It's all right with Joan LaBelle if her late husband is being chased around heaven by Phyllis Diller.
LaBelle was telling me about her recent lunch with Lisa Kudrow when I asked if she thought Diller, the barrier-busting comic who died this week, was in the after-life pursuing Lorney LaBelle, who died in 2010.
"Oh definitely, no question about it," said LaBelle, who summers in Minnesota and spends the rest of the year in California. "I don't mean to be bad because I miss him so much."
Lorney worked with Diller a couple of times during his illustrious advertising career. He played a major role in developing the Minnegasco commercial featuring the Indian maiden with the blue-flame feather. He also created commercials for Snowy Bleach, Tuffy trash bags and Land O'Lakes, and he was in charge of the auditions for the first Betty Crocker. The preceding information came from his son Shaun LaBelle, a friend of mine, whose production company is following in his dad's commercial-making footsteps when Shaun is not making smooth jazz hits.
A long time ago, Lorney brought Diller to the Twin Cities to shoot a cookbook commercial. Diller had a bit of a crush on Lorney, whom she always preferred to call Larry; his real name was Lawrence. Lorney had been ignoring Diller's subtle displays of possible interest but he knew he had not misread her intentions when he picked up Diller at the Radisson with Joan in tow.
"She took one look at me and said, 'Who sent for her?'" Joan recalled.
The women got along fine at dinner, where Diller, then a veteran of her first facelift, gave plastic surgery pointers to Joan.
Brown and 'CCOThere are whispers around WCCO-TV about the return of Heather Brown.
