Kim Delaney posing for a photograph in January, 2002, courtesy of the Los Angeles Police Department
Kim Delaney, star of Lifetime’s Army Wives was in the middle of a speech honoring Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates when a stagehand ‘escorted’ her off the podium into the wings Thursday after she appeared to have trouble delivering the lines.
Philly native Delaney was one of the speakers at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center to present Gates with the Liberty Medal Award, but she formed a goofy smile staring hard into the teleprompter where her delivery became hesitant, rambling, as if her cue-card machine was broken.
The audience was deathly quiet and reportedly embarrassed just as a loud speaker with a taped message drowned out Delaney‘s fumbling voice while a female production assistant mercifully led her stage left.
The media has made much of the incident, reminding readers/viewers of Delaney‘s troubling substance abuse issues. But at least one report says that the teleprompter was in fact malfunctioning, revealing that Delaney‘s biggest problem may be her inability to improvise. Like most actors, she may be helpless without a script.