 This is a story about three Safari Club Girls and a hip little frog named Fergie.
The Safari Club Girls, (Poupe, Dee and Sherry), were so named because they danced around provocatively as “birds” in cages in a disco known as The Safari Club in the movie “The April Fools,” starring the late Jack Lemmon and Catherine Denevue.
Poupe, a statuesque 38-22-35 singer-dancer in Las Vegas, was a former school teacher before she embarked on a career in show business. Dee, a busty blonde bombshell, remindful of Ann-Margret in her mico mini-skirt, was billed in the movie as “Peter Lawford’s secretary.” Sherry, a stunning internationally-known model, right off the covers of Harper’s Bizarre, was dubbed by venerable show biz critic Pericles Alexander as “a resemblance to that pizza cupcake, Sophia Loren.”
Make no mistake about it, they were strictly “eye candy,” as they say today in film and media circles. Nobody expected them to win any Oscars, unless they put in a special category at the Academy Awards for Best Box Office Attraction for Horny Old Men.
 Lemmon went on tour to promote the flick on the east coast, you know, in all the biggies like New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and so forth. The three girls went on tour in the great southwest – New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and parts unknown, otherwise referred to by Cinema Center Films and National General Pictures execs as “virgin territory.” In other words, the Bible belt in Texas, where, in those rambunctious disco days, most folks had never seen the likes of half-nekkid chicks gyrating seductively in skimpy little outfits at their friendly neighborhood disco. Much less eyeballed them up close and personal.
Come on now, man, this was before the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders became a national institution and educated all the rednecks in Texas (and throughout the world, for that matter) about how to grin and bare it and get away with it.
People in Dallas, and other parts of Texas, were not entirely naive, you understand. They’d been exposed to the likes of Jayne Mansfield, losing her bikini top at a public swimming pool, Candy Barr dancing in a G-string on stage at the Theatre Lounge, or raised hell in one of Jack Ruby’s old strip joints or witnessed Bubbles Cash strolling innocently in a mini-skirt down the steps of the Cotton Bowl. But there was nothing that had really prepared them for three gals named Poupe, Dee and Sherry. Much less ol’ Fergie the Frog.
The day I escorted my little Hollywood “girly show entrouge” over to stroll the malls at NorthPark shopping center (the picture was set to open at the NorthPark Cinema, then located across the mall parking lot), I knew exactly what would happen. That’s why I called in advance the news guys at the local ABC,CBS and NBC TV affiliates.
The girls had wiggled, jiggled and giggled perhaps about a hundred yards when all the shoppers started whistling, yelling and screaming and “all hell broke loose.” Not a riot, you understand, just local pandemonium, like what you might expect to see happen today if Pamela Lee Anderson innocently strolled the malls, sexily, in a string bikini.
Since the Dallas NorthPark mall was built by entrepreneur Raymond Nasher, it was not owned by the city. Therefore, my Safari Club Girls were not really shopping, when they paraded around bra-less in their skimpy little outfits, causing some members of the Gerital generation to have heart palpitations, they were technically trespassing on private property.
 So, here came the security officials, looking like the local S.W.A.T. team, politely telling my “peverted exhibitionists” to remove themselves quickly from the property, or they would be taken to the local police station, where they would be photographed in their skimpy outfits, fingerprinted and locked up with all the other derelicts of our society.
Luckily for me, “The April Fools” tour body guards sprang into action quickly, protected the girls from being manhandled by the security guys, and escorted them professionally to a scenic water fountain area near the exit where the TV guys were positioned perfectly to capture all their escapades for the six and ten o’clock newscasts.
While we all enjoyed ourselves during the mall incident, and achieved our goal of getting tons of free publicity for the movie, it occurred to me one night in my hotel room, that we could achieve the same purpose with less hassle if we had a good gimmick. That’s when I came up with the Fergie the Frog promotion.
 You see, in the movie, there were these touching “fairy tale like” scenes with Lemmon and Denevue, when they were apart, that gave the film its unique charm. Catherine would kiss this pet frog that others thought despicable, and, suddenly, through the miracle of Hollywood magic, it turned into a human being – more specifically, Jack Lemmon. People in the audience always “oohed and ahhed” whenever that happened.
So, I shopped around at specialty stores, looking for a stuffed frog. Unfortunately, I could never find one large enough or cute enough to accomplish what I wanted to do. So, I called a friend of mine and asked her to make me a special frog for our movie promotion.
We called him Fergie, just like the frog in the movie. He was a big fellow, and the three girls on the tour took turns carrying him around because he was so heavy. Sherry immediately became quite taken with Fergie, so I eventually assigned her the responsibility of looking after him, making sure he didn’t get left behind in the hotel room when we were packing up for the next tour stop.
 I had an artist paint this little sign that said, “Kiss, me, I’m Jack Lemmon.” We attached a red ribbon to it and hung it around Fergie’s neck. From that day on, when we made promotional appearances in shopping malls, Sherry always carried ol’ Fergie and placed him discretely on top of a table in the area where we were having our press reception. You’d be amazed how many women stood in line for hours just for the chance to kiss ol’ Fergie. It was that way in every city on our tour.
When “The April Fools” tour was over, I gave the frog to Sherry and told her to take care of ol’ Fergie and make sure he didn’t kiss anybody who was inappropriate. (Truthfully, I hated to part with Fergie. But when it came time to say goodbye to the girls, I thought Sherry was going to burst into tears when she wrapped her arms around the frog and held on to it, affectionately, like a long, lost lover).
 You could say, I guess, that taking three girls out on tour built like Poupe, Dee and Sherry was a piece of cake, but that was not the case. For one thing, it ain’t easy walking anywhere with three females, trying to do the gentlemanly-like thing of opening doors, etc. I finally gave up on protocol and decided to let the hunky body guards lead the way, while I brought up the rear. Besides, the view was better.
It never ceased to amaze me what happened at all the hotels before departing for the tour cities on our itinerary. Poupe was always running frantically from bathroom to bathroom, in the girl’s luxury suites, looking for her own personal exotic cologne, Sherry was nervously waiting for her new dresses to return from the hotel’s cleaners and Dee always managed to lose one of her specially-made bras in some unique, unsuspecting location.
Many was the time I spent a frantic 20 minutes - that seemed like two hours - crawling around the bedroom floor on my hands and knees, looking behind sofas and under the bed for the precious undergarment, wondering if we’d make it to the airport in time for takeoff.
Oh, man, it would have been terrible if we had to do it today, with all the security stuff going on at airports. I mean, it would cause a panic if one of those baggage checkers unpacked Dee’s suitcase and started tossing out crotchless Parisian lace panties, and those “Big Berta” see-through bras, not to mention her pearl-tipped vibrators.
 Once we were securely on the airplanes and airborne, the girls constantly badgered me about who was going to get the most “exposure” on the TV interviews in the next tour city as opposed to the rather unglamorous type radio shows and newspaper Q&A sessions.
Poupe and Dee never wore panties or bras for the TV shows. Cameramen had a field day in the studios, using special backlighting techniques for creative purposes and shooting all sorts of crazy stuff trying to get angles that were provocative, but acceptable with the local television censors. When in doubt, they focused their lenses mostly on Sherry, the pretty tall model who knew how to smile without having to be told to say “cheese.”
I could sense, despite her professionalism in front of the camera, that Sherry was not all that comfortable sharing the spotlight with the busty Dee and the shapely Poupe. One day during a coffee break on the tour, Sherry cornered me and said she’d like it better if I didn’t tell the media people she was an actress.
“I’m really not an actress like Poupe and Dee,” she confided. “Oh, I’ve been in a few films with cameo parts, and I played one of Omar Shariff’s girlfriends in ‘Funny Girl,’ but, basicly, I’m just a shy person who happens to have been a model.”
 Naturally, that led me to ask her why she was actively seeking a career as a movie starlet. “I’m not, really,” she observed, somewhat embarrassed. “That was the studio’s idea. They thought it would be a good way to get some good publicity to help boost my modeling career. I agreed to be in the movie because I admire Jack (Lemmon). He’s always been one of my favorites because of his unique cinematic technique. I knew I could learn a lot simply from being on the set with him.”
Sherry said she had decided to pursue an acting career, even though she wasn’t an actress, because she wanted to become a “movie sponge,” absorbing everything possible in pursuit of her goal of one day working in the profession on the other side of the camera.
 “Unfortunately,” she noted, “people look at you and say, ‘My God, woman, you’re beautiful, you’ll make a small fortune in Hollywood as an actress.’ But, that’s not what I want to do. I’m not opposed to making money, but I think there’s a place in this business for an attractive woman with brains. I intend to prove it if and when I’m given the opportunity.”
Little did I know then that Sherry Lansing would eventually become, arguably, the most powerful woman in Hollywood, who once told Life magazine there would never be a woman studio head in her lifetime. No doubt, she was happy to be wrong, when she, herself, broke the gender barrier and became the first female studio chief.
 Sherry, who became chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, admitted that the world has changed rather dramatically for women, especially for women in the motion picture business. After she made her big switch from one side of the camera to the other, Sherry began her career as a script reader. And, she managed to read some good ones in her quest for the best, such as “Silence of the Lambs,” in which Jodie Foster won an Oscar.
She admits, freely, that she was lucky there was no one ahead of her to set the standard. “I could develop my own style and way of being,” she remarked recently. “I could dress, talk and act the way I wanted.”
 Maybe reflecting a bit on her days as a Safari Girls disco dancer, hitting the road on a promotional tour for “The April Fools,” she admitted that a key change in the motion picture business today is the increased importance of marketing. When she first produced movies two decades ago, marketing was not really a big factor. “If you had a good movie, you could guarantee that people would go see it,” she said, “because they would hear about it through word of mouth.”
A few years ago she decided that thinking was no longer true, that marketing was almost as important as the movie itself. With movies opening on 3,000 to 4,000 screens, simultaneously, word of mouth was no longer the means to guarantee a hit. Two years ago, Sherry went on record that marketing had become more important than the movie, realizing that through marketing, even mediocre movies could succeed.
 I could have told her that many years ago, when we did “The April Fools” tour, but I figured she already knew that. It was a good movie, and all the hullabaloo we did, like that hokey Fergie the Frog promotion, was just icing on the cake. During that time period, the studios were turning out lots of mediocre films that were doing okay, but they were also turning out a lot of crap that were real bombs. No amount of publicity and marketing would ensure their success at the box office, no matter how much money was spent in the process.
I’m not saying that what Sherry learned on our tour was any indication, but she did manage to absorb the fact that when it all comes down to push and shove in the film business, it boils down to the fact that it’s all about content. “It’s all about what is the story you’re going to tell,” she recently told a large gathering of educators as part of a Distinguished Speaker Series. “If it’s a good story, people will see it on a cassette, DVD or on a wall, or whatever they want,” she said.
Today, as one of The Hollywood Reporter’s “100 most powerful women in Hollywood,” Sherry has reached a pinnacle no one but her probably envisioned she’d ever attain back in the days when she was lugging around Fergie the Frog from airport to airport.
As philosophical now as she was back in her youth, she recently told news reporters, “You can’t beat yourself up thinking you have to be a super woman,” she said, confidently. “You have to figure out the pieces of the puzzle and put it together in a way that gives you satisfaction.”
 Though she has attained success most people – men or women – never reach in their lifetime, Sherry has remained modest and self-assured in the process. “I genuinely enjoy my work and have enormous respect for anyone trying to make a film,” she told reporters. I remembered hearing her say something like that several years ago.
But, then, Sherry has always been her own person, with her own individual style and way of being. “Basicly,” she noted, recently, “you are who you are.”
Somehow, I figure, in an old trunk, somewhere, maybe in the attic of Sherry’s house, a funky little frog named Fergie must be smiling. As if to say, “I told ya so.”
Oh, well, that’s show biz, baby.
CELEBRITY SCENE UPDATE
Celebrity Scene Monthly
Those of you who have been receiving my Celebrity Scene Weekly email edition are, no doubt, aware that you have not been receiving it weekly as usual. You probably heaved a big sigh of relief, because, you were probably having trouble finding time in your busy schedule to read the lengthy email.
I must also tell you that I had trouble finding time to write a quality ezine on a regular weekly basis. Oh, I could have slopped one out, made it shorter, done away with the pictures, any number of things. But, I believe, in the long run, that would have been a copout. I considered writing the ezine on a bi-monthly basis, but later changed my mind and decided that beginning in May, 2002, the ezine would be sent out monthly instead of weekly.
The main problem with this, as I see it, is that I will not be able to be as up to date on some of the breaking stories as I have been in the past. But, I figured, hey, let’s try it for awhile and see what happens. Hopefully, the format won’t be changed too much, though some new picture pages may be added and a Celebrity of the Month will be selected along with their address and/or email, in case you feel like corresponding.
In the future, hopefully, guest celebrities will also contribute columns as well as some humorous stories and quotes. I hope you like the new version. You know what they say in show business, “No matter what happens, the show must go on.”
DON ALY’S HOLLYWOOD
“In Hollywood, marriage is based on the theory that one party should get their act together and take it on the road.”
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