Game Changers With Vicki Abelson Vicki Abelson

Greg Mullavey on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson

When one of my life’s heroes walks off the screen into the reals and supersedes all expectations, that’s a home run. So goes it with Mary Hartman Mary Hartman’s, Greg Mullavey. I got a taste interviewing him on the Zoom a few years ago, but this go ‘round witnessing him honoring his craft onstage at The Garry Marshall Theatre as Jules Feiffer, in The People VS Lenny Bruce, being eyeball to eyeball sans screens for the first after the show, sharing a warm hug, and culminating with this chat, a master class on auditioning, acting and keeping it real, on screen, on stage, and in life, well, wow!

We talked Greg’s early days, his pro-basball playing father, a Red Sox, a White Sox, who went on to coach the Dodgers, first in Brooklyn then in LA which got Greg to Hollywood and transitioned him from stage to screen and back again. A late bloomer, first appearing onstage in the Army post his philosophy degree, 100+ shows later from Broadway to stages across the country to Los Angeles, most recently reprising his role as King Lear, Off-Broadway, 25 years later, and hoping to do so yet again.

We talked acting school - his cronies, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, and Harry Dean Stanton, and how a certain someone scored an Easy Ride… his first TV role opposite Telly Savalas, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman––Louise Lasser, Norman Lear, Mary Kay Place, Dabney Coleman, Martin Mull, Fred Willard… Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and how both went over with his folks… meeting Meredith MacCrae, their high profile marriage, his Broadway debut (the thrill), opposite Mia Farrow, co-starring off-Broadway with Marlo Thomas, iCarly and a new generation and his ongoing important theatrical collaborations with lawyer Martin Garbus and playwright Susan Charlotte shining a spotlight on human rights.

We talked health, well-being, supplements, COVID, how he met Ariana, his partner of 25ish years, and why they made it legal. Greg’s still starring on stage appearing on screen, coaching young actors, with no evidence of slowing down. And he’s still learning lines - King Lear, for heaven’s sake. I’ll have what he’s having!

I adored Greg Mullavey before I met him - now getting to know this talented, whipsmart, inspiring, warm, kind, generous, compassionate man, I adore, more!

Greg Mullavey on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson
SPECIAL TIME **Wednesday, 7/24/24, 1 pm PT, 4 pm ET**
Streamed Live on my Facebook
Replay here:
https://bit.ly/4ddycRR

Peter Onorati Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson

SO FUN! Spending time with Peter Onorati is like going out in the bright sunshine after a month in a dark cave. Such joy! We talked Italy and the wondrous vacation he treated his immediate family to visiting their extended family in towns I’ve never heard of and can’t begin to pronounce. But, I wanna go! Then there was Ravello, Positano, SWAT recognition, Rome, truffles, and a funny one that once made it home. There’s funny all over the place with Peter.

A great story about Peter’s first son’s birth and his callback for Goodfellas - how he made the audition his - HISterical! And, a master class on how to make the audition yours… mine… ours… and some brilliant tips on acting, and reacting, in general. He disappeared for about 2 1/2 minutes when his laptop died but came back with so much more fun.

Getting blacklisted by Les Moonves, the ER debacle, to Cop Rock, the best, as a non-singing actor hired to die, singing his ass off and becoming the central character of this historic iconic, ahead of its time, classic.

Closing with a Miss Yvonne, Lynne Stewart, request, Peter regaled us with his mother/wedding story -so timely as I ready to be the mother of my daughter the bride. I’ll be shutting up now.

What a great time. Someone, make him the updated, somehow related Columbo! He’d kill it! And SWAT, get hip, his fans want him back! And so do I. Any time!

Peter Onorati on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson
Wednesday, 7/15/24, 5 pm PT, 8 pm ET
Streamed Live on my Facebook
Replay here:
https://bit.ly/3LtP8HL

Snuffy Walden Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson

Lemonade! That’s what you get when you take a brilliantly talented, supportive beau, and the greatest, most fun-loving, and devoted co-commiserators on the planet and mix them together on what could have been a rough one. My gratitude is boundless. What fun this was!

It helps when said Beau is Emmy Award-Winning Composer, Snuffy Walden, even though we didn’t really go there. From piano to trombone, finding guitar, playing strip clubs, to living in a park with his roadie, Aphrodite in Denver to fronting Stray Dog, opening for Emerson, Lake & Palmer around the world, a near-miss with me in ’74, drinking and debauchery, recording Songs in The Key of Life with Stevie Wonder, earning a platinum record, being in the passenger seat when Stevie drove––oh yes, he did; playing with Dave Mason, Donna Summer, Chaka Khan when she was breaking I Feel For You, touring with Eric Burdon, two times, and having an epiphany, thanks to longtime friend and bandmate, Michael Ruff, which would change, and save, his life.

We focused on Snuffy’s playing, rock years… check out this Stray Dog front and center https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sbEdHgb2Oo

Thirty Something, The Wonder Years, The West Wing, an Emmy Award, a dozen other Emmy nominations, 51 BMI Awards, representing over 100 TV shows followed. It’s all in the great Mark Maxey doc, Up to Snuff.
https://www.amazon.com/Up-Snuff-W-G-Snuffy-Walden/dp/B09T2BN8W4

Thanks for the thoughtful understanding, enthusiastic encouragement, sweet words, and unyielding support y’all showered us with. Special thanks to the sweetness that is Snuffy. How blessed am I?

Snuffy Walden Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson
***TUESDAY, JULY 9th, 5 pm PT, 8 pm ET***
Streaming Live on my Facebook
Replay here:
https://bit.ly/3LeoZwG

Oh, what crazy fun! Melanie Taylor who’s sung with pretty much everybody who’s anybody is such an absolute blast, joy, whip-smart, street-smart, soulful, intuitive, talented, informative, unabashedly opinionated and dare I say… right… at least, right on!

We started with traveling the world, and how Mel’s work, touring, has enabled her to do so, more to the point, how to pack, and what… I was schooled! A girly girl influenced by her stylin’ grandmother, Melanie’s got it all going on, even when she only takes one medium suitcase and a backpack for a month!

A theatre major dancer, a twist of fate/favor changed the course of Melanie’s life. She insisted she doesn’t plan. Singing was not on the program. As they say, life’s what happens when we’re busy making other plans. And what a life she’s living. From Disney to the Righteous Brothers, a Bette Harlette, backing up her fan crush, John Mayer, gushing onstage with Elton, caroling with Barbra, backing Chaka, Donna Summers, a surprise which led to being the first female to record and tour with Aerosmith, to her ongoing gig with Barry Manilow… and those are just the few we covered - and Mel’s got great stories about all of them!

Wise words on so many topics… “Music helps you to remember and helps you to forget.” I love that!

The 30 Feet From Stardom backup singer will be front and center headlining her gig on Thursday, July 18th, at the Catalina Bar & Grill in Los Angeles. We’ll meet you there!
https://www.ticketweb.com/event/melanie-taylor-the-diva-diaries-catalina-bar-grill-tickets/13614933

I LOVE this woman! Generous, present, supportive, kind, and fun, always fun! I’m gonna watch this again, take notes, and get out my Amazon!

Melanie Taylor Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson
Wednesday, 7/3/24, 5 pm PT, 8 pm ET
Streamed Live on my Facebook
Replay here:
https://bit.ly/3RV5aOG

Tom Bergeron on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson

What a blast to sit down again with the just honored inaugural recipient of The Sam Rubin Award from The Critics Choice Association and Emmy-Winner, Tom Bergeron. The humble humanitarian was as funny and feisty as ever regaling us with one show biz gold story after another and commanding us to Google what he deemed unworthy of repeating (why he left the “dancing show”). He actually scooped it on this very show almost two years ago to the day.

We started with Tom’s current FLiRT with COVID, other than some residual fatigue, in under two weeks, thankfully, it’s in the rear-view. His daily routine, well, most of it anyway, and how structure affords him freedom. We talked his and Lois’s favorite and current binges, Midsomer Murders and The Veil, for two, and favorite people. Carl Reiner, how they met, and how their friendship developed, likewise, Dick Van Dyke, and William Shatner… or Bill, as he calls him, with whom he has a show optioned - oh please let it get made so we get to be a fly on their snarky friendship wall! He told a great story about Mel Brooks and Bill Cullen.

We talked his early years - high school - as a DJ - interviewing Larry Fine and Moe Howard and surprising and delighting his classmates. His crush on “my nun,” and his surprise many years later. Getting a morning show, and then, a weekly children’s TV show, which ultimately led to…Hollywood Squares - fabulous stories about Whoopi, Simon, Gilbert! Sad sweetness about his America’s Funniest Home Videos compadre, Bob Saget, and losing John Ritter.

Tom mostly slid over “the dancing show” this go-‘round, other than his extreme gratitude and readiness after 15 years to be done with it. He said he’s done with hosting - but admits, you never know if the exact right thing were to come along… but, he’s enjoying retirement. For now. He’s writing, a novel… about 500 words a day, and he likes his characters… who knows what’ll come. I’m putting my money on that Shatner/Bergeron bromantic comedy! Come on boys, with the state of the world, we could sure use the laughs.

I adore this man, touched to the core that he remembered my Samantha when talking about his. They’re both getting married. Mazel Tovs all around! Here’s to friends who show up every two years and always bring their A game. I’ll be smiling for days.

Tom Bergeron on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson
Wednesday, 6/26/24, 5 pm PT, 8 pm ET
Streamed Live on my Facebook
Replay here:
https://bit.ly/4bookDg

Thaao Penghlis Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson

Looking as fit, youthful, and handsome as ever, thrice Emmy nominated, Thaao Penghlis, was a model of class, sophistication, charisma, and information. As has always been the case, the conversation flowed and the time flew. We talked about Thaao’s travels to Egypt and Greece, how to best visit his family’s homeland, The Lost Treasures, his podcast, his passion for cooking, his first appearance on a cooking show, and what he cooked, the recent drop of the paperback of his Seducing Celebrities One Meal At A Time, why he’s no longer on Days of Our Lives, and the illness that he faced without fear, with grit determination to best, which indeed he did. Diagnosed with colon cancer early in the pandemic, Thaao, who’s spent his life with extreme discipline––a Mediterranean diet, little to no junk food, regular exercise, daily meditation, yet he was predisposed to the disease which took his mother. With the same no-nonsense directness, Thaao faces everything in life, he took on his illness and beat it into remission, with the support of loving friends, which he credits with helping him get through the six months of hellacious chemo and radiation, where trim to begin with Thaao dropped 50 pounds. You’d never know any of that to look at him today. When last we met almost two years ago he was not quite on the other side of it but not yet ready to talk about it. Leave it to Thaao to use his challenge to be of service to others discussing it openly, including a suggestion that might ease the path for others now facing treatment. As is Thaao’s style, even this conversation was done with great good humor… culminating with a fabulous story about Robert Redford which got cut short when Thaoo’s battery died. Suffice it to say it has a happy ending with “Bob” as he calls him, being gracious and familiar.

Yes, Thaao's first cinematic starring role was in John Avildson’s, Slow Dancing in the Big City, followed by Ken Russell's, Altered States, with William Hurt, and as Dame Edna’s love interest in Les Patterson Saves the World. He also played the lead, Nicholas Black, in the television series, Mission: Impossible, and starred in several mini-series, including, Tribe, Memories of Midnight, and Under Siege. We talked about none of that. We stayed focused on his current events, the projects Thaao’s working on now with a new writing partner, and his aspiration to produce as well. The weight’s back on, he’s working out thrice weekly, and throwing his fabulous dinner parties. oh please invite me!

Spending time with Thaao is like a feast for the soul - where every course is new, exciting, and delicious, and at the same time, comforting, and familiar.

Thaao Penghlis Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson
Wednesday, 6/19/24, 5 pm PT, 8 pm ET
Streamed Live on my Facebook
Replay here:
https://bit.ly/3KXmSNn