Diva Dona Returns to Dish the Biz - January, 2011

Welcome dolls, to a brand new me! It's 2011 and I'm so excited! This joint we call Hollywood is jumpin! Let's see what there is to dish:

Woaa! Is that James Franco, aka James Dean, photographed by Terry Richardson for Candy Magazine? Yup, Franco, it is and what an elegantly handsome broad.... I mean woman he makes! Almost as seductive as the drag Patrick Swayze did on film in To Wong Foo... This is tres chique, charmante - a truly lasting look ... I will never see little Jimmy Franco the same way again ... without registering his other side! I'm a fine one to talk about other sides, but, darlings, they do exist, so why keep them hidden in the closet. It's psychologically damaging and creates gas. It'll kill you! You gotta let it out and Be Whatcha Are! No negative dish here, I love it!
And by the way speaking of glamorous dames, is there a finer singer/interpreter of song than Miss Toni Morrell who just closed her Remembering the Ladies at the El Portal Forum Theatre on New Year's Eve? She puts the wonder in wonderwoman...! Look below as she shares offstage afterglow with Don and friend Vicki Pacifico, who described herself as a friggin' midget next to the tall Toni...the dear! (photo by Toni's hubbie David Dial)

Anyway, what about more of the latest breaking - broken? - dish! That's right broken dish, where you get the knife in and turn it! We're not all perfect after all. Well, here are a couple of my predictions for 2011. Mel Gibson? Stop thrashing him! Ignore him! Maybe he'll eventually go away like the plague. Joan Rivers? That's right, dolls, she's got a brand new cable series - reality, of course - with her daughter Melissa. Who else? She's her best friend. Joan is one hilarious bitch! I love her endurance, lifts or not. She goes on and on and ... So what if she'll bend over one of these days and her face falls off; I'll still love her, so I predict her new show will be a great big hit! Rivers has spunk. She's the best! Go get 'em, girl!!
Sad, sad, sad! ATWT (As the World Turns) was cancelled in 2010. I'm heartbroken, my dears! Do you know, in 1956, at 10 years of age, I used to sneak in when my mommy wasn't looking and tune in to this soap - I mean daytime drama - to watch Penny (Rosemary Prinz) and Jeff (Mark Rydell), the oh so perfect couple of 1956? Their relationship was scandalous for those times. And those great writers kept ATWT going for 54 years. What mayhem; plots that could have been taken right out of my very own life! Well, no more, this show is gone! Less soap and more reality! That's what the people want! Less soap and more dirt! Yeahhh! ...
I predict ... Maybe I'll do ...  my own reality show...Diva Dona Agrees: Blondes Do Have More Fun...

no, no, no ...  absolutely not! C'mon, it's beneath me; I'm not a trash bucket like the Kardashians: I'm a class act and I want something classy and until I find the right vehicle - I hate that word; it's not a car... ACT that's it, act - you, my precious dolls, are stuck with me right here, so stay tuned for a fabulous New Year 2011 with columns that'll knock those socks right off of you.

Parting advice? Well, to quote Lady Gaga:

Tonight I will return all the fame and riches earned,
with you I'd watch them all be burned
 I'm Beautiful In My Way,
Cause God Makes No Mistakes,
I'm On The Right Track, Baby
I Was Born This Way 

 Don't Hide Yourself In Regret 

Just Love Yourself And You're Set
I'm On The Right Track Baby,
I Was Born This Way.

Who am I to contradict? It works for her!! She's really out there. Well, so am I and ... I'll be back in February with lots of hearts afire! That's right, dolls, it's LOVE month! xxx

One last comment. There seems to be at least one very good reason to go to Hair at the Pantages through January 23rd: Steel Burkhardt as Berger. Like the entire cast, he is very revealing at the Act I finale: He set my heart aflutter as he rushed past my seat several times throughout the evening.

Am I becoming trashy? Ah well, a little spice is good for the complexion!
Hurrah! There's still fire in the old girl yet!

lol

Dona

Diva Dona Bio

Dona Eduardo Gregorio was born in Brooklyn, New York to Madge McConnell and Donato Feliciano Gregorio in 1946. She claims to have burst into the world screaming "Brava, brava, brava!"

At least that's what her dear mother Madge told her at a tender age. Madge was known to throw back a few on a daily basis, so it's difficult to determine the accuracy of any of her statements.


(Dona at two months, already posing
 and flaunting her special tude)


An only child - rare for an Italian family, but Donato left Madge after a year - Dona attended the High School of Performing Arts but dropped out in her senior year due to artistic differences. She claimed her teachers abused her; they responded that she just couldn't cut the mustard. "If only Madge had been a stage mama and stood up and fought for me, I might have been a star today." Rejected by every drama school on the Eastern seaboard, Dona fled to Italy where she spent 25 years as a student of Roberto Fussolini, who, she insists, taught her good breeding and the means to support herself as a singer, actress and writer. She was quoted, "These years are the highlight of my life, and Roberto is an angel". She married Fussolini in 1988, but divorced him after a short six months. Soon after, Fussolini was arrested for illegal prostitution (Yes, even abroad, you can go too far!) and Dona fled the country. She refuses to discuss her marriage to him. To one interviewer, she was heard to shriek "Que bruto! Ugly c- - -  s- - - - - - pig!" Dona brought her ailing mother over to Italy and cared for her until her death in 1985. "If only mama had stayed off the sauce, she could have been something!"

                            (Mama in 1962 - in her prime!)

Back in New York, Dona persevered and her first tell-all book How I Learned to Survive My Brooklyn Neighborhood as an Underappreciated Child Prodigy was an instant bestseller in 1989. She topped that with her first film That Damned Homophobic Village in 1990, which earned her a Golden Globe for best screenplay and an Oscar nomination in the same category. In the 90s Dona wrote a column for the Village Voice on Broadway Celebrities and won a Peter Fuchs Award and garnered a Pulitzer nomination for her special at home, up close and personal interview with Patti LuPone - "A brilliant fellow diva, who has since won a second well deserved Tony Award for Gypsy." It is LuPone who christened her Diva Dona, as the two became bosom buddies. Dona yearns to play Vera to La LuPone's Mame, or is it the other way around?
                                                                                                                      
A vibrant woman and superb writer, Diva Dona will begin a second column right here in January, 2011. She asks that you forget her contributions from May - August of 2010, as they were "totally beneath my talent and expertise.  I was going through a rough time and friend Don Grigware offered me a chance to write for his website. I thought I really screwed up, but dear Don is giving me a second chance. Bless you, dear Don! You are number one and put the doll in dollcakes!"

"I am really looking forward to dishing in my new column. Love these new Hollywood celebs, but, watch out, if you do it, I'll report it! Dona's back in town!"

ps "I understand my pal Patti LuPone is possibly returning to Broadway in Hello Dolly. Great role for her; she was born to play Dolly Levi. Every diva should - even I have my claws...I mean feelers out!!!"

Avatar Freak

Dona is an Avatar freak: this is what she'd look like in full makeup:

Last Week in HOLLYWOOD

Dona Does Vegas

Just in time for New Year's, dolls!

The Whole Wide World Loves Diva Dona

Diva Dona Craves PR

When Hugh called and asked me to do the cover, I immediately thought "Nude centerfold!" Surprise, surprise...Nope! Well, it's just as well; there's enough tragedy in the world without my exposure adding to it. Happy, merry and come back for my first new column right here in January 2011! Let's dish the biz!!!!