The Show Goes On

Carol Channing returns home to Los Angeles to celebrate her 81st birthday today after suffering a severe bout of food poisoning in New York. The singer was rushed to the hospital Tuesday morning from ABC studios, where she had been scheduled for an interview with Barbara Walters on “The View.”

Channing was so sick when she arrived at ABC that producers called an ambulance. By the time she reached Lennox Hill Hospital, she was dangerously dehydrated and had to be fed intravenously. She remained hospitalized Tuesday night and left the hospital Wednesday against her doctor’s recommendation, saying she was feeling better. “I guess she knows herself better than her doctors,” said her spokesman Harlan Boll.

It is unclear what caused Channing’s illness. The performer notoriously brings her own food to events, but on Monday night, she joined members of the Theatre Guild of America at Sardi’s restaurant for a dinner party after the annual Theatre Hall of Fame ceremony at the Gershwin Theatre. (She’d presented Isabelle Stevenson a Lifetime Achievement Award.) “I had dinner. It was delicious,” event spokesman Keith Sherman told us. “I heard of no one else who didn’t feel well the next day.”

In November, Channing suffered a fall while rehearsing for a performance of “Tap Your Troubles Away” with Angela Lansbury at the Luckman Fine Arts Center in Los Angeles. She tumbled down 27 stairs, fractured her thumb, chipped her elbow and required stitches to her forehead. But Channing refused to cancel the show. The next night, Boll said, “she showed up with Harry Winston diamonds all over her cast and still performed.”

Channing, who won fame on Broadway for her role in “Hello, Dolly!,” shows no signs of stopping. Next month, she is the headliner at a charity event at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Theatre.

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Provocative PR

So we finally met Pat Kingsley’s boss. But even he acknowledges that super-publicist Kingsley, whose clients include Tom Cruise and Drew Barrymore, “has no boss.” Over lunch at the Art Deco restaurant Cicada in downtown Los Angeles recently, Larry Weber--founder of Weber Shandwick Worldwide, one of the world’s largest public relations firms, and a principal in the conglomerate that owns Kingsley’s PMK--wanted to talk shop. And to make shop talk easier, he brought along publicist Howard Bragman and his vice president, Rebecca Seel Oddsund.

Weber was especially eager to muse about his just-published book “The Provocateur” (Crown Business), which explains the concept at the core of his profession: “how to influence behavior.”

“You have to have a good bedside manner,” Weber said. Bragman cut in: “I’ve always said that--your bedside manner is what you’re selling.”

Weber ate his pasta.

“Branding is no longer about products,” Weber pronounced. “Although that’s controversial with my Madison Avenue colleagues.” Rather, said the man for whom star power is currency, it’s about personalities--famous names. “What Bob Dole did for Viagra,” added Bragman.

Because Hollywood has names in abundance, “L.A. is becoming one of the most important places in the world for PR,” said Weber, modestly adding that his company “represents probably about 80%” of Hollywood.

In his book, Weber identifies two archetypal corporate leaders: “the general” and “the provocateur.” Apple’s Steve Jobs is a provocateur (Weber likes provocateurs). Unlike the “command and control” style that typifies the general, the provocateur has a motivational style, as entertainer and educator.

Richard Branson, of Virgin fame, is the uber-provocateur, Weber said with reverence. “He made a brand and built a community.”

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Further Provocation

Photographer-turned-director Dewey Nicks paced the red carpet in front of the Galaxy Theater on Tuesday night at the premiere of his first film, snapping photos and using phrases such as “nothing is sacred” and “pushing it too far” to describe “Slackers.” We suspect he’s referring to several outrageous scenes in the picture, including one in which Jason Schwartzman’s character gives a sponge bath to bare-breasted Mamie Van Doren, best known as a 1950s bombshell, and an autoerotic interlude featuring “That ‘70s Show” star Laura Prepon.

Considering such scenes, it’s unlikely that this “Slackers” will ever be confused with Richard Linklater’s 1991 cult classic “Slacker.” Nicks’ film, which opens Friday, portrays an obsessed outsider (Schwartzman) who blackmails three cheating college seniors (Maronna, Devon Sawa and Jason Segel) into fixing him up with his dream girl (James King). Cameron Diaz and Gina Gershon have cameos. “Slackers” marks Schwartzman’s first released picture since director Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore.”

Screenwriter David H. Steinberg, who also penned “American Pie 2,” said he based the film on his own experience as a 16-year-old Yale University freshman who “wound up not having much access to the dating scene” and consequently spent a lot of time daydreaming. Granted, he said, “the movie takes things a little bit further than we did.”