The Women Who Loved Them

Looking back over my life, I guess I was a complete innocent. I didn't know the first thing about anything. I was in a kind of cocoon without even knowing it. Apparently nothing would ever wake me.

Then 75-year-old Tony Randall married a 25-year-old woman and my eyes were suddenly opened.

I suddenly realized that old stars and rich guys could get women, not because they were so great -- in fact they were dried up prunes like everyone else their age -- but because they were well known and rich.

Remember that starlet who died a couple years back? I'm drawing a blank on her name. Big boobs. She married an old guy, 90-something, who made a prune look like a peach. Of course he died soon after with a smile on his face, a big bright smile, nothing but wrinkles and gums.

So it started with Tony Randall. And maybe their respective ages had something to do with it, why it woke me, 75 and 25, because you don't have to know much about arithmetic to see he was three times her age. He was virtually over the hill when her dad was first winking at her mom.

Since then I've heard many other tales, including a star just recently, someone I frankly hadn't heard of before -- and I'm not proud of my ignorance, that's just the way it is -- like in his 50s, who married a 16-year-old girl. Say what?! Don't guys like that have to live at least 2000 feet from a school? But he got an exemption because he's a TV or movie star.

When you're well known like that, everything's possible, including really stupid stuff. Like the way it was with Elvis, girls scraping the dust from his license plates. I'll say that again slowly: dust from his license plates. LOL. I don't know precisely what you'd do with it. Keep it with the toenails you found in the trash, maybe. Although a toenail might be useful, like if you wanted to clone Elvis. But you can't clone a car from dust. Heh, what if you had a toenail from Elvis' trash and tried to clone Elvis and ended up with one of his hangers-on? He'd be like, "You brought me into this world, now buy me a car!"

As far as the actual Elvis, it's hard to believe he had any trouble finding women. He just flew auto pilot and they were all over him. It was a combination of his good looks and his incredible popularity and wealth. Then he died, and it makes me wonder what all the ex-girlfriends were saying, "I knew him when..." Knew him for a single night in Vegas! "Tell us the story again about you and Elvis, Grandma..."

I was at a concert by Wanda Jackson and she told us all she had a romance with Elvis, that she was one of his first girlfriends. She mentioned them kissing but didn't say anything beyond that. And coincidentally her actual daughter and granddaughter were in the audience. She gave them a shout-out. They didn't look anything like Elvis, in case you're wondering. As for me, she dated Elvis? I immediately went outside to scrape dust off her tour bus.

I'm Withholding Judgment

I'm withholding judgment till all the facts are in. OK, that's long enough. I see the resemblance.

I have spoken with John Edwards on two separate occasions. That is a true statement. Unfortunately for this article, those occasions were both in 2004 and would have no bearing on the content of this article.

Be that as it may, I am a long time fan of the phrase "love child." I used to read it in Grandma Slump's magazines all the time. Every celebrity in the '60s and early '70s had a love child, or wished they did. Some of course would be infertile, impotent, or otherwise incapable of fecundating or being fecundated. These were left with little recourse but to adopt a love child. Who all had a love child in those days? I can't remember. But those who appeared on the covers of movie magazines back then included: Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Mia Farrow, Elizabeth Taylor, Lawrence Welk, and the Lennon Sisters. Put any two together and you've got a decent love child story.

It is a cool phrase, though -- "love child." You know, it's weird, if your parents are married and they have you, you're just an ordinary kid. But if there's something illicit about it you get a much more interesting title -- you're a "love child." I remember asking Grandma what a love child was. She always tried to put things delicately back then, and I believe she said it was "a baby that two people had."

When we were kids my cousin Roto told me "a virgin" was "a woman who f***s all the time." So I asked Grandma what a virgin was. And she told me that was "a good girl." Now of course I know that Roto had it backwards and Grandma was right. As for the definition of a love child, she left out one critical piece, that the couple is not married and has been doing what Roto thought virgins did.

Then the Supremes' "Love Child" record was a biggie around '68 or '69. But I don't really remember at the time making the connection between that and the wanton activities of virgins. Looking back it was sung from the perspective of the love child, now grown up, whose Mom and Dad probably never appeared on movie magazines.

Does John Edwards have a love child? He didn't mention it in 2004. But, could be.