![]() DeGeneres herself was subject to death threats. In a 2019 interview, Dern recalled cops sweeping the soundstage for bombs during rehearsals and said she struggled to find work for almost a year afterward. One group ran a full-page advert in Variety charging ABC with promoting homosexuality. Jerry Falwell christened DeGeneres “Ellen DeGenerate” and joined other prominent rightwingers in a public letter denouncing the episode. JCPenney and Chrysler were among the biggest sponsors to pull ads. The episode was celebrated in the LBGTQ+ community, but was also the focus of immense backlash. The show title – the Puppy Episode, chosen expressly to throw off the scent – indeed wound up surprising 42 million viewers, the most ever for the series. The sitcom revelation, the first of its kind on network TV, put to rest years of audience speculation and network suspicion about Ellen’s on-screen character. In 1997, at the height of her pre-daytime popularity, DeGeneres came out as a lesbian to Time magazine and on the Oprah Winfrey Show then on DeGeneres’s own sitcom, her character came out – to a therapist played by Winfrey, and to a love interest played by Laura Dern. The show was a ratings hit and a critical darling that earned DeGeneres three Emmy nominations. Finally in 1994 ABC built a sitcom around her called Ellen, about a neurotic LA bookstore owner, that also featured a pre-Entourage Jeremy Piven. First came the headlining club gigs, then coveted spots on high-profile TV comedy specials, then cameos in Coneheads and other slapstick films. I found out later I’d been working a factory for two years.”) After her five-minute set, host Johnny Carson waved her over to the open seat next to him, the ultimate stamp of approval, and told her she was welcome back any time.Īfter that anointing, DeGeneres’s career followed the classic star-making blueprint of that decade. “I remember, I was coming home from kindergarten … Well, they told me it was kindergarten. (“My parents were extremely cruel to me,” she joked. In her maiden appearance on the Tonight Show in 1986 a mulleted DeGeneres cracked up the crowd with family stories delivered with the most efficient language, in the driest tone. ![]() In the 1980s, you would have been hard pressed to name another female comic besides Roseanne Barr who had as much heat as the Louisiana-born DeGeneres, whose personable, observational style had many calling her the “female Seinfeld”. The end of the Ellen show leaves a hole in the daytime lineup.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |