Helen Lawson's Infamous What's My Line Appearance

I'd never heard that she was banned. Where'd you get that info?

I think it was when John Charles Daly asked her to sign in, and she wrote "Fuck You, Cunt" on the chalkboard.

She refused to disguise her voice, saying it was "beneath her". Yet, no panel member recognized her voice. Even Arlene Francis, who was supposedly a close friend.

She stormed out when they took off their masks and still didn't recognize her. She hummed a few bars of "I'll Plant My Own Tree". Still nothing.

What got her banned was what she did when she was leaving the stage. She got to Arlene and lifted her dress. She e then shot a golf ball out off her cooter than hit Arlene right between the eyes. Arlene hit the ground and was said to never be the same. It was a tribute to Brandon De Wilde who had done the same thing to her years earlier by shooting a marble out of his ass.

I thought it was rather how she aggressively came on to John Daly right in front of the studio audience (albeit in moments that were cut from the commercial broadcast). Alcohol was said to be involved. The issue apparently wasn't with the blatant sexuality itself, but rather with how it gave her identity away so that Bennett Cerf guessed who she was even before she'd answered anyone's questions.

A hot mike picked up the word "fruit" in response to a question from Bennett Perf. She meant to say "no."

Was this appearance before or after her Christmas Special?

Did Ralph Edwards ever do a "This Is Your Life" on Helen?

I heard she got drunk in her dressing room and befouled the toilet. Then she kicked Dorothy Kilgallen in the cunt bone.

Dumb thread. Really dumb...

Oh, that's just our Helen!

When asked if she performed in the "legitimate theater," she said:

Bitch, I'm a barracuda!

What year was it?

“Goodbye, pussycat. Meowww.”

Wasn't she also banned from hosting SNL after a disastrous appearance in1977?

R16, was she still alive then?

The story is her appearance on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune was so filthy the tape was kept under lock and key until it was buried with Merv Griffin.

“Merv Griffin was NOT A FAG...”

She nearly shanked Phyllis Newman when she incorrectly guessed Ethel Merman.

Helen was on a Goodson-Todman bender while in NYC that month.

The week after her embarrassing WML? appearance, she was a guest panelist on To Tell the Truth.

All hell broke loose when Helen and Kitty Carlisle arrived at the studio wearing the same Mollie Parnis gown. Neither would agree to change to an alternate dress, despite Bud Collyer's pleas.

They both made light of the situation during the "live" broadcast, but a physical altercation took place backstage afterwards when Helen made a few insulting remarks about Kitty's marriage and Moss Hart's sexuality.

Both were injured in the fracas and required medical attention, but amazingly the incident never made the columns, though Kilgallen printed it as a blind item several days later.

R17 I could be mistaken, but I swear I read that she stubbed out a cigarette on Lorne Michaels after he forced her to be in a Blues Brothers sketch.

“Are you currently appearing on the Broadway stage?”

“I know you’re wearing that blindfold job, but I’d swear you’re fucking headless, kiddo! I’ve been the only sure bet on Broadway since you were shitting in Pampers!”

Despite the lifelong red card from John Daly, Ms. Lawson still earned her $135 royalty from the sponsor of that day’s show, Pampers disposable diapers.

[quote]I swear I read that she stubbed out a cigarette on Lorne Michaels after he forced her to be in a Blues Brothers sketch.

She did, but it was consensual.

[quote]“I know you’re wearing that blindfold job, but I’d swear you’re fucking headless, kiddo! I’ve been the only sure bet on Broadway since you were shitting in Pampers!”

Pampers didn't exist in the '60s, much less when one of the panelists would've been an infant.

It's such a shame that a legend like Helen was reduced to doing stints on "Password" and "Matchgame."

No one will ever forget Dorothy Kilgallen screaming, "That wiggy bitch shat in my mask!"

[quote] Pampers didn't exist in the '60s

[quote] Pampers were introduced in 1961.

If they were introduced in 1961, how could any of the panelists have been in them as infants?

Helen was asked by a panelist (I think it was Cerf) if she was a mother. The audience would have been satisfied with a simple “No”, but were instead scandalized to find out that “the ‘works’ fell out years ago” and that Lawson had been “too goddam busy back then [to be] bothered” to carry a pregnancy to term.

r21, I love you.

Ye gods and little fishes! All of the above responses are utter rubbish. Rubbish, I tell you.

She was permanently banned from WML after she called Miss Francis, "Marlene Francis."

I believe it was when Martin Gabel thought it was Joan Crawford and asked, 'Might I have ever consumed a beverage of yours?'

Helen broke from strained girlish voice she was doing and shot back, 'No, honey, but I've had some of yours!'

Quite risque. You can see Arlene Francis giving Helen a dirty look as she shakes hands.

When asked by Arlene how she got her start in show biz, Helen replied "The same way you did, toots, by doing THIS" whereupon she deep-throated a banana from her complimentary gift basket.

The cast might have laughed it all off and saved the evening if Bennett hadn't asked her if she found her work fulfilling and gotten the reply, "Not when you do it, honey. I need more than four inches!"

Helen really wasn’t bothered by the ban. She’d learned to roooollll with the punches.

I've heard that John Daly managed to get a kinescope of the complete, unaired episode and used to show it to friends at dinner parties. Supposedly the film was buried with him when he passed in 1991, but his youngest son, John Earl Daly, is rumored to show it to his friends from time to time. I hear he does a perfect impression of Helen.

[quote]Helen and Kitty Carlisle arrived at the studio wearing the same Mollie Parnis gown.

Was it ever explained how they both fit in?

[quote]but amazingly the incident never made the columns, though Kilgallen printed it as a blind item several days later.

Then IT DID make the columns, abet as a blind item.

Helen signed in as "Cocksucker." Cerf, as was his want, managed to sneak a peek at the board and when it was his turn, asked "Are you Frances Farmer?"

I loved live TV.

wont

For years after the disastrous appearance, Miss Lawson referred to the show as Cunts My Line...

Groucho was originally supposed to be on the panel that night -Can you imagine???

The secret word is cunt.

She bitch-slapped John Charles Daly when he asked her if it was “Miss or Missus?”

R38, judicious use of a power-sander.

The show went to pieces when Arlene asked Helen: "DID! YOU! BRUSH! YOUR! TEETH! WITH! A! CORPSE??!!"

It's well known that Helen and Dorothy absolutely hated each other. Dorothy twigged immediately who the mystery guest was, but pretended not to know her in order to suggest that she wasn't all that famous. Bennett and Arlene played along at first, but it became obvious to everyone when Helen asked Bennett if his sons were queer as well.

She’s alive NOW, asshole at r17.

What a fucktard.

She came out REEKING of Helenesque.

Ummm ... link or it didn't happen.

cunt

It really wasn't that big a deal. When she signed in on the chalkboard the chalk snapped and she said, "Oh, fuck." The audience gasped, but John Daly covered it well. It might have blown over if she hadn't called Dorothy Kilgallen a chinless cunt under her breath and set Daley off laughing so hard they nearly ran over time.

None of it was Helen's fault! The reason the episode was banned was because guest panelist David Niven was heard to mutter, "Not that cunt again!" under his breath when John Daly flipped over the cards and introduced our Helen. Bennet started coughing and Arlene started giggling so hard it's no wonder Helen slapped her! In the kinescope I have you can clearly see Niven mouthing, "I told you she was a cunt," to Dorothy as the camera cuts away to a test pattern and the announcer says they are having technical difficulties.

Bennett Cerf later wrote that, walking past the panel on her way out, Dorothy Kilgallen offered her hand to shake and our Helen put her cigarette out in it and whispered, "Cunt." He loved it when people took pot shots at Dorothy...