Opinion: Kathy Griffin on super agent Sue Mengers
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CNN’s New Year’s Eve odd couple, comic hussy Kathy Griffin and journo Eagle Scout Anderson Cooper, will host the Times Square ball drop Saturday night. Griffin, solo, is also a contributor to our Sunday Opinion pages with her D-lister’s remembrance of one of Hollywood’s quintessential A-list hostesses, super agent Sue Mengers.
When Mengers died in October, The Times’ obituary delicately called her ‘unapologetically brash.’ Griffin, unapologetically brash herself, offers a genuine appreciation and a helping of the kind of dish that nearly got her banished from Mengers’ dinner-party guest list not all that long ago.
Here’s one more Mengers anecdote, from Griffin’s collection:
One day Sue called and said, ‘I’m fixing you up with Garry Shandling the next time you come for dinner and you two are going to fall in love.’ As it turned out, I already knew Garry and liked him, but we didn’t exactly have a love connection. Still, I didn’t want to tell her that because I appreciated the thought. Next time at Sue’s, Garry showed up about a half-hour late. She was livid about that. He didn’t know he was being fixed up with me. I would kid Garry about it, though, whenever I’d see him. ‘You were supposed to fall in love with me as dictated by Sue. And everyone does what Sue says.’ Two days after Sue died, her assistant April sent a sweet email to my assistant Tiffany. At the bottom it read, ‘As a really cute side note, Sue always wanted to be the one to personally ‘find’ the right guy for Kathy.’ I know, Sue, I’m spilling a confidence again. But everyone should know -- you were an agent to the end.
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--Susan Brenneman
