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

P.S. (Barbara sends her love.)

"Tom!" Griffin calls out to Vize. "Let's call Don to say thank you!" The call is dutifully put through, except that the number that Rickles gave them is . . . a fax. Griffin, never one to pass up fertile comic fodder, seizes this would-be slight as proof of her perpetual wannabe status. What a dis! "He gave me the wrong number on purpose! How will I ever get in touch with him now?" Send a fax?

As it turns out, Rickles is reachable. His people are on the phone, apologizing to Vize for providing the wrong number. And once again, Griffin is robbed of a chance to trumpet her role as Queen of the Losers.

All this is tricky business: making a living skewering celebrities when your own celebrity is on the rise.

"I'm having A-list moments lately," Griffin admits. Then comes another confession: Backstage at the Emmys, she pulled Rickles aside and asked, "How do you maintain friendships with celebrities when they don't want you to put them in your act?" She figured he should know, since he claims Bob Newhart as a close friend, among other big names. His advice: You can't be friends with someone and have "some kind of agreement" to keep them out of the act. Anything is fair game -- which works for her. "I'm not disciplined enough to keep my mouth shut," she says.

The Griffin mouth famously lobs insults at the pretty and the pretentious. She spares no one -- whether they look divine or are worshiped as divine. (Her famous 2007 Emmy acceptance speech, when she mocked Jesus, caused a notable brouhaha.) Oprah Winfrey is both her obsession and her target. ("I am totally supportive of her and her boyfriend Gayle.") Lindsay Lohan is a frequent source of material -- Griffin comments on her lesbian relationship ("I love Lesbian Lindsay. She didn't go 'lipstick' "). And then there's her nemesis, Ryan Seacrest, with whom she jousted on the red carpet at the Creative Arts Emmys: "You are the devil," she told him, before abruptly ending the interview by calling him a "man-whore."

"Hollywood is like high school," she says. "The celebrities I make fun of are pretty much the mean cheerleaders in high school, or the mean jocks."

Griffin, who was raised Irish Catholic in suburban Chicago, grew up conflicted in a family of alcoholics. (Because of that, she says, she has never taken a drink in her life.) The nuns in elementary school did damage, she says, but that was nothing compared with the mean girls in high school. She is the ugly duckling turned surgically enhanced swan, now out to seek revenge. No, she can't wait for her high school reunion next month -- and yes, she will be bringing her Emmy with her. So there.

She got her start doing improv with the Groundlings comedy troupe in Los Angeles, and then moved to the little screen, with guest spots on "ER" and "Seinfeld" before landing a recurring role on the Brooke Shields sitcom "Suddenly Susan." Along the way, she kept her stand-up chops sharp, doing the occasional HBO comedy special and four specials for Bravo.

It was in the world of reality TV and its quasi-truth, though, that she found her true calling. She won the competition show "Celebrity Mole," then landed hosting gigs with the NBC reality series "Average Joe" and the MTV series "Kathy's So-Called Reality."

In 2005, "D-List" was launched, as it followed her life from hustle to hustle -- performing at gay events in Australia, and getting an initially poor reception at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Living under the constant surveillance of a TV crew was at times more than she bargained for: She got married and divorced; her father died last year; and she struggles with her aging mom, Maggie.