Lena Dunham’s “Girls” is a hit on HBO, a wonderfully written droll show about slacker kids living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But since it started, “Girls” has been criticized for furthering the same issue that plagued “Sex and the City”–no black characters. How could these kids live in New York and have a lily white existence? Sources now tell me that issue will be addressed in the season 2 opener, which was just completed. My direct question was, Will there be a black character? And the answer I got was Yes.

This is so smart of “Girls” to do this quickly, and without fuss. Last spring they’d announced a character named Tako was who supposed to be African American. But when she turned up  in the person of winning actress Roberta Colindrez, it didn’t seem like the show had followed through on its promise.

The following may be further confirmation. A casting call went out in July for this character. The name and description of the character suggests that Elladonna could be the young lady in question. Here’s the description. Note the very important part–“submit all ethnicities”:

[ELADONNA] Female, PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES. ELADONNA is a 17-18 year old (PLEASE
INDICATE AGE ON SUBMISSION) Staten-Islander raised by her on again, off again parents. Her mother is
currently living with another man in Levittown, Pennsylvania so she lives with only her father (who thinks his
wife is staying with her mother. Eladonna knows and will tell him the next time she fights with her dad. It will
lead to his stabbing the man and ending up in jail). She most often sleeps at her boyfriend’s condo – a 38
year old commercial realtor who’s also a small time coke dealer. She has 2 tattoos: a Yankees sign on her
inner thigh that she got when she was sober and the Chinese symbol for “wisdom” on her hip that she got
when she was drunk. She found some guns at her boyfriend’s place and likes to carry one around in her
purse. (Guest Star)
Likes: Lady Gaga, bubble gum, Hypnotiq, good calzones, her brother Matteo who’s in a rock band in
Denver.
Dislikes: Her mother, her father, phonies.

I just put down the phone with legendary Carole Bayer Sager who wrote “Nobody Does it Better” with Marvin Hamlisch, the James Bond theme song from “The Spy Who Loved Me” and a big, big hit for Carly Simon. Hamlisch had already won the Pulitzer and Tony for “A Chorus Line” and a hit with “The Entertainer” from “The Sting.” When the pair met for another writing assignment, Hamlisch was getting ready to leave for London to write the music for “Spy.” Sager says she told him: “You know, ‘Nobody Does It Better’ always struck me as a great title for a Bond movie. He said, I love it and we wrote the chorus that afternoon.”

Hamlisch, she recalls, had to persuade Cubby Broccoli to let her write the song since he usually used movie composers like John Barry. “He convinced Cubby to give me a chance.” Hamlisch and Sager called Carly Simon, and “Marvin went up to see her. She loved it an dI loved her rendition of it. At the end she sings James I love you and we never knew if she was singing about James Bond or James Taylor.” The song was a huge hit, and was nominated for an Oscar. Hamlisch and Sager then wrote another staple, Melissa Manchester’s hit, “Looking Through the Eyes of Love.”

But that wasn’t all for the duo. They were dating and living together when Neil Simon decided to turn their romance into a Broadway musical. The result was the hit, “They’re Playing Our Song,” which starred Lucie Arnaz and Robert Klein. “Our real romance was somewhere between that and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. But there was this weirdness about us both being songwriters. Marvin kept telling Neil that ‘she’s a pop lyricist and I’m an old stodgy Broadway composer’. I said, Are you insane? You have Oscars and a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize! [In 1974, Hamlisch won 3 Oscars in one night– two for “The Way We Were” and one for “The Sting.”] We’d have these crazy disagreements. He told Neil, I get jealous when she has a number 1 song either I feel jealous because I wish I had it, or I get angry because I could have written a better song!”

They were supposed to be working on a musical of Simon’s “The Goodbye Girl.” “But Marvin would walk in and tell him these funny neurotic stories aboiut us, and finally Neil said Would you mind if I have lunch with Carole?” The show became about Hamlisch and Sager’s relationship. “It was a painless, joyful experience.” So much so that just a few weeks ago, Klein and Arnaz joined Hamlisch for one of his concert dates to reprise their songs.

Sager and Hamlisch eventually broke up but remained good friends. When Sager was invited to put on a show to Feinstein’s at the Regency, Hamlisch helped design it, then rehearsed with the band and sat in on piano the first couple of nights. Sager, like everyone who knew Hamlisch, was shocked when she got the news of his death this morning. “I don’t know if he was sick, or what happened,” she told me. “But everyone loved him. That’s what you’re hearing. And it’s true.”

Liza Minnelli on the passing of Marvin Hamlisch: “Marvin Hamlisch and I have been best friends since I was 13 years old. He arranged my first album, my second album, the songs for Judy Garland & Liza Minnelli at the London Palladium and just about everything else.

He was one of the funniest people I knew. I will miss his talent, our laughter & friendship, but mostly I will miss Marvin. My heart is with his wife Terre always.

I have lost my first lifelong best friend, and sadly we have lost a splendid, splendid talent.”