Guilty Pleasures

Okay. My back was killing me – a leftover from my recent semi-bout with pneumonia. It was Monday and I was finishing off my income tax return. Plus, it was Monday, and since Garfield the cat and I share the same birthday, I'm am allergic to Mondays.

And then she comes to my rescue.

A woman who always makes me smile. Who makes me laugh. And, perhaps even more importantly, inspires me to write strong, bold, funny characters.

She only recently came back into my life, thanks to some major realignment – resurrected from oblivion, much like the new Wonder Woman comic.

Christine Baranski.

I totally fell in love with this woman when she costarred on Cybill. No, that's totally inaccurate. She frequently stole the show out from under Cybill. And hey – Cybill was awfully damned good in that show. Those TV executives ought to be drawn and quartered for canceling this show. Of course, the fact that Christine and Cybill didn't get along – according to the gossip shows – might have something to do with it.

My life was Cybill-less until Comcast Cable came to town and reordered the channel alignment, bringing into town Oh, Oxygen for the first time in this little backwater I call home.

So, before I turn away lest I be bombarded by that yodeling Amazon, Xena, I steal some time to be alone with Christine Baranski. Before I sit down with my editors and photographers and map out our sporting week, I give myself an hour to alternately sigh and laugh along with Maryann.

Maryann Thorpe was supposed to a traditional best-friend/comic foil in the mold of Tom Poston-Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore-Valerie Harper, or John Ritter and Larry, that guy who lived upstairs on Three's Company. But Christine Baranski took those earlier guides and used them as a springboard into the outrageous. She was Ethyl Mertz after a four-Absolut-martini lunch.

And without Maryann, there would be no Karen on Will and Grace – not that I watch Will and Grace, because Will and Grace are BOOOOORRRRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG. Jack and Karen are much more interesting characters.

No matter what these two women were like off-screen, they were magic when the camera was on. They played off each other perfectly – and their comedy was as sharp as it was broad, as cerebral as it was slapstick. It took turns mining comic territory, taking chances with dialogue and proving that you can be gorgeous and still have fun with physical comedy.

I love her. I love them. And I miss them.

I'm amazed that Christine hasn't had more breakthrough roles. She was almost invisible in Chicago. She had a very sexy turn in The Bird Cage as Armand's ex-wife (that little dance number was very charming). There was that role in the Grinch movie. And a short-lived sitcom as a tough-talking publisher. I've seen her in some PBS versions of plays by Eugene O'Neil. She's a terrific actress.

She's so good that she's the physical model I use for a character in a play that I've been working on – Alex. Alex is nothing like Maryanne, to be honest. She's beautiful, but wounded by life and looking to start over. In my mind, it's the kind of character an actress could make pop off the screen – if I do my part right and write her with some real meat on her literary bones.

It helps me to have someone in mind as I write. It gives the dialogue a voice in my mind as I craft her words. In my mind, she does verbal battle with a character I see resembling Robert Klein. At least for now.

So I'll go back to it this afternoon, after the meeting. Now that I've had my Monday Maryann fix.

More soon.