Does anyone other than me remember when you could buy a special kind of stamp that “guaranteed” quick mail delivery? Does anyone other than me remember telegrams and going backstage at theaters to see the “instant” words of the famous pasted on Western Union paper in strips and affixed to the walls? Does anyone other than me remember when newspapers rolled out sudden news-breaking editions with actual live newsboys walking the streets yelling, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it.” (I remember the last time I saw that, back in 1935 when Will Rogers died in an Alaskan plane crash.)

And these days, we are worrying about letting the Internet get to us on airplanes, so that we are never even a minute out of touch.

Well, there are a few things I want to say that aren’t earth-shattering but are still important. For instance, the Whoopi of wOw is getting set to star in a reading of a play to benefit the terrific charity Friends in Deed, which keeps the Crisis Center for Life-Threatening Illness in business helping people for free, especially those with HIV/AIDS. 

On March 23, Whoopi, who never rests on her laurels and has 17 projects in the hopper while she appears on “The View” five days a week, will do another good deed in a naughty world. She’ll star, alongside that fabled twosome of drag – Charles Busch and Lypsinka – in a reading of the late Jimmy Kirkwood’s play about two American divas – “Legends!” “Mad Men” actor Bryan Batt is also in this event.
      
FriendsInNeed.org

Kirkwood, who won a Pulitzer for “A Chorus Line,” died of AIDS all too young back in 1989. Shortly before his untimely death deprived the theater world of his burgeoning talent, he had written “Legends!” This very funny play never made it to Broadway.

It was about great ladies of the stage attempting their comebacks and it will be a natural for those fascinating drag stars, Mr./Ms. Busch and Mr./Ms. Lypsinka. With Whoopi in attendance.

I saw this work of Kirkwood’s in Los Angeles  back in the ’80s. It starred Mary Martin and Carol Channing. At the time, Mary, long gone from her glory days, could not remember her lines and had to wear an earpiece for prompting. Carol was still hale and hearty after years of doing “Hello, Dolly!” In this outing, she was doing her best to out-Tallulah the real Tallulah Bankhead.

I enjoyed “Legends!” and, later, when Joan Collins and Linda Evans, the onetime stars of “Dallas,” attempted it out of town hoping to come to New York, I loved it again.

So if you have the opportunity, call 1-212-307-4100 and buy a ticket for Whoopi’s one-night-only presentation at Town Hall on March 23. Tickets are also available at Ticketmaster.

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While I am writing of wOw women, we have two of our own hitting the magazine prints this month in Vanity Fair magazine’s March issue. It is chock-full of goodies about, of course, Hollywood. Therein, the article by Todd Purdum, titled “Children of Paradise,” concerns itself with the idealized lives of Beverly Hills babies in the Golden Age.

Vanity Fair, March ‘09

Included in a large cast were Mia Farrow, Liza Minnelli, Tina and Nancy Sinatra, Jamie Lee Curtis, Barry Diller, Nora Ephron, R. J. Wagner, Michael Douglas, Jane and Peter Fonda and many others with starry or VIP parents. And in the middle – our very own Candice Bergen and Marlo Thomas!