Coming Up in the World: D-Lister Brings Her A-Game

Kathy Griffin, the comic queen of red-carpet fabulousness, is puttering about her Ritz-Carlton Georgetown suite, all bare feet and flowered flannel PJ bottoms. It's late afternoon, and there's no hair and makeup dude performing her maquillage as she readies for the evening's show in Richmond. As she crows over her Emmy win days earlier, Griffin painstakingly applies individual lashes to her big baby blues.

There will be no limo awaiting downstairs to whisk her to the theater. It'll be just her and Tom Vize, her long-suffering chief assistant (because, you know, she's got three) humping it to the venue in a rental car. Nearly three hours in rush-hour traffic. And because she gets carsick, she typically does the driving.

This is not life on the D-list, but rather life when a longtime D-lister is fairly swiftly upgraded to at least B-plus status -- yet the same old luggage is still in tow.

Since last year, Griffin's celeb-snarking, bottom-feeder routine has seemed to board a freight elevator to the penthouse. Last fall, she sold out the Kennedy Center in a matter of days. Three seasons in, her reality show, "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List," remains one of Bravo TV's most popular shows -- and has brought her two Emmys in 13 months. And as she begins a three-night stand tonight at DAR Constitution Hall, she's got the fervid love and devotion of a core Bravo demographic: The folks whom she affectionately refers to as "my gays."

Griffin, 47, is not willing to scratch her name off the D-list just yet. "You are welcome to walk through any airport with me," she says, "where someone will ask me, 'What's your name again?' Just when I think I've jumped lists, there's always something to smash me down." But . . .

There's a massive bouquet of flowers from fellow insult comic Don Rickles, with whom she presented an award at the Primetime Emmys on Sunday, in her very-first-ever "real" Emmys appearance. (Her award for outstanding reality TV show was handed out Sept. 13 at the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony, which she calls the "Schmemmys.") There's a note with the flowers, a note that sends her over the moon, because Miz Griffin loves her some Mr. Warmth:

Dear Kathy:

I was so proud to share the stage with you. You're not only a brilliant comedian but a beautiful gal to know.

Love,

Don