"You think just because you’ve made a little money you can get a new hairdo and turn into a lady. But you can’t, because you’ll never be anything but a common frump whose father lived over a grocery store and whose mother took in laundry!"

That was Ann Blyth at her malicious peak in 1945’s "Mildred Pierce,’ ripping into anguished mom, Joan Crawford. (Ms. Blyth spent most of her screen career chirping prettily in musicals, but her amoral Veda Pierce is unforgettable.)

***

It is unlikely that anything can truly surpass the classic movie version of "Mildred Pierce," based on the bestseller by James M. Cain. Crawford won an Oscar and resurrected her career with this grim noir about mother’s love gone awry. (As Eve Arden wisecracks to Mildred, "Alligators have the right idea, they eat their young.")

But how fascinating is the news that Kate Winslet is set to reprise ambitious-but-put-upon Mildred, in a six-part miniseries that will include all that could not go into the big-screen version? (Cain’s heroine was considerably grittier than 1940’s movie censors allowed.)

This new "Mildred" will be made for cable, because the lush miniseries genre – which peaked in the 1980s/’90s – is pretty much dead on network TV. No room for glamorous drama when reality-show garbage dominates.

Oscar-winner Winslet will probably be terrif – what a role to sink one’s teeth into! (Entertainment Weekly, in reporting on this, said flatly, "Just give her the Emmy now.") But director Todd Haynes is going to be hard-pressed to find the right supporting actors to flesh out Mildred’s story. The above-mentioned Eve Arden, the great Jack Carson as Mildred’s smarmy would-be beau and the suave sophisticate Zachary Scott as the man between Mildred and Veda. But most of all, the role of Veda, the daughter from hell, is a challenge. Christina Ricci has the right nasty edge, and though she is about 30, still looks teen-age.

But if you want a young beauty who will be convincing slapping her mother around, sleeping with mom’s lovers, blackmailing and putting bullets in those who irk her … I vote for the talented Lindsay Lohan.

***

Received an e-mail this week from one of Hollywood’s rare professionals, the PR man Dale Olson. He was congratulating the column for writing about the Jackson family making hay on Michael.

Dale offered some interesting insider background info: "You are the only person who has come right out and said that with the exception of Janet, the Jacksons would not have had a career without Michael.

"I was there in the beginning when, at the Rogers & Cowan PR firm, Warren Cowan, Paul Bloch and I introduced the then-five-year-old Michael at a party for the press in The Daisy in Beverly Hills. It was hosted by Diana Ross. He was the cutest and most talented child I have ever seen. The next night, Diana introduced him to the public in his first public performance at her gala concert at the Forum. In those days it was the major venue for a musical act in Los Angeles.

"All the media has talked about is how he started with The Jackson Five, but this was his own start and a solo. The Jackson Five would never have worked without Michael and they used him throughout his entire life and now, with Joe, are trying to capitalize on his death."