A Marilu Henner Post—Honestly!

This morning I was talking to my friend Susan and the conversation got around to Anna Kournikova. There was a picture of Anna in the local paper because Anna rang the bell yesterday at the New York Stock Exchange.

I pointed to the picture and said, “She’s a hottie, isn’t she? A Russian girl. All my ancestors come from that fringe area between western Russia and eastern Europe.”

Susan said, “So, you like Russian girls?”

I transitioned into a Marilu Henner story.

I’m not really a big fan of Marilu Henner. She’s famous, I think, just from her role on the TV show TAXI. But I never liked that show, never watched an episode all the way through.

However, twice I saw Marilu Henner on the David Letterman show and both times she said stuff that was really interesting to me, stuff that stayed with me and continues to shape my thinking.


The first time I saw Marilu Henner on the Letterman show she said something that I brought up this morning talking to Susan.

Letterman asked Marilu Henner what type of guy she liked. Henner kind of shrugged and said something like, “You know, Dave, I just like men. This type, that type, any type at all. If they’re reasonably cool guys, I’m going to like them.”

That got a big laugh from Dave and the audience, but I thought it was a pretty cool thing to say. It seemed like a very honest thing to say, and it was something I could relate to from a male point of view.

This morning I told Susan that Marilu Henner story, then added, “I’m like the male version of her. I just like women. This type, that type, any type at all. If a woman is reasonably cool, I’m going to like her.”



Marilu Henner Versus Morgan Fairchild

I used to be a fan of Morgan Fairchild. She had odd roles in some awful TV shows that I never watched, but in interviews she always sounded kind of serious about acting and entertainment. I generally like people who take what they do seriously.

Then Morgan Fairchild appeared on the Letterman show plugging a new movie, 1982’s “The Seduction.” She starred as a beautiful TV newscaster who gets stalked by a crazy fan. She said everyone working on the movie took it very seriously and she was very proud of it and wanted everyone to go see it.

So, I went to see it and it sucked. I mean, it wasn’t just a bad film. It was one of those bad films where nobody seemed to be trying to do anything special. The script was mundane. The production was mundane. The acting was mundane. It was just a waste of time from start to finish.

The movie was so bad that I completely wrote off Morgan Fairchild in my mind. Honesty means a lot to me and there are always ways an actor or actress can plug a movie without flat out lying.

Something like ten years after I got suckered in by Morgan Fairchild to go see her awful movie, Marilu Henner appeared on the Letterman show plugging her new movie, “Noises Off.” She did a very convincing interview talking about how everyone who worked on the film had a great time and wanted to give a great performance and was so proud of the finished film.

Even though it was a decade [!] after the Morgan Fairchild thing, I was very suspicious of an actress plugging a film. But I’d always remembered that Marilu Henner had seemed like a honest person in that earlier interview about what kind of guys she liked.

So I went to see “Noises Off.”

It is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.

I mean, it is great. Whenever I’m feeling kind of sad I still watch the DVD of “Noises Off” and it is so funny—funny in a laugh-out-loud hilarious way—that it is impossible to be sad after you watch it.

There you go.

I think honesty might be the most attractive trait, the coolest trait, a person can have.

Marilu Henner is much cooler and more attractive than Morgan Fairchild.