LYDIA CORNELL: AFI Best Actress Nominee, People's Choice Award winner; Actor, Writer, Director, Producer; woman and children advocate; teen mentor, comedienne, talk show host, inspirational pubic speaker best known for her starring role on ABC's "Too Close for Comfort" as TV legend Ted Knight's daughter 'Sara'; HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and over 250 shows, episodes and movies worldwide. Turns tragedy into comedy, life-saving issues for women and equal pay for equal work...
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
NEW LYDIA CORNELL PHOTOS 2020
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| My DP Frank Buono on the set of "It's My Decision" |
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| New Year's Eve 2020 |
LYDIA CORNELL on HBO's CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM with LARRY DAVID
‘Too Close for Comfort’ star Lydia Cornell recalls overcoming alcoholism: ‘A river of tears just flowed’
By Stephanie Nolasco | Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/too-close-for-comfort-lydia-cornell-overcoming-alcoholism
https://siouxcountyradio.com/fox-entertainment/2020/01/31/too-close-for-comfort-star-lydia-cornell-recalls-overcoming-alcoholism-a-river-o
https://amp.flipboard.com/@FoxNews/too-close-for-comfort-star-lydia-cornell-recalls-overcoming-alcoholism-a-rive/a-dxwKHXqCSjeRK28_EorflA%3Aa%3A47769551-c9958a5936%2Ffoxnews.com
Lydia Cornell became a TV sex symbol when she starred as blonde bombshell Sarah Rush in the ‘80s sitcom “Too Close for Comfort,” but once cameras stopped rolling, she was faced with a battle with alcoholism.
After the series came to an end in 1987, the actress found herself drinking champagne and cocktails every night, People magazine reported. It would take a terrifying moment after the birth of her son Jack in 1994 for the now 66-year-old to turn her life around. She never looked back.
Today, Cornell shares her story with others through her public speaking. She’s also been writing a memoir titled “Hiding My Brain in My Bra.” She spoke to Fox News about her arrival to Hollywood, filming her beloved sitcom and how she overcame addiction.
Fox News: How were you discovered?
Lydia Cornell: It’s funny, I had just graduated college. I would watch TV, track down all the names of every producer from every show and write to them. I told them I wanted to come to Hollywood and become an actress. I had this business degree, but still, I wanted to become an actress. It was really a lifelong dream. The minute I got to town, I was invited by an agent to a dinner party. I remember at the front booth of this fancy restaurant was Aaron Spelling. He was sitting with Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner. I was so starstruck.
Lydia Cornell: It’s funny, I had just graduated college. I would watch TV, track down all the names of every producer from every show and write to them. I told them I wanted to come to Hollywood and become an actress. I had this business degree, but still, I wanted to become an actress. It was really a lifelong dream. The minute I got to town, I was invited by an agent to a dinner party. I remember at the front booth of this fancy restaurant was Aaron Spelling. He was sitting with Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner. I was so starstruck.
Aaron asked me to come in and meet his casting director the next day. I did and got my first professional part on a TV series called “The Love Boat.” You might have heard of it. [laughs] My character was a girl in a bikini playing shuffleboard with just one or two lines. The makeup artist put so much blush on my face. I was so terrified the lines came out two octaves higher. I thought I totally blew it. But then Aaron gave me another part on “Charlie’s Angels.” I played a real estate broker who stood behind Shelley Hack. I ended up doing nine guest-starring roles for Aaron Spelling.
Fox News: How did you get the role of Sara Rush in “Too Close for Comfort”?
Cornell: It’s the funniest thing. I took a bus for my audition and it was raining in LA, which was unheard of. I was wearing this tight, cheerleader sweater. I’m already late – an hour late. Secretary goes, “Sorry, they’re finished.” I’m about to cry. [Creator] Arne Sultan comes out and he’s like “Hey, let her come in and read. She came all this way and she looks the part.”
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| 2019 |
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| 2020 |
I’m sitting there with four men in the office and the casting director. There’s a line in the script that says “Sara gives her dad a raspberry.” So I’m here picking up this imaginary raspberry and handing it to Arne. He goes, “What the hell are you giving me? What are you handing me?” I said, “I’m giving dad a raspberry.” He goes, “Oh my God, she doesn’t know what giving a raspberry means?” They all laughed so hard, tears were coming out. Meanwhile, I was turning red and shaking. So they all did it together and yell “It’s a Bronx cheer!” Then they went, “She’s perfect for the part.” It was a total fluke. They wanted me to come in the following morning.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/too-close-for-comfort-lydia-cornell-overcoming-alcoholism
https://siouxcountyradio.com/fox-entertainment/2020/01/31/too-close-for-comfort-star-lydia-cornell-recalls-overcoming-alcoholism-a-river-o
https://amp.flipboard.com/@FoxNews/too-close-for-comfort-star-lydia-cornell-recalls-overcoming-alcoholism-a-rive/a-dxwKHXqCSjeRK28_EorflA%3Aa%3A47769551-c9958a5936%2Ffoxnews.com
Friday, January 24, 2020
IN MEMORY OF MY BROTHER * CELEBRITIES GONE WILD
IN LOVING MEMORY OF PAUL
One day a couple of years after my brother's death, I was looking at a picture of him as a little boy, the age of 4, playing the piano. In the photo, his hands were on the keyboard, but his head was turned, smiling back at me as the flash went off. He wore a little bowtie and vest, his legs, unable to reach the floor, were dangling from the piano bench. A certain Jackson Browne played through my mind.
My heart was broken all over again staring at the picture. It’s one thing to lose a grown-up brother, and another to see a picture of that brother as a child, with all the potential there – a moment captured when we didn’t know his fragile life would end in tragedy. It’s a strange feeling to see a photograph of a deceased loved one as a child — in his innocence, before life got the best of him, before he lost his way. His life was over way too soon. In a weird way, he’s gone on and found out what none of us here can ever really know.
Everyday in the news I am astounded at how cavalierly the media reports mass shootings, murders and forensic files. Even the show CSI is too casual about it. So much death everywhere. We hardly stop to imagine the pain the families are going through. Until you’ve seen death up close, you cannot imagine it.
That day I left the room and left the picture on my desk as I went looking for some Kleenex to wipe my tears. As I reentered the room, I caught my own 3-year old son Jack picking up this picture off the floor. He didn’t know I was watching him, but I heard him say, “Poor little angel, poor little angel.” This was so eerie I still cannot believe it. Three days after Paul’s death, the toddler pointed at a photo of his uncle and said “Paul happy!”
Paul was always the fragile broken child in our family. I heard a therapist once say that in every family there is the broken person – the “designated problem.” We all seemed stronger than he was. When my brother was 8-years-old, his one and only friend, Carl, from another school — was taken out in the desert and shot to death by his father, who then turned the gun on himself and his youngest son as well. In those days, these kinds of killings were rare.
CELEBRITIES GONE WILD
Through the years, whenever I hear about celebrities-gone-wild like Britney Spears, Danny Devito, Paris Hilton, Michael Richards, Courtney Love, Robert Downey Jr. — I always thank God that I never had to go through such a public humiliation, and especially that I have never lost custody of my child. My crash and burn was a private one. Or at least I thought so at the time. It turns out I publicly embarrassed myself in quiet neighborhoods all over New York, Beirut, Monte Carlo, Milwaukee —okay the whole world — in those wild animal days. There was that time with Tom Hanks on tour to promote our ABC shows Bosom Buddies and Too Close For Comfort .... oops, not here, nevermind.. Then there was the trip to London when Princess Di's billionaire, Dodi Fayed, locked me in a bank vault that doubled as a hideaway above Harrod’s. All I remember was guzzling champagne while screaming “Let me out! I have an audition for Dance Fever tomorrow!”
The only place I may have been remotely dignified was in Beirut, when I visited the Marines on a USO tour to the Middle East. If you call losing your high heel out of a helicopter over the Dead Sea as dignified. Or screaming in the Athens airport thinking a bomb was going off, when in fact people were just just ducking to pick up their luggage.
My fall from grace was not as civilized as I remember it. I wasn’t breaking windows or wandering into houses and sleeping in stranger’s beds ... but I did just about everything else. EXCEPT WHAT BRITNEY SPEARS DID YESTERDAY!
Sheesh...!! What kind of role model is this for young mothers?
Now I know that great accomplishments are often the quieter moments of overcoming self, and not always broadcast on the news.
"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." Harriet Beecher Stowe
From 2010: A rather revealing article just came out SHOT GUN LYDIA CORNELL written by Michael Sutton, an amazing journalist (one who doesn't twist or sensationalize the truth. This is Part One of a 3-part story that will be a feature in a larger magazine on the stands. This was a little scary, as I've never revealed the whole wretched story before, but I guess now it's time... Part 2 deals with the trilogy of books I have coming out. Thanks.
Sunday, December 3 at 3 p.m. PST I'll be on BARRY GORDON FROM LEFT FIELD one of the BEST live-call-in talk shows on radio! From the website: "On December 3, Barry and Ellen's guests will be several extraordinary American women: congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, former ambassador Swanee Hunt, daughter of legendary oil magnate H. L. Hunt, Arianna Huffington and actress/writer/activist Lydia Cornell."
All that plus your chance to call in and join in the conversation, at 1-800-809-0802. "Barry Gordon From Left Field" ... it's a whole new ballgame!
I have an article in the upcoming issue of PERSPECTIVE on LABOR (Dec. 6) and will have a monthly column in the Kokomo Perspective staring in January.
Let's support the men and women who are giving and sacrificing so much by contributing a little of our time to give them a nice surprise. Most of us have day jobs, but perhaps you are between projects. Scroll down for details.
PROJECT HOLLYWOODCARES.ORG
One day a couple of years after my brother's death, I was looking at a picture of him as a little boy, the age of 4, playing the piano. In the photo, his hands were on the keyboard, but his head was turned, smiling back at me as the flash went off. He wore a little bowtie and vest, his legs, unable to reach the floor, were dangling from the piano bench. A certain Jackson Browne played through my mind.
My heart was broken all over again staring at the picture. It’s one thing to lose a grown-up brother, and another to see a picture of that brother as a child, with all the potential there – a moment captured when we didn’t know his fragile life would end in tragedy. It’s a strange feeling to see a photograph of a deceased loved one as a child — in his innocence, before life got the best of him, before he lost his way. His life was over way too soon. In a weird way, he’s gone on and found out what none of us here can ever really know.
Everyday in the news I am astounded at how cavalierly the media reports mass shootings, murders and forensic files. Even the show CSI is too casual about it. So much death everywhere. We hardly stop to imagine the pain the families are going through. Until you’ve seen death up close, you cannot imagine it.
That day I left the room and left the picture on my desk as I went looking for some Kleenex to wipe my tears. As I reentered the room, I caught my own 3-year old son Jack picking up this picture off the floor. He didn’t know I was watching him, but I heard him say, “Poor little angel, poor little angel.” This was so eerie I still cannot believe it. Three days after Paul’s death, the toddler pointed at a photo of his uncle and said “Paul happy!”
Paul was always the fragile broken child in our family. I heard a therapist once say that in every family there is the broken person – the “designated problem.” We all seemed stronger than he was. When my brother was 8-years-old, his one and only friend, Carl, from another school — was taken out in the desert and shot to death by his father, who then turned the gun on himself and his youngest son as well. In those days, these kinds of killings were rare.
CELEBRITIES GONE WILD
Through the years, whenever I hear about celebrities-gone-wild like Britney Spears, Danny Devito, Paris Hilton, Michael Richards, Courtney Love, Robert Downey Jr. — I always thank God that I never had to go through such a public humiliation, and especially that I have never lost custody of my child. My crash and burn was a private one. Or at least I thought so at the time. It turns out I publicly embarrassed myself in quiet neighborhoods all over New York, Beirut, Monte Carlo, Milwaukee —okay the whole world — in those wild animal days. There was that time with Tom Hanks on tour to promote our ABC shows Bosom Buddies and Too Close For Comfort .... oops, not here, nevermind.. Then there was the trip to London when Princess Di's billionaire, Dodi Fayed, locked me in a bank vault that doubled as a hideaway above Harrod’s. All I remember was guzzling champagne while screaming “Let me out! I have an audition for Dance Fever tomorrow!”
The only place I may have been remotely dignified was in Beirut, when I visited the Marines on a USO tour to the Middle East. If you call losing your high heel out of a helicopter over the Dead Sea as dignified. Or screaming in the Athens airport thinking a bomb was going off, when in fact people were just just ducking to pick up their luggage.
My fall from grace was not as civilized as I remember it. I wasn’t breaking windows or wandering into houses and sleeping in stranger’s beds ... but I did just about everything else. EXCEPT WHAT BRITNEY SPEARS DID YESTERDAY!
Sheesh...!! What kind of role model is this for young mothers?
Now I know that great accomplishments are often the quieter moments of overcoming self, and not always broadcast on the news.
"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." Harriet Beecher Stowe
From 2010: A rather revealing article just came out SHOT GUN LYDIA CORNELL written by Michael Sutton, an amazing journalist (one who doesn't twist or sensationalize the truth. This is Part One of a 3-part story that will be a feature in a larger magazine on the stands. This was a little scary, as I've never revealed the whole wretched story before, but I guess now it's time... Part 2 deals with the trilogy of books I have coming out. Thanks.
Sunday, December 3 at 3 p.m. PST I'll be on BARRY GORDON FROM LEFT FIELD one of the BEST live-call-in talk shows on radio! From the website: "On December 3, Barry and Ellen's guests will be several extraordinary American women: congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, former ambassador Swanee Hunt, daughter of legendary oil magnate H. L. Hunt, Arianna Huffington and actress/writer/activist Lydia Cornell."
All that plus your chance to call in and join in the conversation, at 1-800-809-0802. "Barry Gordon From Left Field" ... it's a whole new ballgame!
I have an article in the upcoming issue of PERSPECTIVE on LABOR (Dec. 6) and will have a monthly column in the Kokomo Perspective staring in January.
Let's support the men and women who are giving and sacrificing so much by contributing a little of our time to give them a nice surprise. Most of us have day jobs, but perhaps you are between projects. Scroll down for details.
ARE WOMEN EXPENDABLE & REPLACEABLE? ARE WE JUST SEX OBJECTS UNTIL WE'RE 25?
DOMESTIC ABUSE AND THE AMERICAN WOMAN
Are women expendable and repaceable? Are we just sex objects until we're 25, and then considered over-the-hill and useless? I have spent years mentoring teenage boys and girls, and this seems to be the prevailing viewpoint; this is what they are telling me.
A 7th grade girl at my kids' school was caught in the boys' room performing a sexual act on an 8th grade boy. A gifted young Indian girl has decided to become sexually active because she doesn't think she's pretty (or blonde!) enough to get a boyfriend. All the preteens I know are obsessed with sex, and using language that makes me faint. These kids are aspiring to become lap dancers. When did pole-dancing become a degree-requiring profession! Sex, sex and more sex - this is the prevailing value in our culture these days. Thanks to Kim Kardashian and TMZ! Actually we must thank MTV and advertising. My motto is: All human suffering is caused by Victoria's Secret!
A 7th grade girl at my kids' school was caught in the boys' room performing a sexual act on an 8th grade boy. A gifted young Indian girl has decided to become sexually active because she doesn't think she's pretty (or blonde!) enough to get a boyfriend. All the preteens I know are obsessed with sex, and using language that makes me faint. These kids are aspiring to become lap dancers. When did pole-dancing become a degree-requiring profession! Sex, sex and more sex - this is the prevailing value in our culture these days. Thanks to Kim Kardashian and TMZ! Actually we must thank MTV and advertising. My motto is: All human suffering is caused by Victoria's Secret!
That's why I'm trying to become a virgin again in more ways than one. How can you find your soul in a pornographic world? I tell these girls that mystery is appealing; that keeping your clothes on is provocative. We don't need to create any more men of entitlement. There is already an army of men cheating on their wives and using women like paper towels, as Tiger Woods did.
In our culture it seems that women are being sexually objectified more than ever. I am a product of the 80's, and as a sex symbol I had to dumb myself down to fit into Hollywood. I also had to wear short-shorts and skimpy costumes on TV and pose in a sequined bikini to promote Too Close for Comfort.
We are obsessed with sex in America in a very immature way. We have made something natural seem titillating and taboo because of our Puritan nature. Advertisers jumped on this, seeing the potential in creating a plot to keep women thin and insecure. I am not blaming men for all my problems, but they did invent makeup and war and high heels. Do you know the historical purpose of high heels? To raise women up for easier insertion! It's true! I'll tell you the history later.
My son's friend Tommy, 14, came back from Europe this summer and said the people are so genuine there. He said they seem to value relationships more than "stuff" and looking "hot." My stepson is obsessed with having "cut abs" on Facebook. God Bless him. I have tried to tell him it's inner strength that matters, but he looked at me like I was an alien.
I have been wondering if the greed era, circa 1980-2008, in which capitalism has been allowed to run amok -- is responsible for creating so many sociopaths and narcissists in our country. What are American values? What do we value?
Please post your opinion for an article I'm writing. Thank you.
More on my personal experiences with domestic violence angle in the next issue.
This was initially written in 2010
Check out Lydia's LIVE SHOW each Wednesday night from 7-9 PM Pacific Time here: KELSEY GRAMMER PRESENTS LYDIA LIVE ON TODHD
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