Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Dick Cavett Has a Sense 'That Most Things Are Getting Worse'/Yvette Nicole Brown Would Love To Be Noticed by Oprah

Dick Cavett reports that it looks like his Dec. 7 Writers Bloc chat with Mel Brooks, onstage at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif., will be put on video for posterity. He certainly hopes it will.

"It can only be fun," says the talk-show legend, who's previously mixed it up with the master funnyman not only on his own program, but in a series of kooky award-winning beer commercials.

Witty exchanges like his and Brooks' are rare show business fare in these times.

"I do have a general feeling that most things are getting worse" when it comes to the diminishing quality of public discourse on television, admits Cavett.

However, adds the man who conversed with guests ranging from John Lennon and Katharine Hepburn to Buckminster Fuller and Charles Bukowski back in the 20th Century, "I don't really watch much these days. I like to watch a certain amount, not that I crave entertainment on television. Every so often (I) like to check in on the various shows that do something like I did."

As for who he likes best among Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, David Letterman and the rest, "I'd be a fool to name names," demurs Cavett, who's out touting his new book, "Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets."

With the book (a compilation of essays from his New York Times online column) launched, "There are so many things I've done that I wouldn't mind doing again," he says.

Such as? "A play on Broadway — I've done a couple of musicals. I've enjoyed guesting on other people's shows. And it's fun to go on shows that you enjoy watching," adds the septuagenarian Emmy winner.

He smiles about being lionized as the seminal hip intellectual talk presence in television — as he certainly appears in Louis Menand's Cavett story in the current New Yorker. However, he points out that his track record of delivering "impossible-to-get" interviews wasn't perfect. For instance, "I never got Cary Grant. I talked to him about coming on the show, but he said, 'I don't want people to find out how dumb I am,'" he recalls of the suave screen icon.

"I'd have loved to have done Frank Sinatra," he says.

And as for Cavett's feelings about such admiring attention? "I guess mercifully, some part of you refuses to believe it," he says, "otherwise, you would become impossible."

ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: Speaking of talk-show royalty, "Community" actress Yvette Nicole Brown is among the millions who call themselves Oprah Winfrey fans — and has been since growing up in humble surroundings in East Cleveland.

"I wanted to be like Oprah Winfrey," she says. She was such an avid admirer, in fact, she recalls that one of the few times her mom managed to scrape together money for a non-essential, it was to buy tickets for Brown to go see Winfrey onstage live on a visit to Cleveland.

Today, "One of my biggest dreams is I hope to one day to do something where she'll take notice of me. I didn't want to meet her because I begged to meet her. I wanted her to want to meet me, too, because that would mean I had accomplished something."

Brown has accomplished quite a lot, so here's hoping Ms. Winfrey takes notice. Brown would love to guest on Winfrey's show, of course, but "I'd better hurry," she notes with a laugh.

ON A PATERNAL NOTE: "Rules of Engagement's" Patrick Warburton says it's too soon to tell whether any of his and wife Cathy's four offspring will follow him into show business. "My little guy, Gabriel, is showing some tendencies. He's a very entertaining guy," he says of their 10-year-old. "He has a great sense of humor — all the kids do." Eldest son Talon, 17, is "in his senior year. This is not really a direction for him, no. They all excel in school," he adds, referring to the quartet that also includes daughter Alexandra, 16, and son Shane, 12. If they did want to go into acting, "It would be fine with me. Whatever makes them happy."

MISSTEP: For all those who've just noticed, thanks to Bristol Palin, that there is a discrepancy among "Dancing With the Stars" contestants — elite athletes and performers with dance experience compete against raw newcomers — it's a practice that's been controversial within the show's cognoscenti for years. And, nope, it's not fair. But don't expect to see any changes as long as the ratings are stratospheric.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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