Between shows, Lake curls up on the small sofa. "There's an empowerment to doing the show," she says. "It's just manic. The audience all wants to say something. In the beginning, they're giving me a standing ovation, and by the end, they're all pissed at me that they didn't get their question asked. Beyond that, there's keeping the guests straight, making sure they don't talk on top of each other, getting the purpose of the show out, plus watching for the cues to go to a commercial break."
One wall in Lake's office is dominated by a large framed reproduction of a Monopoly "Get Out of Jail Free" card, a gift from buddy Krasnow following her much-publicized arrest with her husband, artist Rob Sussman, in November 1994 for trespassing and criminal mischief during an anti-fur protest. She loves showing the picture of herself with the jail official who frisked her and then said, "You're so tiny!" Replied Lake: "You think so? Thanks!" (Lake and Sussman pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct and received a sentence of community service: four days feeding AIDS patients.)
"It was probably a lot how Hugh Grant felt," she says. "Every channel was waiting outside the jail. I truly didn't know how famous I was. I wouldn't do it again." Lake did her scheduled Letterman appearance right after 25 hours in jail. "Rob and I took showers in the dressing room and put on Late Show T-shirts," she recalls. "I didn't realize I'd have to defend myself on national television. Letterman was the most terrifying hour of my life. I was shaking. It was a nightmare. We couldn't go home. We had to stay in a hotel that night."
IT SHOULD SURPRISE nobody that Lake's favorite TV show is Melrose Place; hers is a Cinderella story for an age of hyperactive plot twists and short attention spans. Lake started out a funny fat girl from Westchester County, N.Y., who dreamed of acting. She landed her first starring role at 18 in Hairspray as the hip, hefty daughter of the drag queen Divine, dancing with camp abandon and winning raves. She quit Ithaca College to move to Hollywood, grabbed some small parts in studio movies, bought a house, and scored a recurring role on the TV drama China Beach.
But after her Beach stint, Lake couldn't get arrested. She weighed 250 pounds. She lost her 3,500-square-foot home and could barely make the $550-a-month rent on a guest house in the Valley. Her agent wouldn't return her calls. She was stuck taking roles in straight-to-video projects like the cheezoid thriller Skinner for director (and ex-Heidi Fleiss beau) Ivan Nagy.
After a two-year hibernation, Lake reemerged, having shed nearly 100 pounds, and flirted so effectively (by her own estimation) at an interview with Ancier and other execs for a new daytime talk show that she landed the job. She moved to a modest two-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village and began to stage a major comeback.
Ricki Lake now airs in 216 markets, wins a large portion of the prized daytime audience of 18- to 34-year-old women, and is second only to The Oprah Winfrey Show (and sometimes third, behind Jenny Jones) in the overcrowded talk-show wars; Ricki Lake occasionally beats Oprah in England. Ricki's average of 4.5 million viewers inspired a raft of wannabes (see sidebar) and attracted the wrath of conservative watchdogs. But unlike most of her rivals, Lake herself--and not her no-holds-barred topics--drives the show's popularity.
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