Thursday, July 16, 2020

I Wish I'd Gone to Cornell


How much happier would we be if we all lived in Lydia Cornell's world? 


She's like the real-life version of Jane Lynch's Constance on "Party Down" ... 


where every memory involves a funny story Dom DeLuise told on the set of "Cannonball Run II." 


Here she is with Bert Convy, Nedra Volz, Shirley Jones and Marty Ingels on "Tattletales."


And on "The Love Boat," alongside Vera Miles, Evelyn Keyes, Brodie Greer and Chuck Connors, one of five appearances on Aaron Spelling's high-seas classic!


Check out the total fox she did a scene with on Aron Spelling's land-locked version of "The Love Boat," known as "Hotel."


And is there any chance she didn't f**k hunky Fred Dryer when she guest-starred on "Hunter"? I know I would have!


And then, of course, who could forget the time she and Kelsey Grammer were conned into becoming the celebrity spokespeople for a network that turned out to be a crime ring? (Wait, what?) She's been "in hiding" -- save for dozens of daily Facebook posts -- but now she's ready to tell the whole story. 

"Then I discovered that the co-counsel in our case was a convicted felon posing as a lawyer who became my stalker who was really a hairdresser who had never gone to law school. And this was the person making most of the legal decisions in our case."


As you probably know, Lydia's found fame with "Too Close for Comfort." But after two successful seasons on ABC -- benefited by being paired with other highly rated shows -- the sitcom was made a lead-in and tumbled in the ratings and was quickly canceled. But thanks to the advent of first-run syndication, the show ran for three more seasons -- the final as "The Ted Knight Show," which had already been used for his short-lived 1978 sitcom about an NYC escort service -- right up till Ted Knight's death in 1986. What seemed out of the blue at the time was actually a reoccurrence of cancer that had been first diagnosed shortly after "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" wrapped in 1977, first in the colon and then eventually in his bladder and throughout his lower gastrointestinal tract. Lest you fear this tragic event ended Lydia's career, fear not: She and TV sister Deborah Van Valkenburgh had already been written out during the fifth season, never to be mentioned again!


Deborah and Jim J. Bullock barely seem to remember the show, while Lydia sounds like she just walked off the set.

Related: Read about the episode of "Too Close for Comfort" where Monroe was raped HERE.

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