If it weren't for one life-threatening moment, Steven Cojocaru, the loquacious leveller of all things hot and not on the red carpet, would be "one of those guys wearing leather pants and a wig at 72."
"I'd have been out there with tons of rouge on the red carpet asking some young starlet who did your dress before keeling over," he laughs. But after polycystic kidney disease struck and left the in-your-face fashionista standing in line for a transplant, not knowing whether he'd live long enough to nab next season's Gucci loafers, Cojocaru's flamboyant life and TV career came to a crashing halt.
"Getting my diagnosis and staring death in the face was a sobering moment. Emotionally I grew up overnight," says the author of "Glamour, Interrupted: How I Became the Best-Dressed Patient in Hollywood" (HarperCollins). In fact, Cojocaru kept his grave diagnosis a secret for five months before sharing his sad news with TV viewers.
"The whole time I was going through this experience it felt surreal. It was like being in a cheap Bette Davis movie - not something Francis Ford Coppola would direct. No, something tawdry about a Hollywood diva who gets sick," he laughs.
Yet Cojocaru's story is one he hopes will inspire his fans.
Beating the odds
Faced with an uncertain future, his first transplant went sour. Left fighting for another kidney, Cojocaru underwent grueling dialysis to stave off the grim reaper.
"I never asked 'Why me?' throughout all this. But I was angry," says Cojocaru. "The pills. The dialysis. The limitations put on my life made me furious."
Healthy today, Cojocaru won't discuss his prognosis. "There's no point. My doctor says I could live another 10 years. I know someone who has had a kidney for 32 years. I don't do the numbers."
Yet felled as he was by tragedy, Cojocaru says his book's message is a universal one and goes far beyond illness.
"When strangers come up to me and say 'I'm glad you're well' it does something to my heart. But my book isn't just about kidney disease. It's about being a survivor."
Gratitude to the marrow
Slated to do a satellite TV tour in March for National Kidney Month, as well as a campaign to discuss blood pressure and its connection to kidney disease, Cojocaru isn't giving up on the red carpet yet.
"I'm a proud poster boy for kidney disease and I'm going to use it. But I'm also an entertainer," says Cojocaru. "What I do on the red carpet is like theatre of the absurd. Am I ashamed of my shallow little life? No. I've no regrets."
As this style maven manoeuvres his career into the future, one thing Cojocaru hopes to do is help women. Ironic though that might sound to some since Cojo rips on women and their runway fashion faux pas like a monkey on a cupcake, his good intentions are more than just idle words.
"You don't go through everything I've been through and come out the same person," says Cojocaru. "What I feel now is gratitude to the marrow. It's not a thank you for a Gucci watch that I'm talking about. It's real, profound, spiritual thanks for every moment I have. I can walk. I can move. It's should be a Hallmark card," he laughs. "But they'd never do the insanity of my life justice."
