A gay icon and a comedy legend!
Perez recently sat down with the oh-so-fabulous Sandra Bernhard to dish the dirt!
We chatted about the exciting new project she just did with former costar Roseanne, her new album, her long career in show business, her early beginnings as a manicurist (really!), some fun tidbits on Phyllis Diller, being a mom to a teenager, the new musical she wrote and so much more.
Read some highlights from our chat… after the jump.
And watch our interview in full above!!!
Perez Hilton: Here’s a question, I don├óΓé¼Γäót know if you get asked a lot. And maybe you have but I was curious about this. You know I’ve seen your show before and I love it. And maybe I’m wrong, but more often than not when I’ve seen you it seems like your audience is predominately gay men. Why is it that the lesbians don├óΓé¼Γäót come out and see you as much as the gay men?
Sandra Bernard: They do more than they used to. Well no because I love fashion, I love glamour and I think that kind of like in the early days of the kind of feminist dyke movement freak a lot of women out. You know something, then I don├óΓé¼Γäót have to give up the coins as much as the gay boys. But since like, ├óΓé¼┬│The L word├óΓé¼┬│ and these new you know — like now there’s you know cute lesbians and cute young girls, they├óΓé¼Γäóre a little freer with their money. Everybody’s gotten on board the Sandy Love Train and they even show up the station. (Whoo)
Perez Hilton: Now I don’t, you know I embrace getting older. You have been doing this for like 25 years.
Sandra Bernard: Longer than that.
Perez Hilton: Longer than that?
Sandra Bernard: I moved to LA in 1974.
Perez Hilton: 1974?
Sandra Bernard: When I was 18. And I started, I kind of kicked right into performing a year later. I became a manicurist, I worked in Beverly Hills.
Perez Hilton: You were a manicurist?
Sandra Bernard: Yeah, for five years, to support myself.
Perez Hilton: For five years?
Sandra Bernard: So I was manicuring by day.
Perez Hilton: Let me look at your nails.
Sandra Bernard: They├óΓé¼Γäóre horrible. I didn├óΓé¼Γäót have a chance to get my — I go to Day Il Choy at Bloomingdales where they can make up, they force somebody to call Michael because that’s you know the racist American. He’s Korean but his real name’s Day Il Choy. What’s the matter, nobody can say Day Il?
Perez Hilton: Day Il.
Sandra Bernard: Yeah. Anyway, that’s just my little sidebar. So yeah, so I did that, and then I started performing in all the clubs in LA back in the day.
Perez Hilton: And then you know doing everything from TV, to event, and —
Sandra Bernard: — everything has been (inaudible), TV, film, albums, live performing, my own one woman you know specials on HBO and you know I just manage to continue to keep doing it.
Perez Hilton: Do you keep in touch with Rosanne?
Sandra Bernard: I do. I was just [watch the interview above for more.]
Perez Hilton: Have you ever been in a musical on Broadway?
Sandra Bernard: No, but I’ve written one, I wrote with Justin Vivianne Bond.
Perez Hilton: Justin had the name change, right.
Sandra Bernard: Yeah, that’s right. And we wrote a musical last summer. We’re trying to get that set up to arts and crafts.
Perez Hilton: And would you be in it?
Sandra Bernard: Yeah, it’s from the two of us. Which is —
Perez Hilton: It’s just the two of you?
Sandra Bernard: No, no, it’s a whole ensemble. But we’re the stars. We play cousins who haven├óΓé¼Γäót seen each other in years and we hook up at a family wedding. And I’ve gone off to the Midwest and married some you know Christian fundamentalist. And then I’m tired of my life and I reject it and I just surprise him and move in with him in New York and his whole gang of fairies and —
Perez Hilton: And this is done, done?
Sandra Bernard: Its been finished, it’s done. It’s not —
Perez Hilton: Have you work shopped it?
Sandra Bernard: Yeah, we work shopped it a little bit.
Perez Hilton: Show it to producers?
Sandra Bernard: Yeah, but we need to do it again. We need to bring somebody on board who can help fine tune it.
Perez Hilton: I love it. I’m so excited. I love you, I love Justin.
Sandra Bernard: Justin’s done great things on his own.
Perez Hilton: And he has, he has.
Sandra Bernard: And hopefully this is going to be one of them that we’re going to get done.
Perez Hilton: Call her, give her money so that we can go see the musical on Broadway.
Sandra Bernard: Call me. Yeah, fly me in you know.
Perez Hilton: And go see her on the road this summer.
Sandra Bernard: Thank you honey.
Perez Hilton: Thanks for coming.
Sandra Bernard: You’re so good at this.