Afternoon Greg: More gay Tony nominees; Olbermann on Joe the plumber and Miss California; Kirstie Alley again a fat actress

It’s a good thing my friend, Ted, double-booked me (bastard!) and had to cancel our lunch today because there is so much going on in the world, so much to write about. I do want to mention that Greg In Hollywood turned two months old at the beginning of this week and in terms of traffic, is having its best week ever. In fact, by mid-day today, it is already the busiest day to date!

I appreciate all of the eyeballs.

Okay, moving on. Let’s start with yesterday’s Tony Award nominations. I was very proud of myself for doing an item on gay nominees Gavin Creel and Christopher Sieber, unaware that there were several more gay nominees in the field! That’s something I’m only too happy to rectify right now.

Thanks to AfterElton.com for its complete list that also includes Raul Esparza nominated for Speed-the-Plow. This is his fourth nomination and the fact that it is for best lead actor in a play, it gives him the distinction of being just the second actor (after Boyd Gaines) to score nominations in all four acting categories.

His first nod came in the featured actor in a musical category for Taboo, the second was for best lead actor in a musical for the revival of Company; then he was nominated for best featured actor in a play for his performance in The Homecoming.

He has also had roles in the 2000 revival of the Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

John Glover’s nomination in the best featured actor in a play category is for his performance in Waiting for Godot. He already has won in this category for Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1995. He also reprised his stage role in the feature film version of the play.

Glover, whose partner is sculptor Adam Kurtzman, is a mighty prolific actor who made his Broadway debut back in 1972 in The Great God Brown. He appears regularly on stage (The Drowsey Chaperone, The Royal Family) and in films (Payback, Batman & Robin).

But like most theater veterans, he is perhaps best known for a television role. He played Lionel Luthor, father of the evil Lex,  on more than 100 episodes of the series Smallville which ran from 2001 to 2008.

John also received an Emmy nomination 25 years  ago for his performance as an AIDS patient in the landmark television movie An Early Frost which also starred Aiden Quinn and Gena Rowlands.

And finally, we have Hunter Bell who is one of the stars of the musical (title of show) and is nominated in the best book category. After beginning his career in smaller regional theater productions in such shows as Rags, Oh, Boy! and Actor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, he rose to stardom with (title of show). He wrote the book while Jeff Brown wrote the music and lyrics. It debuted at the New York Musical Theatre in 2004 then moved on to Broadway before closing last October.

Congratulations to these three talented men!

KEITH KEEPS TALKING: I applaud Keith Olbermann for consistently taking on LGBT topics. On yesterday’s edition of his MSNBC show, Keith discussed the idiotic comments of Joe the plumber and the current situation Miss California Carrie Prejean finds herself in with topless modeling photos that have emerged. Keith wondered if the photos were irrelevant to newfound role as a spokesperson in the anti-gay marriage movement. His guest points out that it most certainly is relevant since it is about her expressing her sexuality and people coming down on her for that.

Here’s the video:

FAT ACTRESS AGAIN: Let’s face it, the best thing two-time Emmy winner Kirstie Alley has going for her professionally these days is gaining and losing and gaining weight. Kirstie is pretty much guaranteed an Oprah booking and a cover of People magazine for each dramatic gain and loss.

She packed on 80-plus pounds after losing her Jenny Craig contract and apparently didn’t realize that she had not only gained all of the weight back, but was heavier than she had ever been in her life at 228 pounds.

When Kirstie Alley stepped on the scale for the first time in 15 months, it wasn’t pretty. “I started screaming,” recalls Alley, sipping homemade fruit-infused water in her Hollywood kitchen. “It said 228 lbs., which is my highest weight ever. I was so much more disgusting than I thought!”

“I’m ready to work,” she tells the mag. “I messed up along the way, but I’m not going to concentrate on that. I’m gonna go, “You know what? Get back on the horse, lose the freakin’ weight, and then just move forward!”

I say this to Kirstie: don’t be too quick to lose all of the weight until you do another season of the hilarious Fat Actress series you did for Showtime a few years back. I laughed so hard at that show and Kirstie was even funnier in it than she was in either Cheers or Veronica’s Closet. Favorite line ever is when she is on the line with her agent who tells her she’s too heavy to get work on a TV series and she tearfully screams into the phone that James Gandolfini “is way, way WAY fatter than me.”