PASADENA, CA: This past Sunday, small medium at large Theresa Caputo put on quite a show for reporters assembled at this winter’s semi-annual press tour.
Her Lifetime original, Theresa Caputo: Raising Spirits, airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Lifetime in the US and it can also be seen on Stack TV in Canada.
The native of Hicksville, NY, worked the room like Sinatra at the Sands, posing for photos and just generally engaging with the living. She and I share the same birthdate, although I was born many years earlier, something you don’t need paranormal powers to sense.
When I told her my partner Sandra’s mom Lucia had recently passed away, she immeditely offered condolences. “Be aware of scents,” she told me, singling out gardeneas. Lucia, an amazing woman with a big heart, loved tending to the flowers in her garden and had a green thumb all her life.
Elaine Frontain Bryant, EVP and Head of Programming at A&E Networks, made some opening remarks as she celebrated the 40th anniversary of the cable channel — one of only a handful represented here this winter at TCA. The popular service just completed their 500th made-for-TV movie. That is more than any other network or streamer, ever, and many of them are shot in Canada.
One of their upcoming projects is the documentary “Where is Wendy Williams?” The daytime diva had a 12-season run on television but apparently has fallen on hard times. Her son, in the clip offered, fears for her sanity. Other relatives looked concerned, perhaps not so much for Williams herself but for the money train that has apparently ground to a halt.
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I thought Caputo was there to tell us where Williams was or to communicate to her from beyond but no. Viewers will have to get caught up with the two-part documentary — executive produced by Williams — which airs Feb. 24 and 25 on Lifetime.
Caputo herself could not be more lively or engaging. She likes to keep her gatherings as well as the spirits in the room laughing and did just that. “I’vr got an early flight!” she would tell folks hesitating to spill the beans on their own ghostly encounters.
“I see the number 42,” Caputo added about 142 minutes into her group reading, which went on longer than “Oppenheimer.” Many in the room did not appear to be critics at all including one hairdresser to the stars who told us that her father shot her mother in a double suicide. Caputo reassured her that her mother was fine in the beyond, proud of her daughter and even would lower her vibrations now and then towards her murdering ex-husband. Now that’s forgiveness.
Caputo did not single me out during the reading. Her spidey-sense, no doubt, can read “cynic” from across a crowded room. Nevertheless, her act is very entertaining, she is tremendously empathetic and I can see why she has such a huge following on television as well as on social media. There were tears shed by a few of the people whose stories she did interact with. She really did bring this TCA to life, and that is a grand and welcome accomplishment.
