doyenne

Surely some people will recoil at my likening Meghan’s efforts to those of Queen Martha, doyenne of gracious living and doing everything yourself.

There are very few recorded interviews with Dame Agatha Christie, the world’s bestselling novelist and generally acknowledged doyenne of crime, for one simple reason: She hated speaking in public.

In the new, ’60s-set comedy series, Martin plays Robert Diaz, a Korean War veteran who works as the eagle-eyed employee of the show’s exclusive country club and the caretaker of Burnett’s high-society doyenne, Norma Dellacorte.

Onstage with her group the Mamas & the Papas at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967, Cass Elliot, the grand doyenne of the Laurel Canyon scene, bantered with the timing of a vaudeville comedian.

I wish “The ABCs of Book Banning,” boasting the first directing credit from longtime doc doyenne Sheila Nevins, were more focused in its outrage.