Remember the days when only men-Joey Bishop and Regis Philbin; Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon-could rule TV talk shows?
Make way, buddy boys, for the First Ladies of Talk TV: Linda Dano and Dee Kelly, the only two females in America to cohost a nationally syndicated show. Called ”Attitudes,” it premiered three years ago on Lifetime-the increasingly successful cable channel targeted toward the uppy-yuppie woman of today. ”Attitudes,” airing at 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, has since become one of the most talked about talk shows on the air, and its hosts have become stars. Indeed, they recently received the recognition of several full-blown spoofs on ”Saturday Night Live.”
Says Dano of ”SNL” comedian Nora Dunn`s brilliant parodies of her:
”She really has me down, and am I flattered.”
In a sense, the snippy ”SNL” satire had ”Attitudes” down just right. The hour-long show is just girl talk. It`s gabby, giggly, glib. What`s gotten everyone talking is that finally girls-er, women-are the ones doing it.
They`re also producing, promoting and directing it. Of 25 ”Attitudes”
staffers, only 4 are men. Although the range of topics under discussion is often mundane fare-from home pregnancy test kits to pottery displays, hang-gliding to hangovers, driftwood to divorce-the more serious segments reflect the distinctly feminist flavor of the cast and crew: prenuptial agreements, abortion, the antics of expectant fathers-as seen solely by women, of course.
With humor and heatedness, audience participation and a few celebrity guests tossed in, Dano and Kelly-television`s newest, sexiest galloping gourmets-have spiced up the routine recipe for talk TV by adding hefty helpings of women`s rights.
Kelly is blond and thirtysomething, Dano is brunet and fortysomething. Kelly, who is new to the show (former cohost Nancy Glass left after 2 1/2 seasons), is a fledgling actress and veteran singer. Dano is a veteran television actress best known as romance novelist Felicia Gallant on the NBC soap opera ”Another World.” Together, the statement they make comes across as clear as no-cal Jell-O: Given a fair shake of airtime, women can be just as smart-and stupid-as men.
They`ve come a long way, and boys, do they know it.
”At first, I was scared to death,” says Dano, thinking back three years to the first time she was asked to cohost the show. ”You know how actors on talk shows get very opinionated and obnoxious? That`s always made me crazy.” At the time, the steadily employed soap actress (previously on ”As the World Turns” and ”One Life to Live”) was fully committed to ”Another World.” But ”Attitudes” execs won her over, she said, when they promised,
”You can be yourself.”
Says Dano: ”I realized I wouldn`t have to pretend, lie or become an authority on anything. We`re really just two girls hanging out across the kitchen table. I don`t know of any other show on the air that is like that.” Indeed, unlike their forefathers on talk TV, Dano and Kelly are All Girl: intellectually pure, emotionally pliant, never pompous, easy, fey.
And, unlike the mixed-message male/female duos of daytime TV, they prove a more important point. Says Kelly: ”Women can work together.”
So out with the buddy system, in with these two young biddies in love.
”From Day 1 on this show people have acted like it`s such a shock that two women don`t hate each other,” fumes Dano. ”Women don`t have to be competitive, as long as they don`t have egos the size of Brooklyn.”
Indeed, both women are ambitious. Both are beautiful. Both have great gams, although in a way Dano has a leg up on Kelly. ”I`ve been around longer,” muses the 45-year-old star, 13 years older than her fellow host.
”But the whole trick in life is not to be dead.”
On ”Attitudes,” Dano is the bold, brazen Big Sis. The Manhattanite with the bag of lightly bawdy jokes-tongue-in-cheek tales about powdering the bedsheets in the morning in case you get lucky on the subway or whacking your man`s head with a (hardcover) copy of ”The Modern Woman`s Guide to Life.”
Kelly is the slurpy-silly, supine blond from Bayport, Long Island. Her strengths are a soft smile, an amazing size 6 waist and all the winsome sweet insecurities of youth. Recently, while interviewing the first woman to climb Mt. Everest, she fixed a glittering green-eyed gaze on her guest to ask the question that concerned her most: ”How do you go to the bathroom at 12,000 feet?”
During tapings at the famed Astoria Studios in Queens, New York City, Dano greets her audience with arms outstretched, like the Queen of Comedy. Flashing the banging baubles and mountainous shoulder pads made even larger than life by Nora Dunn in the ”SNL” spoofs, Dano claims that people like her because she`s ”passionate and down-to-earth.”
But if Dano knows her mind, Kelly knows her cues-or at least when Dano gives them. On a recent show, as Kelly mouthed off about what she calls
”metaphysical things”-”Did you know that during sleep, your consciousness leaves your body?”-Dano quickly brought her back to earth-and to her body-with dreams of banana splits.
Like Joan Lunden in her David Hartman days, Kelly knows her place. And is proud of it. Besides, were it not for Dano, she might still be crooning pop tunes in New York nightclubs and doing commercials by day.
”I went from Charmin to Fred the Furrier-from glamor to Mom and back again,” she says.
Then came ”Attitudes.” Dano had a strong say in choosing the woman to replace Nancy Glass (she said she decided to leave because she got tired of commuting from Philadelphia). In a three-month nationwide talent search,
”Attitudes” execs considered some 3,000 submissions from unknowns and celebrities (including actress Brenda Vaccaro), then brought the finalists to Dano, who privately wined and dined them before doing nine test shows.
Then came the delightfully disarming Kelly. ”She`s bouncy and full of life,” says Dano. ”She`s lighter than Nancy, who has a (television)
reporting background.”
At first, Kelly says, she was ”a little nervous” about doing the more serious segments on the show, but Dame Dano reminded her that she, too, was once terrified by ”the enormous responsibility to understand and get information out there without sounding like an idiot.”
Both hosts take pains to differentiate between ”Attitudes” and the channel on which it appears. While Lifetime may be pitched toward today`s well-heeled woman-too smart to accept discomfort from either spiked heels or men, as the steady stream of shoe ads say-”Attitudes,” insists Dano, ”is for any woman, any age, who wants to hang out.”
Hanging out is hard work for these two. The pressure of the job ”is okay,” says Dano, ”as long as you get sleep and get along with your husband.” She`s on her third one now: ”It took me a long time to get it right.”
Says Kelly, who is separated: ”I`m too busy for marriage.”
Ironically, although both make a business of talking to America`s moms, neither has children of her own. ”I tried forever to get pregnant,” says Dano. ”If it happened now, I`d be the oldest living pregnant woman on earth.”
For now, both are furiously focused on their careers. And their creed-which is the same, whether braving a triathlon or a new diet: Ladies, don`t give up on your goals. Be creative with obstacles. Take control of your life. So what if Phil Donahue or Oprah Winfrey have said it before? From the mouths of Linda Dano and Dee Kelly, it`s history in the making, girls.
