HOLLYWOOD

By Tony Rizzo
HOLLYWOOD — It’s make it or break it time. NBC isn’t saying whether “Community” is coming back, even though TV Guide readers voted it the show they most wanted to save. Now ABC is on the brink of cancelling “PanAm.” Karine Vanasse (Colette) recently tweeted, “We received THE call … “PanAm” is only coming back for one more episode, after Christmas.” ABC quickly stated there are five more shows to air through February, and it’s still in contention for a second-season pickup. What they’re not saying: If ratings don’t improve, the show is toast! So if you love “PanAm,” as I do, better get those cards, letters and e-mails to ABC, or “PanAm” won’t be flying on the network anymore.
* * *
In 1978, I met Judy Lewis, then Barbara Vining on “General Hospital.” We became good friends, and she trusted me with a big secret about her life. I already knew she was the daughter of “The Farmer’s Daughter”: Oscar-winning film and TV star Loretta Young. But what nobody knew was that she also was the daughter of film legend Clark Gable. Apparently, Young and Gable had a night of passion while filming “The Call of the Wild” in l935. Young hid Judy in a convent for 19 months while she arranged to adopt her. When Judy was 15, Gable unexpectedly turned up at her house. She was thrilled to meet him, but didn’t know why he wanted to spend time with her. It wasn’t until much later that she learned the truth.

I kept her confidence until l994, when she revealed the truth in her book “Uncommon Knowledge.” She told me at that time, “It feels so good to be able to openly be who I really am; you can’t know how important that is!” Loretta Young never acknowledged that Gable was the father until her autobiography was published after her death in 2000. Judy passed away Nov. 25 in Gladwyne, Pa., of cancer. She was 76.
* * *
I received a letter asking about John Davidson. “I loved ‘The John Davidson Show’ and ‘Hollywood Squares’ when he hosted, but he’s fallen off the radar. Where is he?” I met John at one of his first jobs, “The Prince and The Pauper,” in a little theater across the street from Carnegie Hall in NYC. He soon landed “Foxy,” a Broadway show with Bert Lahr (the lion in “The Wizard of Oz”). He’s currently wowing them, live, in “The Palm Springs Follies” in Palm Springs, Calif., until Dec. 31. To see him now, Google “Palm Springs Follies” with John Davidson, and you’ll see that there may be snow on his roof, but there’s still fire in his 70-year-old furnace!

Send letters to Tony Rizzo’s Hollywood, 8306 Wilshire Blvd., No. 362, Beverly Hills, CA 90211.