NY Mirror

Afterward, Simmons spotted me in the purple raisin hat they were giving out and said, "You look fabulous in turbans!" So does he because, as he admitted to me, "I have hair plugs! When I starved and lost 123 pounds, all my hair fell out. This is all a hair transplant. This is 1900 hair plugs!" He showed me—very Ken doll meets Chatty Cathy—and said, "I don't lie to people. I lost my nails. I lost protein. I had to wear a turban to keep them in place to grow. That reminds me of the Norma Desmond look." He promptly went into a song from Sunset Boulevard, and, naturally, I joined him: "I don't know why I'm frightened. I know my way around here. . . . "

We took bows, then moved on to Monica Lewinsky's Jenny Craig gig, which he has no problem with—"I'm not one to judge people a lot"—though he recently saw Monica in a restaurant and observed how folks react to her. "She looked gorgeous," he said, "but no one went over to her table. I didn't even go to her table. Me, I'm like a box of Kleenex—people can take one out. I walk anywhere. Either they're gonna shoot me or they're gonna love me, what can I tell you?"

I was starting to not want to shoot him. He makes people feel special. In a past life, he must have been a very friendly tissue box. "I think we can do a Broadway show together," Simmons told me. "We're better than Michael Feinsteinand have a better act with that turban on!" I suggested we do my favorite Barbrasong—"He Touched Me"—and Simmons started belting again: "He touched me. . . . He's real and the world's alive and shining. . . . " He's real, all right.