Picnic in a Cemetery

This is the year of celebrity motherhood in L.A.

First, Sylvester Stallone’s mom hit the media circuit, cheerfully discussing everything from her son’s sex life to the intellectual fallout of female mud wrestling.

Then along came Cher’s mama, whose contribution to vacuity was an announcement, apropos of nothing, that she had been celibate for six years.

And now, God help us all, we are witnessing the re-emergence of Sally Marr, the mother of--you ready for this?--Lenny Bruce.

You remember Lenny. He was the stand-up comic who was either the dirtiest or the most courageous man on the American stage, elevating scatology to a level of public discussion it had not previously enjoyed.

Lenny died of a drug overdose in 1966, beating by days, it is said, plans by militant Christians to burn him at the stake. There have been sporadic efforts ever since to canonize him as the patron saint of saloon humor’s First Amendment.

Lenny, his advocates will tell you, won the right of free speech in nightclubs and taught us that violence, not sex, is dirty.

His detractors, on the other hand, still regard him as the most foul-mouthed man ever to stand behind a microphone and hold him personally responsible for the proliferation of moral filth in the 1980s.

All of which ought to make for one hell of a time when Lenny’s fans try to put his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Such an effort is actually under way. I learned of it the other day from spry, bawdy Sally Marr who, at 83, can still lift her foot above her head, an ability she was pleased to demonstrate in the middle of a trendy Westside restaurant called Ciro’s Pomodoro.

“Pep is all in the mind,” she told me, doing a little dance next to her table while other diners watched curiously. She wore a white running suit with red and blue sequined lightning bolts across the front. “Age has nothing to do with pep, sweetie.”

“Sweetie,” by the way, was not the strongest term Sally used, but for all the trails her son may have blazed, he blazed none for those of us in the mainstream media. We still hide behind dashes when obscenity rears its head.

For instance, a not untypical comment by Lenny’s mom about her son’s infancy: “I’d talk to him about how full of s--- people were, but he was too little to understand.”

Sally’s own roots are in show biz. She was a stand-up comic in New York during the 1940s when women didn’t do those kinds of things and later taught strippers how to take it off at the old Pink Pussycat in L.A.

“I never used dirty words on stage,” she said, “but I was pretty controversial. I’d do jokes about Eleanor Roosevelt running all over the country with a lesbian. You had to add to the public intellect.” At 50, she married a writer 31 years her junior who, under Sally’s tutelage, became a hair stylist. The marriage ended, she said, when the kid became too possessive.

Now her efforts are geared toward getting Lenny a star. If Billy Graham got one, she asks, why not Lenny Bruce?

Lenny and Billy, side by side on the streets of Hollywood. Is that a great irony or what?

Sally’s crusade was prompted by the owner of Ciro’s Pomodoro, Ciro Orsini himself, an international restaurateur who wears more jewelry than Liz Taylor and thinks Lenny Bruce the greatest contribution to American culture since linguine and clams.

Ciro (pronounced Cheero) saw the movie “Lenny” some years ago in his native Italy and became an instant fan.

“When he came to this country,” Sally said, “he wondered why the hell he couldn’t find Lenny on a horse somewhere. The guy expected a statue in the park.”

Orsini did the next best thing by creating a Lenny Bruce shrine in one corner of the Pomodoro. It consists of photographs and covers of the comic’s record albums, including “The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce.” The cover depicts Lenny picnicking in a cemetery.

“He was ahead of his time,” Ciro said, standing reverentially before a picture of Lenny. “All the others followed.”

Ciro came up with the idea for a star, enlisted Sally’s aid and hired press agent Bob Abrams, who shot a letter off to the Hollywood Walk of Fame Committee just a few days ago.

The committee, possibly still in shock, has yet to respond.

Sally, meanwhile, is keeping busy. She has plans for developing new, young comics to follow in Lenny’s footsteps, and a movie on her life may be in the offing.

But her most significant accomplishment is an exercise video for people over 70. It begins with Sally cursing the old people.

Lenny would have loved it.