• Our Man in Dingle

    What can I say about the state of Irish films? “Make more!”

  • A Comedy Lesson From Mel Brooks

    A few weeks ago the MPAA Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences honored one of America’s treasures, Mel Brooks. I was happy to read about this acknowledgement from the Association and I felt that if AMPAS can honor him, well, so can I. I have the great pleasure of knowing Mr. Brooks, which amazes…

  • The Day Michael Appeared on My Street

    I was shocked to hear of the passing of Michael Jackson, as we all were. And as some wag noted on Facebook, "When people ask me what I was doing when I heard that Michael Jackson had died, I was remembering what I was doing when I heard that Farah Fawcett had died." For me,…

  • On the Set With the Porn People

    I was about 10 when I saw my first naked woman. Not in the flesh, in a Playboy magazine. My father’s friend Phil Hubbard (who drove an MG convertible while wearing a jaunty plaid cap) allowed me to look at his latest issue — and with my father’s blessings. My mother was quite distressed, but…

  • Really No Country for Old Men

    In the spring of 1998, as I watched the cast of "Murphy Brown" take its final curtain call — a wonderful show that I was justly proud to have been a part of — I wondered if perhaps this was the zenith of my career in television. What lay ahead for me now? Three days…