by ELMORE TERADONOVICH, Alternate Reality News Service Film and Television Writer
Stacey Plotkin-Yerkovitch (nee: Smith - ethnic was hot the day she broke into the industry) has been in semi-retirement as a vactor (virtual actor) since she skinned Angela Lansbury playing Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Rewrote, occasionally appearing in bit parts such as Charo on the revival of The Love Craft. Her next career move would probably have been provoking the question, "She was still alive?" when her obituary appeared if it hadn't been for an interview with Entertainment Right Now! in which Plotkin-Yerkovitch claimed that she had "gained 30 pounds since turning 50" and was "irredeemably, irreversibly fat."
"No, no, no, no, no," insisted producer Ridley "Great!" Scott. "Hollywood actresses don't get fat. There's something in the water - or, in the plastic surgeon's office - or, anyway, in their contracts, that makes it impossible!"
Plotkin-Yerkovitch explained that after her children had left home and her husband of 17 years, film director Luigi Biscotti, left her for three starlets and a player to be named later, she fell into a depression. "I relied on my two best friends to get me through this period of my life," she stated "Ben and Jerry. They were always there for me, and they never questioned my decisions. You don't know how liberating that was - and, yummy!"
"I still remember Plotkin-Yerkovitch from her breakout role skinning Kate Winslet in the 27th remake of Titanic," said film critic and chocolate goodies historian Leonard Malteser. "That was just after Monique Devereaux (nee Wesson: French was hot the hour she broke into the industry) had skinned the role for the 26th remake and three remakes before Paul Smarmkopf (nee: Pauline Smarmkopf - cross-gender casting was hot the fifteen minutes she broke into the industry) made skinning the part her own. She had a memorably elfin, almost dwarfish quality that lent a certain...uhh...zesty piquancy to her...umm, to...who are we talking about, again?"
Stacey Plotkin-Yerkovitch?
"Oh. Right." Malteser wiped the remains of a Godiva rhinoceros truffle off his chin and continued. "Thanks to that role, Plotkin-Yerkovitch was in consideration for the Nobel Prize for Winsomeness. Vactors like that don't get fat. It just doesn't happen."
Plotkin-Yerkovitch genially (echoing her skinning of Barbara Eden in I Dream of...you know) offered this reporter a tub of yak's milk strawberry ripple. I politely declined, citing weight limitations imposed on cross-reality travellers by the Transdimensional Authority.
"Honestly, what's the big whup?" she asked. "Women throughout the country gain weight in middle age - it's almost like our bodies are programmed to do it or something. Why does anybody think that vactresses should be exempt?"
"No big whup?" responded vactor, vriter and vroducer Ben Stillborn. "You don't think it's a big whup? Cause I gotta tell you, it whups so big with me that...that...that I can hardly see the forest for the whups! See what I'm saying? It's not just a big whup - it's the biggest whup there is!"
Stillborn riffed on whups, big, bigger and biggest, for the next three hours, but I felt he didn't actually say anything new on the subject. Well, other than the part about fellow vactor Janine Giraffeolo's addiction to Hello Kitty stickers, but that concept is probably best left to another article. By a different writer. Possibly for a different news service.
Plotkin-Yerkovitch shrugged as she devoured another scoop. "It's like a curtain comes down in front of you if you reach a certain age and aren't willing to do what it takes to conform to Hollywood's standard of -"
"La la la la la la la," Stillborn chanted loudly as he stuffed his fingers in his ears. "Are you talking? Because I can't hear you! You might as well not be talking for all the hearing I'm not able to do!"
"The curtain!" exclaimed Malteser. "Yes, the curtain! Where is it? Why hasn't anybody put it in front of this woman? For the love of all that is decent and good and true in the world, can somebody please find the bloody curtain?!"
"I would consider starting a fund to get this woman to shut the hell up," Scott stated. "Unfortunately, there may, at some future date, be other women in this situation - stranger things have happened - hell, this is Hollywood! Stranger things are always happening all around us! Anyway, nobody knows where this whole 'normal life' thing could end, and my lawyers have warned me that even I cannot afford the liability..."
"Such a fuss over something so simple," Plotkin-Yerkovitch shook her head sadly. "I guess it would probably be for the best if I didn't mention my swollen ankles..."