Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Jay Mohr is finding life on the road a whole different experience with wife Nikki Cox and their baby son along for the trek. "It's a lot better with them here than without them," declares the comic/actor/author, who's been doing a string of standup dates. "I don't have to worry about waking up early for radio interviews. With a 7-month-old along, I'm already up."

But Mohr works nights. When does he sleep? "I'm a great napper," he says. "I never mind getting up early, because I know I'll be able to knock down an hour and a half in the afternoon." He's also big on snoozing during flights. "My wife said if I ever get insomnia, she's going to put an airline seat in the bedroom. I never understand people being awake on planes. Why? We're in a tube! It's made for sleeping. Why are you reading?! Close your eyes!"

Mohr's done four episodes of ABC's hit "Suburgatory" so far, playing the wealthy, usually absent husband of Cheryl Hines' character.

"I would love it if that was my job, if they had me every week, that would make me very happy," he says. "It's a ridiculously well-written show. I'd love it if it went the same way as 'Ghost Whisperer,' where I burrow in and end up on the show."

He compares his character to Eric Bana's in Judd Apatow's "Funny People" — the kind of guy who'd grab another guy to do bench presses together and is "way too comfortable being naked in the locker room." He muses about working in a shoe fetish. We'll see!

Mohr wonders, in fact, when he'll get the chance to work his comedic chops on the big screen in something by Apatow or another funny filmmaker. Despite the many non-comedic characters on his film resume (who could forget his backstabbing creep of a sports agent in "Jerry Maguire"?), curiously, "I never really got to play a comedy role on film. I've never been the wacky surf instructor in 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall,'" points out Mohr, who rose to fame on "Saturday Night Live."

Mohr and Cox will be heard as the voices of a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle who fall in love — and then conspire to get their owners together — in this Saturday's (Nov. 19) made-for-television movie, "A Christmas Wedding Tail." Jennie Garth, Tom Arnold and Brad Rowe also star in the fun Hallmark Channel movie, which will be available on DVD as of Dec. 6.

Of course, one day it's bound to be highly entertaining to 7-month-old Meredith Daniel Mohr to see his mom and dad as dogs in love. "That's one of the reasons to do a movie like this — it's something your kids will be able to watch," comments Mohr, who also has a 9-year-old son. "If I was a swinging bachelor, I wouldn't have been as excited about it. You also want to be in Hallmark's Rolodex. Their quality control is exceptional; they're going to make sure you're protected."

With two successful books behind him — "Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live" and "No Wonder My Parents Drank: Tales from a Stand-Up Dad" — Mohr says he's thinking about a third. "It would be '18 Big Breaks: Failing Upwards for 20 Years.' I don't know of anybody who's had one big break that's set them up for 20 years.

But he's done so many, varied things.

Replies Mohr: "I've only done so much because so many things haven't worked out."

IF YOU ASK US: Time will tell whether Justin Bieber and Matthew Fox succeed with legal action against the women they say have made false accusations against them.

To recap: In Bieber's case, that's Mariah Yeater, who claims the teen heartthrob sired her baby. He says he's never met her, and intends to do DNA testing to prove he's not the father. And in Fox's case, it's Ohio bus driver Heather Bormann, who said the former "Lost" star punched her. Authorities found insufficient evidence to press criminal charges against Fox, and last week, he countersued Bormann.

Whatever the outcomes, this is true: One of the dark sides of fame is that celebrities are targets for attempts at legal money-grabs and vendettas by people in their lives, people they barely know — or sometimes, people they've never even met. When such attempts involve sex and the proverbial "he said/she said," the potential for injustice grows exponentially for those who are innocent — yet have to endure high-cost legal battles and negative press that can cause real harm to careers and lives.

Consider the case of Michael Flatley. Ireland's "Lord of the Dance" was sued for $35 million in 2003 by a woman who claimed that he had raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room. Flatley's version of events had it that the first he heard of the claim was two months after they'd spent the night together consensually, when the woman's attorney contacted Flatley's attorney saying she'd tell the public Flatley had raped her if he didn't pay a specified amount.

He declined, contacted the FBI to investigate and filed a $100 million lawsuit against her and her lawyer. Flatley's suit alleged that the attorney had committed extortion, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, fraud and wrongful interference with business relations.

Flatley's attorney explained: "We filed the lawsuit because what this lady did was outrageous ... It will do tremendous damage to Mr. Flatley. Even when he wins the case, some people will still believe the accusations."

The case against Flatley was eventually thrown out (while a motion to dismiss his countersuit was denied), but that event was barely a blip on the media radar — until a couple years later, when DNA tests showed that Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher had fathered the 2-month-old baby of Tyna Marie Robertson.

Robertson is the same woman who sued Flatley. The information came to light that Robertson had dated other wealthy and well-known men through the years — relationships that sometimes ended in litigation — through private investigator Ernie Rizzo, who noted that he worked for Urlacher and Flatley.

Obviously, sometimes accusations of sexual misconduct against celebrities are true — and there are also certainly many instances of guilty parties who never suffer any consequences. But those wrongs don't make the injustice of the above circumstances any less clear.

THE BIG-SCREEN SCENE: It's nice to see esteemed actor Hal Holbrook keeping busy before the cameras, with a role as a professor in an indie film called "The Secrets We Share," rolling this month. The story has to do with several young female college students who have serious issues.

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.

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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