Comedy-Watching to Ease Pain: It’s No Joke

What if watching television was good for you? This question dogged Sherry Dunay Hilber, a TV executive (naturally), who after much success (her hit shows include “Roseanne” and “Home Improvement”) wanted something more than money and fame. A volunteer project put her in contact with sick children. She thought maybe she could use her TV experience to help them.

“All I ever hear is the negative effects of programming,” she said in a recent phone interview.

So, four years ago, Hilber enlisted the support of UCLA pediatrician Lonnie Zeltzer and child psychiatrist Margaret Stuber to develop a study of the effects of comedy on children who are terminally ill or in serious pain.

The Comedy Central cable network gave them $75,000 for the first two phases of a five-year study conducted through UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center. The results were impressive. Stuber and Zeltzer found that children may tolerate pain longer while watching funny TV shows. But more money is needed to prove what is now a theory.

So tonight Emmy winner Ray Romano of CBS’ “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Kevin James, the star of CBS’ “The King of Queens,” and stand-up comic Wendy Liebman will entertain supporters at UCLA’s Royce Hall to raise (they hope) as much as $100,000 for the project, named Rx Laughter. Even without the money, though, Hilber feels she’s making strides to help change views on television comedy. “People are taking it seriously now instead of just thinking it’s cute,” she said. And she added, “eventually, there could be a prescription [of comedy] based on hard-core research.”

It’s a Material (Auction) World

Reinventing yourself requires a regular cleaning of the closet, and if you’re Madonna, that’s an event others may want to mark on their calendars. At least, that’s what Sothebys.ebay.com is banking on with its “Blonde Ambition” sale, an online auction of jewelry and clothes from Madonna’s previous lives.

There’s the Material Girl necklace (estimated at $2,000), those black rubber bangles, also from that phase (a mere $1,000), and costumes from the videos for “Vogue” ($20,000) and “La Isla Bonita” ($10,000).

“Madonna is one of the top collectible personalities of all time,” said Darren Julien, president of EntertainmentRarities.com, which is presenting the auction with Sothebys.ebay.com. In terms of collectibility, he added, Madonna is right up there with Elvis and Marilyn--except that she’s alive.

(For those interested, the online bidding closes Sunday.)

Maripol, the designer who helped create the Madonna look of the ‘80s, reminisced about the good old Day-Glo days. “It wasn’t only about fashion or music,” she said. “Madonna really changed everything. It was something special--she filled a void.”

Maripol is French, uses only one name and calls herself an “image producer.” She is working on a movie about another friend of that period, the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. “Not the one with [Julian] Schnabel,” she said with that little snort the French do so well, referring to Schnabel’s 1996 biopic, but “the real Basquiat.”

Asked about Madonna’s latest incarnation as Mrs. Guy Ritchie, Maripol said the pop star had become a little “plain,” but, she added philosophically, at some point even a new wave/disco queen needs normality.

And, said the designer responsible for the thousand bangles, “thank God we got out of the ‘80s.”

Words From a ‘Chicklet’ Writer

It’s unlikely that Sylvester Stallone, director Michael Mann and billionaire-about-town Steve Bing would show up at the book party of just any 27-year-old, first-time novelist. Unless, of course, that novelist is Rebecca Bloom, daughter of the Hollywood power duo entertainment attorney Jake Bloom and activist-philanthropist Ruth Bloom. (Bing and Mann are family friends. Stallone is a client.)

Contrary to first impressions, however, Rebecca says she is determined to forge her own way. She has trained to be a chef, designs clothing and jewelry, and, on Tuesday night at the Buffalo Club in Santa Monica, celebrated the publication of her first book, “Girl Anatomy” (HarperCollins), a work in the “chicklet genre,” she says. The novel is loosely based on her experiences as a single woman in her 20s who braves L.A. nightlife in search of Mr. Right, or, in some cases, Mr. Right Now.

“My friends say, ‘We need captions over our heads with our character names,’ ” Bloom told a group of well-wishers. Dressed all in white, Bloom embraced the spotlight, even noting that she feels a little like Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie on HBO’s “Sex and the City.” The single life, the book launch, the stars--”It’s sort of happening to me too,” she said.

A moment later, she headed to the book-signing table to give Stallone an autographed copy. A publicist noted under her breath, “It’s all about relationships.”

*

City of Angles runs Tuesday and Friday. E-mail angles@la times.com