Day 155 - Bruce Vilanch

Shelly Goldstein is a writer-performer who has written for every genre of TV, film and stage. Her one-woman shows play to sell-out crowds throughout the US and UK and she recently wrote the comedy special WAIT! WAIT! DON’T KILL ME & performed in it with Lily Tomlin, Pete Holmes, Kevin Nealon & Margaret Cho. She created the sitcom BINGO with Bruce Vilanch and was Script Consultant & lyricist on Liongate’s UK/European series, COLD COURAGE. Her song “England’s White Rose” is on the Sony Soundtrack CD. She wrote the Emmy winning PBS musical special, CHICAGO VOICES. Her lyric ILLINOIS was sung by the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus in the documentary LINCOLN IS CRYING.

She has written (or re-written) sitcoms, dramas, screenplays, lyrics, docus, animation, award shows, jokes & special material for (partial list) Stephen Colbert, Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Sacha Baron Cohen, Pete Holmes, Sharon Stone, Jay Leno, Regina King, Tiffany Haddish, Barbra Streisand, Hugh Jackman, Leslie Odom Jr., Chris Pratt, rocker Joe Walsh, Larry Wilmore, Danny Trejo, Daveed Diggs, Kal Penn, Carol Burnett, J Lo, Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel, Laurence Fishburne, Jane Fonda, Isaiah Mustafa, Conan O’Brien, Chris Martin, Dick Van Dyke, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Diane Keaton, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Henry Winkler, Robin Roberts, Quincy Jones, Demi Moore, Al Roker, Michael McKean, Eric McCormack, Cindy Crawford, Kaia Gerber, Phil Rosenthal, Norman Lear, Prince Albert & Princess Charlene of Monaco, George Tenet and Yoko Ono.

She is the go-to writer for events that combine style, humor … Read More

One of the most sought-after jokesmiths in the entertainment industry, Bruce Vilanch has become a recognizable face in his own right, thanks to the feature-length documentary “Get Bruce!” (1999) and his one-time stint as a regular on “Hollywood Squares” (1998 ), for which he also served as head writer.

Mr. Vilanch was born in New York on November 23, 1948, but was adopted by the Vilanch’s–his late father, Jonas, an optometrist and his mother, Henne, a former Broadway show girl–and then grew up in Patterson, New Jersey. He has a very special bond with Henne and according to him, gets a lot of his show biz humour from her.

“She’s as obsessed with image as famous people,” Vilanch says of his mother, his hands making the kind of hyper motions that indicate adoration of the stage veteran. “When I was little, the house had what she called the showcase room. The furniture was all wrapped in plastic and nobody except company could go into it. Of course she took the plastic off then. A few years ago, the dog discovered the room, ripped through the plastic and ruined the upholstery. She called me and said she was going to redecorate it. And when I asked her what excuse she would use, she said, ‘I’m telling people it’s because Sonny Bono died.”

Known for his eclectic eyewear and collection of unique T-shirts, he began as a child model for Lane Bryant, but when his initial efforts as an actor came to naught, he became an entertainment writer for the Chicago Tribune instead. Impressed by his review of her cabaret performance in 1970, Bette Midler hired him to… Read More