By Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 25, 2008
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
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.
"I never thought I'd get divorced," she says, "and I never thought I'd get divorced on TV."
But all in all, she's "having a ball." She'd like to create a small Kathy Griffin empire, with a late-night talk show and comedy specials and a whole lot more money. Why not? And after multiple excursions to the land of plastic surgery, she says she is done with that for good. Overhauling her looks didn't make her any happier -- she didn't turn into Jennifer Aniston, she says, so what was the point?
"I'm off the junk," she says, lifting up a heavy layer of bangs and wriggling her eyebrows as proof. On cue, her brow wrinkles and folds, accordion-like.
But she's got a show to do on this night, and a long drive to get there, and you are not invited for the ride. Pre-showtime is when she figures out her material, poring the headlines for material. She believes in unscripted stand-up.
It's a packed house at the Landmark Theater in Richmond. The crowd ranges from stocky women with brush cuts and mom-jeans to butch boys in muscle tees to glammed-up 20-somethings in peep-toes and skinny jeans. Griffin runs onstage, and her rabid fans are on their feet, clapping and woo-hooing.
Griffin takes aim at Sarah Palin, giving her the double bird for good measure.
"I won my second Emmy," she tells the audience to wild applause. "Just the [revenge] factor is huge." Or not so much, she says, adding that she was only up against "Extreme Makeover," "Antiques Roadshow" and "Intervention."
You realize that she's using the exact same material with them that she used with you earlier in the day. That you were, in effect, her dress rehearsal.
As the night wears on, all her stream-of-consciousness riffing ventures further out onto the comedic ledge. Offensiveness is her stock in trade; she doesn't want to alienate the hands that feed her. So she throws out a zinger about Michelle Obama, just to see.
She pauses. Cocks an eyebrow. Waits. The crowd roars its approval.
"I test the audience," she says, "to see if you'll go down in flames with me."
She bolts offstage just as abruptly as she began, leaving her fans cheering. And just a bit shell-shocked.
"It's the best 60 bucks I've ever spent," says concertgoer Kendell Lykens, 23. "She might be on the D-list."
Pause.
"But she charges A-list prices."
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