'GILMORE GIRLS' Norman Mailer appearance adds to sophistication

LONG ISLAND NEWSDAY
Norman Mailer, a TV character? He is, this week, on that most literate WB series, "Gilmore Girls."
Names from pop culture, politics and even arts and letters are forever sprinkled into the motormouth repartee of quick-witted single mom Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her best-pal college daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel). So it only makes sense to have one of those names make a clever personal appearance Tuesday.
When the 81-year-old author shows up for lunch at her Connecticut inn, Lorelai raves that Rory "read 'The Naked and the Dead' while she was still wearing footsie pajamas." Her culture-sponge mom is inspired to dream of "being a salon. Of course, we'll have to keep Gore Vidal on the other side of the room, but Gabriel Garcia Marquez will run interference for us."
He won't eat
Too bad that Mailer only shows up for lunch. He doesn't eat it. As excitable chef Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) bemoans, day after day, "he's sitting at a table for four and ordering nothing at all but tea, iced tea," while being lengthily interviewed by a reporter (played by Mailer's son, Stephen).
"When Billy Joel came in," Sookie fumes, "he would pack it away. Appetizers, main course, two, three desserts. That was a man that knew how to eat."
Since Mailer isn't the only one who doesn't, their inn's accountant suggests discontinuing lunch until business picks up.
And that sends Sookie postal. With a confrontation in the offing, the ever-astute Lorelai warns, "I don't care how old he is, he can take you."
Mailer's unruffled attitude lends wily counterpoint to the impulsive antics around him. He even gets in some literary talk, making "Gilmore Girls" a yet more sophisticated delight.