Comedian Diane Ford, Las Vegas Sun, Jan. 9, 2004

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Despite detours, this Ford keeps rolling Lisa Ferguson Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 | 8:17 a.m. Much has changed in the three-plus years since former Las Vegan Diane Ford packed up and left town. For starters, the Desert Inn, where in 2000 the comedian hosted "Midnight Martini Madness," is no more. The raucous show featured Ford and a rotating bunch of her comedy buddies -- including "Home Improvement" star Tim Allen, along with frequent Vegas performers Vinnie Favorito and Dom Irrera -- who typically drank cocktails and traded risque quips for late-night audiences during its short run in the Starlight Lounge. "It's very Rat Packy," Ford said, describing the show in an interview with the Sun that year. "I really wanted it to be like a party ... I stay onstage the entire time, and the banter that goes back and forth between us is priceless and will never happen again." "It was fun. It was just too expensive," she says these days about the show, recalling the high costs for paying the other comics to perform as well as "problems" she encountered with a business partner. "I couldn't afford to keep financing it." Nevertheless, "The comics just loved it. It was such a neat twist on comedy." Shortly after "Midnight Martini Madness" closed, Ford's 13-year marriage to a gaming-industry executive dissolved. She moved to Sarasota, Fla., but returned this week to Las Vegas to headline through Sunday at Riviera Comedy Club. "I love it," she said of her new home during a recent call from Sarasota. "It's a small town, and I'm a water rat." Though she lived in Southern Nevada for three years, "I was never really happy in Vegas because I'm not a desert person." Ford certainly seems happy these days. More than a year ago, the stand-up comedy veteran wed her fourth husband, real-estate man John Garner. "This one might be my soulmate," she says. "He's a really funny guy," she adds, explaining how her hubby, while serving as the butt of some of Ford's jokes, also helps her pen others. "We just sit there ... laughing so hard and then I go, 'I've gotta write this down,' " she says. "Sometimes we'll be laughing so hard, I'll go, 'What was that thing that just made us laugh?' He's a wealth of material." Consequently, upon exchanging "I do's," Ford also became a stepmother to Garner's pair of adult sons. "They don't live with us because I found out they were allergic to cats -- so I got one," she jokes. "They're great guys and they're fun, but they don't relate to me like a mother. They relate to me like that wacky comedian their dad married." There have been some alterations in Ford's professional life as well. After 26 years in the comedy business, she's slowing down a bit, having trimmed her touring schedule from 40 weeks to around 30 weeks per year. "I still love it. Isn't that sick?" she says. While she headlines shows around the country, 48-year-old Ford prefers playing gigs at East Coast-comedy clubs, so as not to stray too far from home. "I still get the occasional standing ovation. I'm still putting butts in the seats, which I think is your job," she says. She also performs on Carnival Cruise Line's ships that sail the nearby Caribbean, flying into tropical ports to hop onboard and do three shows before heading back to Florida the next day. "If you get outside of L.A. and New York, comedy still fills a real need," the Minnesota native theorizes. "I think New York and L.A. are so jaded." Comics there "don't really do comedy, they just pose for their sitcom." Speaking of which, Ford -- who has 11 American Comedy Award nominations under her belt, more than 125 television appearances on her resume and who also wrote an episode of "Home Improvement" -- doesn't mind that the sitcom fairy never paid her a visit. "I never wanted one," she contends. "I was like Jerry Seinfeld in that regard -- he never wanted one, either. I just wanted to be the best stand-up I could be." Reflecting on her career, Ford says, "I had the best of both worlds because I made a lot of money and I got a little bit of fame, but nobody bugs me, and I live a pretty good life without having to worry about somebody taking my picture every time I leave the house." And, with any luck, she won't be calling it quits any time soon. "I'm starting to hear a lot of younger people coming into the shows going, 'You're my mom's favorite comedian.' If they ever get to the point where they say, 'You're my grandmother's favorite comedian,' I think it'll be time for me to retire." Out for laughs Harvard Law School graduate Greg Giraldo, a frequent guest on Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" (Cox cable channel 56), headlines Feb. 2 through Feb. 8 at The Improv at Harrah's. According to Uproar magazine, an online publication dedicated to stand-up comedy happenings, places and faces (www.uproarmagazine.com), Vegas frequenter and very funny lady Judy Gold -- profiled in this column last June -- is set to release a new CD, "Judith's Roommate Had a Baby," this spring. The title nods to a joke in the comedian's act, about how her mother explained the news when Gold and her partner became the proud parents of a baby boy. If you don't know who comic Glen Foster is, well then, you likely haven't been to Canada recently. Up north, the former advertising worker -- who performs through Saturday at Palace Station's Laugh Trax -- is a fast-rising star. Fittingly, his nickname is simply "The Canadian Guy." archive