Yeah, we hear you groaning. But forget about that whole trumped-up bitch fest with Rosie O’Donnell for a sec. That may have made tabloid headlines, but this year the Bedford homeowner (or rather, mansion-owner) also made plenty of legitimate news here in Westchester. In addition to opening the doors to Trump Plaza in New Rochelle, beginning work on Trump Parc in Stamford, and campaigning to get the U.S. Open played at one of his Trump National golf courses (either Briarcliff Manor or Bedminster, New Jersey), he also erected some hard-to-miss road signs announcing Donald J. Trump State Park on the Taconic. Donating 436 acres for a park in Northern Westchester: generous. Congratulating oneself by branding your name all over the county: not exactly, to use his word, “classy.� (What’s next? Trump-onic Parkway? Trumpchester?) Some other unclassy moves: The Apprentice got its worst ratings in six seasons; his eponymous, SkyMall-esque magazine sent its backers into financial meltdown; and The Daily News reported that, to boost anemic book sales, he paid people to buy his new self-help tome, Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life.

Prediction for 2008: Trump currently has four—count ’em, four!—TV shows in production: Fox’s Lady or a Tramp, MTV’s Pageant Place, a syndicated Judge Judy/Dr. Phil-type daytime show (with Trump mediating financial disputes), and The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition for NBC. Just try to top that, Rosie!

Adapted from “People of the Year,� InTown Westchester, December 2007

(Illustration by Ismael Roldon)

Sooner or later, it seems, every A-, B-, and D-list celebrity will be forced to weigh in on where they stand on South Nyack resident Rosie O’Donnell. The latest to sound off is Hulk Hogan, who, at a press day for his new show “American Gladiators” was asked which celebrity he’d most like his gladiators to pummell.

“Without a doubt Rosie O’Donnell,” he said. “Somebody needs to shut that big mouth up.”

Rosie’s response, via her r blog in a post inexplicably titled “Dead in Iraq”:

hulk hogan
the wrestler guy
wants to pummel me
isnt that sweet
and wildly odd

its like a gang of gross guys
a club almost
old dumb white and on tv

“Hulk Wants to Pummel Rosie … and Not in a Good Way” [TMZ.com]

(AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Despite all kinds of hype—on this blog and elsewhere—it appears that Rosie O’Donnell’s tell-all memoir, “Celebrity Detox: (The Fame Game),” doesn’t quite have the demand we predicted.

Sure it had all kinds of juicy details about how the South Nyacker used to break her limbs as a child with a baseball bat and wooden coathanger, but still, that wasn’t enough to seduce book shoppers. As our Suburbarazzi poll showed, 75 percent of you have no interest in buying the book—“enough of Rosie already!” Only 11 percent said they intended to buy it, while another six percent went so far as to say they were planning a “Celebrity Detox book-burning party.” Personally, I fell into the camp of “Yes, I’d read it, but I wouldn’t pay my own cash for a copy.” In the end, though, I was content to just read a couple chapters in the Mount Kisco Borders and leave it at that.

Curious how the book’s sales have held up, I called Ingram, the largest wholesaler for independent book stores (and one of the only vendors that makes its sales data available to the public). They report that 33,247 copies of “Celebrity Detox” have sold. Generally, you can multiply that number by six in order to get a rough estimate of overall U.S. sales—so I’m figuring O’Donnell has moved just shy of 200,000 books. Not bad. Still, hardly enough to justify the hefty advance I’m sure Grand Central Publishing forked over.

Hmm, maybe passing on that Oprah interview wasn’t such a wise move after all.

While Rosie’s celebrity capital appears to be waning, will she still have enough to top our list of “People of the Year”? Check out the new poll in our sidebar and vote on who you think will be our top newsmaker—for better or worse—of 2007.

 

Two quick Rosie tidbits:

• In a recent interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (yes, seriously—she passed up Oprah and Diane Sawyer, but apparently talked with a Seattle newspaper), the South Nyack resident says that her return to playing Dawn Budge on the FX series Nip/Tuck was “fascinating” and that the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, is an “artist”—”[He] feels that the color that I create for him in Dawn Budge is something he can paint with—that’s an amazing feeling. Very different from ‘live studio audience!’ and ‘me, me, me!’ And, every time you move, being on Entertainment Tonight.” She does realize that he “painted” her as the victim of an animal mauling—with her mouth sewn up, no less—right? [via BuddyTV]

• If you haven’t already seen video of the scene that precipitated O’Donnell’s return to the show—the eagle attack on her face—you’re in for a treat. Consider it an early Xmas present. [Defamer]

Thanks to FOS Amy Vernon for the tips.

(photo: Michael Becker / FX)

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Before anyone says anything, I’ll be the first to admit it: Yes, we’ve been punditing more on RNN lately than we’ve been blogging. It’s a problem, I suspect, that’s due to a lack of tryptophan in our diet—a condition which should be easily remedied in the coming days. Prepare for an onslaught of posts in the coming weeks, as well as our holiday countdown of the top 25 Westchester and Rockland celebrities (based on the recent articles I wrote for InTown Westchester and Rockland Magazine).

In the meantime, here’s this week’s quiz. The answer is at the end of the video or after the break.

QUIZ: Which of these local LoHud celebs has not been seen supporting the striking writers on the picket line?

A. Pound Ridge’s Tim Robbins
B. South Nyack’s Rosie O’Donnell
C. New Rochelle native Jay Leno
D. Chappaqua’s Vanessa Williams

The grand arbiter of cheers/jeers-dom decided to give “Nip/Tuck” an official scoff for “going way over the top — and hitting rock bottom.” The offense? Bringing back Rosie O’Donnell’s lottery winner trailer trash alter-ego, Dawn Budge. OK, I could sort of see that … except the premise of her return excuses everything.

In the show, Rosie’s character seeks out the surgeons to repair her mouth after she’s attacked by an eagle. What’s more, the South Nyack resident has her mouth sewn shut. Who can’t see the humor in that?

And as if that isn’t enough, she’s violated by an “ass bandit.” All of which TV Guide spells out to make their case that the show deserves Jeers. But come on, honestly, if that’s not a case for an open-and-shut Cheers, what is?

“Jeers: A Less-Than-Rosie Nip/Tuck” [TVGuide]

(Nip/Tuck photo: FX)

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This week’s quiz:

Which local celebrity’s son was just elected to the position of Putnam County DA?

A. Jerry Orbach
B. Glenn Close
C. Judge Judy
D. Chazz Palminteri

The answer is at the end of the clip and after the break.

Turns out the rumors about O’Donnell going to MSNBC were true—and, sadly, Rosie managed to implode the whole deal by opening her mouth about it at a book signing in Miami. Here’s her post to r blog from yesterday:

the show that never was

msnbc
one hour
live
following keith olbermann

we were close to a deal
almost done
i let it slip in miami
causing panic on the studio end

well
what can u do

2day there is no deal
poof
my career as a pundit is over
b4 it began

just as well
i figure
everything happens for a reason
bashert – as we say

and on we go

On the heels of the report that the Nyack resident is going to be going head-to-head against Larry King, now TV Squad is reporting that the rumors are true: MSNBC is in talks to have Ro join the network. Currently that 9 to 10 p.m. time slot is occupied by the filler show Live with Dan Abrams. This AP story (on MSNBC, ironically) also confirms the report, but an exec from NBC said, “We’re far from a done deal.” Still, with each passing day, an O’Donnell-King faceoff seems more and more likely.

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

 

It was never a question of if Rosie O’Donnell would be back on TV, but when. And according to one blog, Lying on the Beach, she’s already begun to leak details of her new program at the Miami Book Fair International, where she is currently promoting her new memoir, “Celebrity Detox.”

In the midst of ranting about being canned from “The View,” the South Nyacker mentioned how she just signed a deal to host her own TV talk show. She specifically said she’d be going up against “the guy with the suspenders and the long face.” Which, presumably, was a reference to Larry King (or perhaps Ed Grimley).

According to the blog’s authors, Steve Greenberg and Lois Whitman, her publicists wouldn’t allow her to say any more than that. No word on what network will run the show (Greenberg and Whitman believe it’s CNBC), though I’d personally love to see Rosie teamed up with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. Why exactly Rosie chose to single out King as a competitor is not quite clear to me (there are plenty of other shows on during the 9pm time slot, including possibly “The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition”), but I can only assume it has something to do with King regularly inviting The Donald on to rail about Rosie.

On the podcast, the Beach bloggers also go on to say that the official announcement of Rosie’s show will come sometime next week. And of course, expect Trump to be on Access Hollywood or Extra two to three hours thereafter.

“Rosie to host her own TV talk show” [Lying on the Beach]

(O’Donnell: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong; King: AP Photo/Diane Bondareff)

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This week’s quiz: When Pound Ridge resident Tim Robbins took the Webster Hall stage at an Oct. 17 tribute concert, he sang songs originally performed by the artist being honored that night. Who was this man of honor?

A. Bob Dylan
B. Woodie Guthrie
C. Pete Seeger

The answer is at the end of the video or after the break.

Actor, author and former talk-show host Charles Grodin will be heading to the North Castle Public Library in Armonk at 8 p.m., Nov. 10 for a free event to discuss his new book, “If I Only Knew Then.”

Grodin, who had prominent roles in “Midnight Run” and the “Beethoven” franchise, will chat in Whippoorwill Hall about his new book, which includes autobiographical essays about lessons learned by South Nyack resident Rosie O’Donnell, Walter Cronkite, Shirley Maclaine, Paul Newman, Carol Burnett, Regis Philbin and Robert Redford. Grodin, who appeared as a commentator on “60 Minutes II” a few years ago and as a CNBC talk show host in the late ‘90s, also wrote an off-Broadway play called “The Right Kind of People” in 2004.

The western Connecticut resident’s no stranger to Westchester County libraries. On April 28, 2002, he appeared at the New Rochelle Public Library as part of an annual CelebriTea event to raise money for that facility.

I’ll be chatting with Grodin this Wednesday afternoon and posting some highlights on Suburbarazzi soon thereafter. So stay tuned!

(Photo by Andrew McKoy/The Journal News)