HOH’s One-Minute Recess: So Long, Norm!
HOH isn’t sure whether the newest addition to official Washington, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), will prove to be a colorful, quotable character a la his comedy-writing days (fingers crossed!) or the dry politician he’s been on the campaign trail.
[IMGCAP(1)]But we do know for sure that we’re losing an HOH favorite, former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), whom Franken ousted after one all-too-brief term. As the rest of Washington focuses on Franken, HOH thought it only fitting to pay tribute to Coleman by digging through the archives for these four reasons we’ll miss him:
His wife: Coleman’s wife, Laurie, a former model and actress, certainly livened up Washington, even though she didn’t spend a lot of time inside the stuffy Beltway. Laurie Coleman released racy boudoir photos of herself in 2004 that famously ran in the Washington Post. We also loved her other contribution to HOH, as the inventress of the revolutionary “Blo & Go,— a device sold via infomercials that allows one to blow-dry one’s hair, hands-free.
That smile: Coleman’s signature toothy smile was the result of a dramatic cosmetic enhancement, made famous in before-and-after photos used as promotional materials by a Minnesota dentist.
His Father: Coleman’s dear old dad, Norman Bertram Coleman Sr., was cited in 2006 for lewd and disorderly conduct after police arrested him while allegedly having sex with a woman in a car outside a pizza joint. Police picked up the then-81-year-old Coleman (who died about a year later of cancer) and a lady friend in downtown St. Paul outside the Savoy Inn pizzeria.
His Hair: Though Coleman’s gleaming helmet was a trademark, we never could get enough of him as a long-haired hippie college kid. Widely circulated photos of a groovy-tressed Coleman show that he’s the master of the makeover.
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