Geraldo Audience Needs a Second Look

Television gab host Geraldo Rivera decided to spoof his audience during a recent New York taping.

The Plan: Have an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike sweep into the studio and let the audience think it was the real Liz.

Let her sweep down the aisle, silhouette swathed in black, coiffed head high, smiling her little half-smile, perfectly manicured fingers extended for token handshakes.

And to cinch it, have the audience sing “Happy Birthday” to Liz, who will celebrate her 60th on Feb. 27.

Did it work? Well. Not only did the audience perform a collective swoon, it refused to believe Rivera when he told them the truth . This was no Liz.

This was Carole Reed of Laguna Hills.

In the year since we first told you about Reed--when she was about to appear on the “Sally Jessy Raphael” show to talk about the trials of resembling Liz--her celebrity-double bookings have tripled.

Reed has appeared on the “Premiere” talk show in Hamburg. She has sung on a Tokyo variety show. She has appeared at an American Air Force base in Milan. And she filmed a mock Taylor-Fortensky wedding ceremony that was booked on several television news shows. There was a People magazine spread.

And now, Geraldo. The Feb. 26 show, a salute to Taylor’s Big Six-0, also featured Mr. Blackwell, Graham Jenkins (Richard Burton’s brother), former talk-show hostess Virginia Graham, and Foster Hirsch, author of “Acting, Hollywood Style.”

“Mr. Jenkins saw me at the hotel before we did the taping and told me Richard Burton would’ve loved to have met me. That made me feel heavenly,” said the honey-voiced Reed, 49.

“He said I looked identical to Elizabeth. In fact, he said he wanted to fly me to Wales to meet his family. He was sure he could fool his friends.”

Mr. Blackwell, author of the scathing-but-sacred annual Worst Dressed List, flipped over Reed. “She is absolutely incredible. No cartoon of Elizabeth. She reminds me of the charm and sensitivity, the brightness and alertness, that I had known in Elizabeth before,” said Blackwell, who, after years of trashing Taylor’s wardrobe, placed her on his Best Dressed List a while back.

“For the show, Carole wore everything right except one thing--a 1940 retro-type watch with glitz,” Blackwell said. Ever Pygmalion, Blackwell asked Reed before the show if she would be offended if he made one suggestion. Lose the watch. “Liz would not be interested in what time it was,” he deadpanned. (Reed removed it.)

Reed admits that she was little more than the program’s mascot. Most of Rivera’s questions were directed at the other guests.

But there was one question Rivera posed. The old identity thing. “He asked if sometimes I feel like I’ve lost my identity, that, wouldn’t I just like to crawl into Elizabeth’s identity and stay there?” Reed said.

Never. “I haven’t changed. I’m me; I like me,” said Reed, a divorced mother of a married daughter.

But a boyfriend would be nice. “I’m still not dating,” said Reed. “Not at all.” Men are either intimidated, she said, or they just “want to be with Liz.”

So she keeps busy with her appearances and recently founded a celebrity look-alike dating service she calls Celebrity Dream Date. For a minimum of $300, customers can kick up their heels (“ strictly platonic,” Reed emphasizes) with “Kevin Costner,” “Mel Gibson,” “Madonna,” “Cher,” even “Pope John Paul II.”

“I figured there’s so much excitement about seeing look-alikes there had to be a market in having a date with one. So far, it’s going real well,” she said.

As for Reed’s dream--coming face to face with Elizabeth Taylor--it’s hasn’t happened.

“Someday,” Reed said. “Someday.”

W comes to Orange County: W magazine’s West Coast Editor, Liz Lippincott, has been in town interviewing local movers and shakers for a piece that will run in the glossy bimonthly on March 30.

For those of you unfamiliar with W, it is the Fairchild Publications-owned fashion/party bible for the society set, especially the grand dames of New York, Texas and Western Europe (though it’s circulation is only 200,000, this is the tabloid most likely to be found on the bedside tables of Jackie O, Ivana Trump, Fergie, Paloma Picasso, et al).

Seems South Coast Plaza mogul Henry Segerstrom has purchased a large chunk of advertising for the March 30 issue, so W decided to visit Orange County to find out what--and who--makes it tick.

On Lippincott’s interview list: Martin Benson and David Emmes, directors of South Coast Repertory Theatre; Henry Schielein, vice president of the Ritz-Carlton; author T. Jefferson Parker; Joan Beall, board chairwoman of the Newport Harbor Art Museum; theater owner Jim Edwards; Peter Ueberroth; heiress Joan Irvine Smith; Ritz restaurant owner Hans Prager; philanthropists John and Donna Crean, among others. (Lippincott wanted to feature Donald Bren, but there was a timing problem, she said.)

What will New York society think when they see Orange County’s smart set featured in the publication? “They may look down their noses a little,” confides Lippincott, 30. “But, believe me, they’ll be interested.”