Filmmaker Peter McDowell ("Jimmy In Saigon"): "I'm a Big Tracker-Downer"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Release Date: 06/16/2022
Actor Marc Samuel (The Merry Gentlemen): "I Call It The 'Hold In A Fart' Look"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor Marc Samuel to talk about his two new Netflix projects; the holiday film The Merry Gentlemen and the Ted Danson comedy series Man On the Inside. The Merry Gentleman is like a holiday twist on The Full Monty with Marc playing a reluctant male stripper who, along with his pals, puts on an exotic male review show to save their small town theater. Marc talks about performing the various dance numbers, working opposite male lead Chad Michael Murray, getting in shape for the role and what it's like to work for Netflix generally. He also talks about Man On the...
info_outline
Alexis Spraic & Prudence Fenton from the documentary The World According to Allee Willis: "If It's Not Blowing Your Dress Up, Go Get Ice Cream"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by two women from the documentary The World According to Allee Willis; director Alexis Spraic and Executive Producer Prudence Fenton who was also Allee's life partner. Allee Willis, who passed away on Christmas Day in 2019, is primarily known as a a songwriter (Earth Wind & Fire's "September" and "Boogie Wonderland," the Friends theme song, The Color Purple musical) but she was also an accomplished visual artist, collector of kitsch, wild party thrower and internet entrepreneur. Alexis talks about what drew her to Allee as a film subject, sorting through...
info_outline
Author David Ciminello (The Queen of Steeplechase Park): "Deep Inside Me Beats the Heart of a Bodacious Burlesque Queen"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by author David Ciminello to discuss his delicious debut novel The Queen of Steeplechase Park which is the story of an irrepressible Coney island burlesque queen and meatball entrepreneur named Belladonna Marie Donato. David talks about how the character is inspired by his larger-than-life great aunt Emily who was, in fact, a burlesque performer on Coney Island and actually won a trophy for Best Bust for her 38 DDDs. David also talks about how he got the book published, how he chose the mouth-watering recipes that appear throughout the book and the spontaneous reading...
info_outline
Excerpts from The MisMatch Game: 20th Anniversary Show
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
This episode features excerpts from Dennis Hensley's THE MISMATCH GAME: 20th Anniversary Edition which happened on September 28th, 2024 at the LA LGBT Center's Renberg Theatre in Hollywood. The super-sized panel consisted of Jackie Beat as Bea Arthur, Danny Casillas as Reba Areba, Daniele Gaither as Oprah Winfrey, Tom Lenk as Zooey Deschanel and Heidi Klum, Sam Pancake as Lucille Ball, Felix Pire as Ricardo Montalban, Chris Pudlo as Pee-wee Herman and Lory Tatoulian as Melania Trump. And the questions, which were pulled from past shows, featured Mariah Carey, George Takei, Oprah, Melania and...
info_outline
Actor-Producer Emerson Collins (Buyer & Cellar): "You Have To Celebrate The Rung Of The Ladder That You're On"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor Emerson Collins who is currently starring in the one-man play Buyer and Cellar by Jonathan Tolins at the Whitefire Theatre in Los Angeles. The play is a "What if?" story about an underemployed actor who gets a job working in the mall in Barbra Streisand's basement. Emerson talks about what drew him to the play, shares his favorite moment in the show and recalls his harrowing first audition, which happened days after he had emergency appendix surgery. He also talks about working as a producer for writer-director Del Shores (Sordid Lives), getting discovered by...
info_outline
Author Frank DeCaro (Disco): "It Was About Fabulousness. Are You Fabulous?
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by author Frank DeCaro to discuss his gorgeous and glittery new coffee table book Disco: Music, Movies and Mania Under the Mirror Ball. Frank talks about why he wanted to write about disco, what makes a song a disco song, the MAGA-esque Disco Demolition riot that helped kill disco fever in the U.S. and the long list of unlikely performers who jumped on the disco bandwagon like Bill Cosby, Frank Sinatra, Ethel Merman and the cast of the TV cop show Barnaby Jones. Frank and Dennis also discuss their affection for disco fashion, from polyester shirts to Angels...
info_outline
Author Stan Zimmerman ("The Girls: From Golden To Gilmore") Part 2: "The Friggin’ White Board Scared The Hell Out Of Me"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis continues his conversation with TV writer Stan Zimmerman, author of the memoir The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore. In Part 2, Stan talks about working on the Gilmore Girls and learning to write dialogue in the show's unique, fast-paced style. He also talks about the humiliating T-shirt gift he got from Roseanne and Tom Arnold while working on Roseanne, taking random meetings with icons like Diana Ross, Goldie Hawn, Joan Collins and Pia Zadora, being a judge/mentor on the Bravo reality show Situation: Comedy, getting into playwriting and directing theater later in his career and...
info_outline
TV Writer & Author Stan Zimmerman (The Girls: From Golden To Gilmore) Part 1: "I Wanted To Be An Ernie Flatt Dancer On The Carol Burnett Show"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by television writer Stan Zimmerman to talk about his memoir The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore, which documents his career working on such iconic shows as Roseanne, The Golden Girls and Gilmore Girls as well as The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel. In this first part of a two-part interview, Stan talks about his midwest upbringing and how his mother bought him the ballet shoes he wanted behind his father's back. He also talks about meeting his longtime writing partner Jim Berg, why they work wll together and how they landed a gig on the first season...
info_outline
Actors Michael Sturgis & Sean Luc Rogers (Clarkston): "A Genuine Dinner at the Costco Food Court"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by actors Michael Sturgis & Sean Luc Rogers from the Echo Theater Company's production of Samuel D. Hunter's play Clarkston, which is playing at the Atwater Village Theatre in LA through October 21. Here's the synopsis: "Welcome to Clarkston, Washington, where Jake (Michael) and Chris (Sean) meet working the night shift at Costco. Jake, a middle-class, educated new hire who’s a distant relative of explorer William Clark, has fled his privileged life in Connecticut after being diagnosed with a serious illness. Chris, a would-be writer with a meth-addicted mom, is...
info_outline
Actor-Singer-Influencer Garrett Clayton: "I Just Want To Be The Boy Version Of Thoroughly Modern Millie"
DENNIS ANYONE? with Dennis Hensley
Dennis is joined via Zoom by actor-singer-dancer-influencer Garrett Clayton to discuss his new cabaret show Hero To Villain, which hits LA on September 19 and Palm Springs on September 21st. Garrett talks about the journey of the show, which takes the audience from Garrett's good guy role in Disney's Teen Beach Movie to his more recent stage work, playing villains in shows like It: The Musical and Excorcistic. He also talks about ditching his wholesome Disney image to play real life gay porn star Brent Corrigan in the 2016 film King Cobra opposite Christian Slater, James Franco and Alicia...
info_outlineDennis connects via Zoom with filmmaker Peter McDowell whose documentary Jimmy In Saigon is showing at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on Sunday, June 19th at 1:15 PM at the historic Castro Theater and will be available to stream nationwide through Frameline.org from June 24th to 30th. The Frameline program describes the film this way: "When his golden-haired, blue-eyed brother Jimmy mysteriously died in Vietnam in 1975, gay filmmaker Peter McDowell was just a kid, growing up within his family’s veil of silence. As an adult, armed with a video camera, Peter embarks on a quest to uncover the possibly queer brother he never knew." He talks about the 12-year odyssey he embarked on to make the movie, the use of animation in the fim, what his family thinks of the finished movie and Jimmy's quest to "explore hedonistic pleasures like never before." Other topics include: taking Uber motorcyles in Saigon, the regular Zoom meetings he has with groups of documentarians that keep him motivated, why the movies All That Jazz and Hair rocked his world, feeling connected to Harvey Milk, his ex-boyfriend-turned-Executive Producer Dan Savage, coming out in the mid-80's, his tips for tracking down people in other countries who haven't been heard from in decades and the beauty of brutal honesty.