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Fanfare
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INVISION / BRENT N. CLARKE fastchat { Rob Riggle }
K
leenex. Xerox. Jet
Ski. Trademarks all.
So when Rob Riggle
was creating a title
for his new Sony Crackle
Tovah Feldshuh will star in sitcom about a school for
“Tovah Is Leona!” in personal-watercraft
Westhampton Beach. stuntpeople, Jet Ski
manufacturer Kawasaki was
all “Thanks but no thanks.”
Checking in Thus, the former “Daily
Show” correspondent will
as Leona star in the more legally
acceptable “Rob Riggle’s Ski
Helmsley Master Academy,” premier-
B
ing Thursday.
roadway has its The surreally comic series
“Mean Girls,” but — with a ghost bride and a
Long Island is mermaid in the first two
getting the “Queen episodes — finds Riggle as
of Mean.” the disgraced star of the “Ski
Stage and screen vet- Master” action-movie
eran Tovah Feldshuh will franchise, now heading the
check into the titular lakeside school. The
Westhampton Beach cast includes Eliza Coupe,
Performing Arts Center Britt Baron and Samm
on Sept. 15, where she’ll Levine, with West Islip
command the stage as the Senior High grad Frank
ultimate diva — Barrera (“Dog Days”) as
tempestuous real estate cinematographer.
empress Leona Helmsley Riggle, 48, who plays Phil
— in the musical outing Dunphy’s recurring nemesis
“Tovah Is Leona!” Gil Thorpe on ABC’s “Mod-
Feldshuh, a familiar ern Family” and had terrific
face to viewers of AMC’s big-screen turns as a Taser-
“The Walking Dead” and happy classroom cop in
The CW’s “Crazy Ex- “The Hangover” and a
Girlfriend,” will perform drug-dealing gym teacher
numbers from the in “21 Jump Street,” was
Broadway-bound musical born in Louisville,
“Queen of Mean,” based Kentucky, and raised there
on Ransdell Pierson’s and in Overland Park,
bestselling biography of Kansas. He spent nine
the hotel queen. For the years as an active-duty
show, which is being Marine and 14 years in
billed as “an evening of the Marine Corps Re-
fun, frolic and foreclo- serve, rising to lieutenant
sure,” Feldshuh will per- colonel while pursuing a
form songs by Ron Pas- comedy career.
saro and David Lee cover- Now living in Los
ing the various phases of Angeles with his wife,
Helmsley’s hotel-storied Tiffany, and their two
life: her beginnings as a children, the Upright
receptionist, her marriage Citizens Brigade improv
to real estate tycoon alum spoke with
Harry Helmsley, her Newsday contributor
19-month stretch in Frank Lovece.
prison at age 69 for
income tax evasion and The year is barely halfway
her rivalry with Donald through and you’ve
Trump. Helmsley was 87 appeared in three movies,
when she died in 2007. have three more awaiting
Tickets are $71-$91. To release, have done voice work
see the show, which gives for an upcoming animated
new meaning to the phrase feature, plus you have this
“life upon the wicked series. Why are you so lazy?
stage,” call 631-288-1500 or [Laughs.] Well, I’ll tell you
visit whbpac.org. what: Show business has
— DANIEL BUBBEO taught me a valuable lesson
and that is that there is no
finish line and that if you’re
an actor, you eat what you
kill. You have to be working
all the time or trying to find
work all the time. If you do a
good job, you’ll get another
opportunity.
In your opinion as this
series’ co-creator:
Why personal
watercraft?
People would
ask me, “What
are you doing
these days” and
I’d say just as a
joke, “Oh, I’m
thinking of open-
ing a Jet Ski acad-
emy.” So I thought.
“What if I did
GETTY IMAGES / PHILLIP FARAONE
have a world like that?” The the morning of Sept. 12 and I
world of a Jet Ski academy began working in the rubble
just sounded so, so rich with piles — moving rubble in
comedy potential. I started bucket brigades. When I was
pitching it to two buddies down there those first weeks,
[co-creators Chris Pizzi and it had such an impact on me.
Bennett Webber] and some- . . . I was a captain in the
one at Sony Crackle had Marine Corps, and my
the vision and the country had just been at-
comedy wherewithal tacked. I knew I could help. I
to say, “You know
what? This sounds
had a pretty high security
clearance, and I knew they
ridiculous. Let’s do
it.”
were going to need me, so I
volunteered to go back on
active duty.
After a stint in the
Marine Corps, you You were on Jon Stewart’s “The
were in the Reserves. Daily Show” from 2006 to
But you returned to 2008 in New York while your
active duty for a time family stayed in Los Angeles.
after 9/11. Why not just move them here?
I was ordered to New York is great, but
Ground Zero on “The Daily Show” didn’t pay
that much money, and I
couldn’t afford to live in New
York [with a family]. We
would have had to get a very
small apartment somewhere
in New Jersey. And we just
had a baby and my wife had
family around elsewhere, and
it just was one of those
things.
And also, when I got hired
for it, it was a six-month
probation. Then at the end of
six months, they go, “Hey, we
like you. So you get another
six months, and we’ll tell
you after that.” . . . So, at the
end of the [second] six
months, they said, “OK,
we’ll hire you for next year.”
. . . At that point, they still
weren’t paying enough for
me to move my wife and
child out here — it was
easier to just do the com-
mute. I did that for almost
three years and [eventual-
ly] I went to Jon and said,
newsday.com
“I can’t do it anymore.”
. . . He said, “I totally
understand. Stay through
the election.” And I said I
absolutely will, and that’s
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, AUGUST 19, 2018
what I did.
It’s funny, you watch the
show, you see the regular
correspondents, you think,
“Oh, they must be making a
great living.” But I guess it’s
just a gig like anything else.
Yeah. Look, it’s a great gig.
I’m not knocking the gig.
Maybe they’re getting paid
more these days, but back in
the day, it wasn’t that much.