La Dolce Musto

by Michael Musto
April 10th, 2006 2:33 PM

CHARLENE TILTON almost had one when she heard Jessica Simpson might play her old Dallas role, Lucy Ewing, in the movie version. Simpson's too old! But now it may be SCARLETT JOHANSSON in the part, and—as I learned at the same wacky convention—Tilton's tiltin' toward approval. "The key quality to Lucy," she told me, "is vulnerability, even though she was doing all that bedhopping." Was Charlene herself vulnerable at the time? "Yes!" she shrieked. "I was 17 and didn't know anything!" But she eventually learned so much that she landed a gossip column in the Globe tabloid a few years ago, horning into my line of work, albeit with kid gloves. "I was trying to be a light in a dark place," she explained, though one of her items still has a certain celebrity incensed, despite the fact that Tilton ended the personal revelation with "Our thoughts and prayers are with them." Well, our prayers are with Charlene as she produces and stars in The Tammy Faye Bakker Story. Let's hope there's enough eye makeup (and lower-region lipstick) in the world to do it right.