People: No coal – just a lump in his throat
Ernest Borgnine‘s latest TV movie role brought back a favorite holiday memory from his childhood.
In “A Grandpa for Christmas,” airing tonight on the Hallmark Channel (9 p.m., cable channel 77 in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene), he plays a song-and-dance man who must care for a 9-year-old granddaughter he never knew he had after his estranged daughter is seriously injured in a car accident.
When Borgnine was growing up, money was tight, so he and his sister knew their only gifts would be handmade by their mother. But just before the holiday, a man who owed his father money repaid him $14.
“My father could have bought so many things with that money back then,” the 90-year-old Borgnine recalls.
“On Christmas morning my sister and I woke up and went downstairs to empty our stockings. I thought all they would have in them was the usual nuts and fruit, but in the bottom of each sock was $7.
“My mother and father were crying because they were so happy that we were happy. I never forgot that day.”
Talk about bad chemistry
Things are a little less heartwarming around the Bill Nye household these days.
The longtime PBS “Science Guy” is seeking a permanent restraining order against his former fiancee, claiming she tried to poison his vegetable garden.
Nye says Blair Tindall showed up at his home dressed in black and carrying “two plastic bottles filled with some sort of solvent,” which “may have been emptied on my garden from which I get food produce.”
Tindall – who had married Nye, but later found out their license was invalid – replies that a series of financial and personal problems led to “a foolish, sophomoric act of poor judgment that was only intended to harm flowers, and certainly not people.”
Paris gets Shanghaied
Paris Hilton spent her Thanksgiving in Shanghai, cuddling stuffed pandas and sauntering along the famous Bund waterfront while visiting China’s most style-conscious city for the MTV Style awards.
“Shanghai looks like the future!” she proclaimed at a news conference.
Rhymes with …
Finally, in case you missed it, Heather Mills McCartney – who is reportedly seeking more than $100 million in her divorce from Paul McCartney – denounced the world’s rich as misers and snobs in a Thanksgiving eve speech.
“Sadly, you have to mix at a certain level of people to raise the level of funds you need to bring about the greater good,” the political activist told a Trinity College Dublin audience.
“Because people are very snobby. These people who have lots of money, they’re either snobby or they’re stingy. If you have lots of money, you have to be stingy – because why would you want that amount of money?”
The birthday bunch
Former Beatles drummer Pete Best is 66. Bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn (Booker T. and the MG’s) is 66. Actor Stanley Livingston (“My Three Sons”) is 57. Actress Denise Crosby (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) is 50. Actor Colin Hanks (“Roswell”) is 30. Actress Katherine Heigl (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is 29.