Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture, Andy Cohen [the best books to read txt] 📗

Marie in her parents’ bedroom. We danced in unison routines, performed witty banter, pretended to skate around the room like the Ice Angels, and sang “I’m a Little Bit Country” and “May Tomorrow Be a Perfect Day.” Her brother Josh was a drummer and Em played a supporting Osmond. I loved doing impersonations. My specialty was the Reverend Ernest Angley, who wore a white suit and a big toupee and healed people. I often took my Reverend Angley act out onto the street and “preached” around the neighborhood. From my perspective it was a big hit, though now I wonder what people thought of the screamy little Jewish boy pretending to be a Bible Belt preacher.

Lording over the remote in what looks like a moment of deep pubescent rage

Donny and Marie were perfect brunette Mormon smiling Barbie dolls and I dug their happiness, purity, and glitz. My uncle indulged me, and several times successfully blew my hair straight and parted it in what looked like a cross between Donny and Steve Schiff, the local anchordude on TV.

My devotion to the Osmonds peaked around the time all us kids collected “pics,” which were precisely cut celebrity photos curated from Tiger Beat and Teen Beat. Pic collecting was sport for Emily and Jodi and me while we schlepped all over the Midwest to watch Josh’s soccer and baseball games. The pics were mainly of the Charlie’s Angels (though I also had a weird fetish for the Captain and Tennille). The electric blond luminescence of Farrah seared through the pictures; flanked by Jaclyn and Kate, she only glowed more. Whenever I got myself into a situation where I was “playing” Charlie’s Angels, which was never often enough but always exciting, I would invariably wind up playing one of the brunettes. Always a Kate, never a Farrah.

Back then, each year came to a thrilling biannual climax in what was my very own version of the Super Bowl, Battle of the Network Stars. (In case you’re wondering, I did have one interest that didn’t scream G-A-Y: the St. Louis Cardinals.) Battle of the Network Stars was, I now realize, my first reality-show extravaganza, a pop culture Olympiad. It was an incredible gathering of every major TV star of the day—Farrah! Joyce DeWitt! Chachi! Gabe Kaplan! Valerie Bertinelli! Loretta Swit!—all wearing as little as possible (my lifelong appreciation for a fine Speedo and headband can be traced to this moment) and divided into teams by their network affiliations to compete in swim races, tennis, relays, and the infamous tug-of-war. I had a fierce devotion to ABC and was physically ill any time NBC won, which usually occurred under the “leadership” of (in my opinion, very unsportsmanlike) team captain Robert Conrad—probably best known from his roles in The Wild, Wild West and Eveready battery commercials. In this pre–Entertainment Tonight era, Battle of the Network Stars presented something completely original: celebrities being themselves, interacting with other celebrities in inconceivable combinations. (I loved a crossover then, and I still do. When Mork had Fonzie set himself up on a date with Laverne, I’m pretty sure I had an accident in my pants.)

For as much escape and delight as television provided me, there were times when it also became a difficult mirror—and not just when it was off and the glass was dark. I’m talking, of course, about CHiPs. When CHiPs premiered, I was suddenly all too happy to forswear my hatred of NBC programming. On the surface, this might not seem unusual. After all, CHiPs was made expressly for boys my age. It had motorcycles, exciting chases, and lots of cop-talk. But for this ten-year-old boy in St. Louis, it had Mr. Erik Estrada. When Emily and Jodi and I were trading pics, I paid special, trancelike attention to any pic of Señor Estrada. He was like Donny Osmond on Mexican steroids with exploding genitalia. Actually he was nothing like Donny, it’s just funny to juxtapose them now. Estrada’s entire presentation was captivating, his walk, smile, super-white teeth, jet-black hair, and the air of possibility that he was going to completely burst the seams of his tan pantsuit.

The Estrada trance was different from what I felt when I looked at Farrah. She made me feel happy and clean, but he made me feel dirty and excited. I had flashbacks to the way I’d felt in my dad’s tennis club locker room. In the back of my mind I knew what was happening, but I didn’t really allow myself to go there. I continued to hold out hope that Farrah and I could have a future. In my mind, that was the only real option, anyway. (Well, not marrying Farrah Fawcett—I wasn’t that naïve—but marrying a woman. A woman who looked and acted exactly like Farrah Fawcett. And was possibly named at least Farrah, if not Fawcett.)

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When I tell people I grew up in St. Louis, their first reaction is usually either Susan Lucci’s (“There are very bright people from the Midwest!”) or “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Here’s what: apology not accepted—or needed.

I loved growing up there. Little dramas due to my talkativeness aside, I was in a cocoon of happiness and simplicity, untouched by any real societal or domestic problem (blackouts, race wars, robbery, divorce) that could get in the way of a happy childhood. What I wanted to be was a latchkey kid like I’d seen in after-school specials—that seemed so urban and self-sufficient. A tragedy did come for me in 1978, when my parakeet, Pork Chop, died suddenly while my sister’s nasty old bird, Perky, soldiered on for years. I held a funeral, invited all the neighbors, and read a eulogy encouraging mourners to go to the neighborhood candy shop and buy Pork Chop’s grieving “master” some sweet nibbles. The only sour note to the whole affair was when Mom took pictures of the entire thing. I was furious. This was a solemn occasion! No paps!

In the rearview mirror, our family