanch, a wide guy with a blond mop that makes him look like an obscene Senor Wences puppet, is now (as one of his 1,500 T shirts reads) ALMOST FAMOUS, camping it up with Whoopi on the syndicated hit Hollywood Squares, for which he also serves as head writer...
This writing-class hero grew up in Paterson, N.J., the adopted son of an optometrist and a stagestruck housewife who performed in charity shows. Says Vilanch: "She'd sing, do sketches--she's naturally very funny--and I'd imitate her and her friends." At Ohio State he wrote reviews and appeared in plays. "I was going to be Neil Simon, batting out one Broadway show after another." Then he joined the Chicago Tribune as a reviewer-columnist. One night he met the young Midler and said, "You're very funny. You should talk more onstage." He began honing Midler...
...decades earlier, Vilanch might have been writing for Caesar (Sid, not Julius). But by the late '70s, comedy-variety hours were giving way to knockoffs of Dean Martin celebrity roasts. "The people who had done variety TV, and were now without a form, found one. We all shifted over into awards pageants." And, for Vilanch, benefits: he is a tireless fun and fund raiser for AIDS research and other poignant causes...
...child, Vilanch had done "a lot of reading and a lot of watching of things." These habits are helpful in a job that demands a breadth of knowledge for potential comedy targets (he subscribes to 64 magazines and newspapers) and an acute ear for a star's persona, vocal rhythms and insecurities. Vilanch will be backstage with Raquel Welch before she gives a speech he wrote, and in the wings on Oscar night to cue Crystal's on-the-spot jokes about Jack Palance push...
...that Vilanch is about to become more-than-almost-famous, we wonder: Who will be the comic wind in his wings? Who will be Vilanch's Bruce Vilanch? And one other thing--those testimonials that Midler, Williams and Lane give in Get Bruce! Did Bruce write them...