“他给名人的读品比好莱坞毒贩给的毒品还多”（书评）

我们被台上那些大牌笑星的妙语连珠逗得捧腹大笑的时候，可能没想到，其实那些妙语并非那些大牌的原创，而是出自幕后一批默默无闻的“影子写手”（Ghost writers）之手。

Bruce Vilanch就是这样的影子写手。

他服务过的明星包括：Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Rosie O’Donnell, Paul Reiser, Kelsey Grammer, 等等等等。

他获过艾美奖。

他还是个同性恋。

读过几位同性恋者的文字，不得不承认：同性恋心细如棉的敏感不仅仅限于七情六欲，还反映在观察力和驾驭文字的功力方面。

像另一名同性恋艺术家Simon Doonan一样，Bruce Vilanch的文字洗练，用词精准，意象鲜活，观点锐利，处处彰显同性恋者那种刚从长期被歧视中解放出来后的扬眉吐气和对传统异性恋世界陈规陋习的不屑，还有一种深入骨髓的幽默感：

对同性恋自豪大游行的描述：“Gay pride’s bustin’ out all over. By the time you read this, there will have been lavish parades replete with drag queens, porn stars, local politicians, Motown-has-beens, hordes of lesbian gynecologists marching in locksteps, buffed numbers snaking out of their Speedos as they dance with abandon high atop papier-marche representations of the Emerald City.”

对“影子写手”内幕的描写：“The fact is that everything you hear on Monday’s Oscar-cast has been written, rewritten, re-rewritten, fretted over, spelled out phonetically, garbled in a fax, left in a tuxedo jacket, cleared by an expensive legal team, delivered by bonded couriers with scripts handcuffed to their arms, smeared with aloe vera, chewed by the Abyssinian kitten, dropped in the pool, laughed at by valet parkers, obliterated by canasta scores, shredded during a shrill custody battle outside Gymboree, and inadvertently tucked under the bottom of the Norwegian blue’s cage.”

对Bette Midler如何受欢迎的描述：“How to be very, very popular: Walk into a gay bar in Winnipeg, Canada, with a fistful of free Bette Midler tickets. You will be experiencing the divine with lightning speed.”

描述他自己去看Mel Gibson的《勇敢之心》：  “Off I trundled to the mall in my trench coat, babushka, and sunglasses, looking like Elizabeth Taylor checking into the Betty Ford Centre---if Elizabeth Taylor were blonde with a beard, in which case she would be Shelley Winters. I shucked my  picket-deflecting disguise, dropped one hand into my popcorn, and hunkered down for two hours and fifty-seven minutes of love, honors, and dismemberment called Braveheart.”

描述他参与同性恋社会活动：“I have just come home from my 435th gay/lesbian/AIDS/political/humanitarian/transgendered/joyfully/empowered/fundraising/consciousness-raising/awareness-raising/barn-raising/toe-tapping/chicken-chomping benefit this year.”

这种文风绝对不是一般异性恋写手可以望其项背的(not literally speaking)。

难怪Nathan Lane这么夸他：“Bruce Vilanch has given more lines to celebrities than a Hollywood coke dealer.”（他给名人的读品比好莱坞毒贩子给的毒品还多。）