It's official: Courteney Cox is one foot out of Central Perk and one step closer to the Lifetime studio lot. Meredith Baxter must be shaking in her shoes.
In the new series Dirt (Tuesdays at 10 on FX) co-executive produced by Cox and husband David Arquette, Cox plays cutthroat tabloid editor Lucy Spiller. Cox's character is based on none other than smart-as-a-whip (and universally feared) American Media tabloid queen Bonnie Fuller, also known as my former boss. I was at Star from August 2004 until about 2005, when I graduated to the National Enquirer. It was nothing like Dirt, though we may occasionally have been treated that way.
Fuller has been more than cooperative with the Dirt project, even inviting Cox to tour Star's Emerald City offices at One Park Avenue. But Cox's poorly-acted interpretation of what it's like to work at a tab was severely lacking. And her Lifetime acting wasn't helped by Matthew Carnahan's laughable script ("I don't care if you're on your death bed or your mother's on fire, I need a picture of that body!")
I tried to like Dirt, I really did, and give it the chance that Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley sort of said I should, though she seemed a little distracted, too. But for a show supposedly about the glizy, seamy world of celebrity scandal, it was boring. I was so bored a quarter of the way through I started taking pictures of myself with my cell phone. In one of them, I was yawning. Then I started writing haikus:
Monica Geller
She is no Bonnie Fuller
But she sure is hot
Then I went to "Bonnie's" MySpace. She has 63 friends, including Nat, Stephy G. and Haute Girl. She is a proud parent and is there to network. Star and Us covers grace her page, and she looks kind of cute in her picture. Charming, actually. I send her a "friend me" request. OMG! Do you think she'll respond?
Then I returned to the show. Still boring. I was bored because there was nothing that rang true about Dirt - an ironic twist for a show about the tabloid media. The offices didn't look right, the 
men were all hot, everything seemed high-tech. (Even when the Enquirer was in New York, editors didn't use computers - they wrote all their edits out on paper. Which was cute and old school, but confusing.)
Mostly, though, Cox didn't capture the kind of respect that Bonnie commands (if Cox was my boss, I'd tell her to fuck off and cut her hair.) And Cox is far too boring to be a bitch. She probably would have done better trailing me or another Star pawn; the best inside Star scoop has to come from the magazine's employees.
Here's the real deal:
Working at Star is kind of like working at Pee Wee's Playhouse, but it's not really that fun. And Pee Wee isn't there. And it's not a house.
Bonnie Fuller is the über presence at Star (which my mom called "Snapshot" so no one had to know where I really worked). When Bonnie walks by, people are like, pssppsspspspsshsshhhshsh. But when you see her, you're kind of like - that's Bonnie? Like the proverbial man behind the curtain, she seems smaller than you might think. And her clothes are bright, so she's small and kind of blinding. You always see her and smell her coming. Thank god for neon pink. And Shalamar. Or something.
The first thing I remember about Star is seeing Victoria Gotti (aka the Mafia Princess). She walked in with an eye patch underneath her dark-rimmed glasses. Joe Dolce, Star's strappingly hot fashonista editor, asks her what the hell happened. I SCRATCHED MY CORNEA, she responds. I am editing her copy today, I am told. And a vision of me in cement shoes in the East river flashes through my mind. Oh please god, let there not be any mistakes in her reporting.
As the editor of the Couples News column, Joe warned me to "stay on top of Keanu Reeves" - there's a rumor circulating that he may be about to tie the knot. I didn't hear him.
"I'm sorry?"
"What part of what I just said did you not understand?"
Er, nothing Joe. I mean, sir. I mean...
Sometime around that time - and it could have been days, months or hours - for One Park Ave. is like a casino - no windows, clocks, or circulation - I was assigned a cover story about Ashton and Demi, they're due to have another baby. I thought I had fucking arrived - me, the cover story.
I start to hammer away at the keyboard. Soliciting the help of the research department, I need to know the facts - because at Star, we love facts - how many miscarriages did Demi have, and would this alleged pregnancy be in danger? I feel like fucking Scoop O'Toole, I feel like the shit, like - Mom, look at me now - I want a cigar. The Editor of the Enquirer is down the hall screaming commands at people through a megaphone.
"Neil please report to the editor's desk, Neil!"
Thank god I don't work there!
That hot disgruntled girl with the nice legs walks by. We call her Nazi Barbie behind her back.
Then Angelica says Bonnie and Joe want to see me in Joe's office. It's about the cover story.
"Write down everything they say, WORD FOR WORD," I am instructed.
No worries. That's what cool British people say.
We open the door to Joe's office and I sit down, my fucking pen is out of ink, FUCK - I need to borrow one. Bonnie gives me hers, she looks pissed. She starts to rattle off an outline for her version of the story and I'm furiously writing, I think I manage to work in one "can you repeat that?" much to her obvious chagrin. I leave with my scribble that I don't understand, praying to god that I figure something out by the time I get back to my desk.
As Angelica and I leave the office, she is beckoned back and I hear her say, "Well I don't know what to tell you. We don't have anyone else to do it."
I ran to the bathroom and cried.
Eight months later, Demi had a "reported" miscarriage. I love the way tabloids are handling headlines these days. They're big on the question marks. MISCARRIAGE? It used to be "reportedly": Demi reportedly miscarries. They also use the fine print, of course. We hear. (Just so I don't get sued: I don't believe Demi Moore is currently pregnant nor do I have any reason to believe she has miscarried recently.)
There was a serious food shortage at Star. In addition to having to share our delicious catered dinners with the Enquirer, we had to share with the short-lived Celebrity Living, too. We'd hear the rattling of the tin foil in the elevator and know to line up outside the kitchen. Friday was Chinese night. An Enquirer editor used to joke that the proportion of rice to meat used to grow as the magazine's circulation dropped.
One day, I overheard an editor on the phone with a publicist. They're talking about Anna Nicole's weight loss. I just heard some parts.
"I know, but how much skin did she lose? I know but how much?"
My assignment later is to find out how much chocolate cake Christina Ricci would have to eat to gain a pound. Let Christina Eat Cake, I use as my headline, trying to contain my smile at my fucking genius. (My other favorite headline I ever wrote was about Daryl Hannah getting chunky: Splash Star Daryl Is Stuffed To The Gills). Some headlines didn't make it through, though - but I always pitched them anyway just in case. When Madonna caused riots in Israel, I wanted to write HOLY SHIT! But it got shot down.
If the producers of Dirt wanted a more entertaining series, they should have killed off the schizophrenic photographer character Ian Hart (he has a talking cat? Huh?) and cast Bonnie on a Friends reunion instead. Imagine the possibilities - Bonnie sitting on couch at Central Perk, sipping coffee with Rachel and Phoebe.
CUT TO:
Joey, to Bonnie: "How you doin'?"
Bonnie: Glares. Calls an intern over to go microwave her food.
I'll never darken the doors of One Park Avenue again. But I can still say I'm Bonnie's potential MySpace friend. Fingers crossed!