he newspapers and television had a field day. Clips of Natasha versus Dr. Olsen played nightly for what seemed like a month. Desperate to salvage his honor but against my advice, Dr. Olsen tried presenting his side of the story first to Ted Koppel, then to Larry King, and finally to Geraldo.

But the doctor didn't understand the medium of television and treated ridicule as envy. He alluded to strange concepts like postmodern plastic surgery and pushing the gender envelope, none of which sounded even remotely sane in two or three minute sound bites.

With each appearance, he only got himself into more and more hot water till he was finally hung out to dry.

Thanks to the exposure, Amazon became a raging success with box office receipts increasing week over week for three months, a feat almost unheralded in the history of modern film making.

On week six of the movie's release, the National Organization of Women organized a boycott and began picketing theaters across the country. Female activists flooded the afternoon talk shows to question why more money was being spent marketing breast augmentation than developing better operations for breast reconstruction.

The plastic surgery lobby was forced to hire a spin-doctor of great repute (a friend of mine at another agency) to try to shore up its flailed image and assure the women of America that they really could still trust their doctors.

The added publicity only boosted the film's draw.

Natasha capitalized on every available opportunity and became an overnight super-celebrity on a crusade for improved female healthcare, focusing on the anemic attempts by male-dominated research institutions to develop better methods of early breast cancer detection and to help alleviate the symptoms of menopause.

She talked about topics like sexist neglect, the gullibility of the American woman brainwashed by the beauty industry, and made sure to slap Dr. Olsen in the face any time she could, using him as a stand-in for the current patriarchal system and claiming he belonged in a mental hospital if not a jail.

It dawned on me that the real Amazon reincarnation was not Lady G but Natasha, who with great zeal and skill employed the mere image of the female breast to help slay her opponent.

The only product spin-off of any note was a Halloween costume of clear molded plastic made in China that featured the left breast while compressing the right and was worn by nearly every woman, or so it seemed, attending the season's costume parties.

Amazon continues to set new records for DVD revenues and has all the makings of a cult classic.

Dr. Olsen became the laughing stock of his profession and a favorite butt of off-color jokes. He'd crossed a dark line and found out what was waiting for him. Despite his fine rhetoric about helping women out from under the hand of male aggression, what he'd proposed would have only furthered their victimization.

Down deep, though, I had to wonder—had he truly even considered his operation in such serious sociological terms or did he just see himself as a Superman exploiting wannabe Superwomen?

In mythical times, the gods seemed to care most about the supremacy of their gonads. Today, the almighty think much more about the dollar.

Lady G had her hollowed chest restored with an implant but her fading career was ruined. She claimed Dr. Olsen had talked her into something she didn't understand (not hard to believe) and filed a fifty million dollar personal injury/defamation lawsuit.

Invoices for services rendered by my former agency remained unpaid for six months. Only last week, I was told, the firm's attorneys received notification of the doctor's bankruptcy.

As for me, I no longer work in the field of advertising. I retired a month after the Leno fiasco when a spine metastasis showed up on a routine chest X-ray. I've since undergone chemotherapy and had more radiation and hopefully will hang on for at least a few more years.

Both Joanie and I carry the diagnosis of breast cancer. Both of us have undergone mutilating breast surgery.

Back when Joanie and I were still associates, she sacrificed her entire right breast to a radical mastectomy that left her physically and emotionally wounded. Her left breast developed cancer two years later. The second time around, she managed to locate a more sensitive female surgeon. Joanie is now six years out with no sign of recurrence.

Last year, my mammogram showed a suspicious mass that hadn't been noted two years before. A needle biopsy confirmed the diagnosis. The first doctor I visited recommended an aggressive mastectomy, but then my ex-husband reminded me about Joanie's surgeon, I saw her instead, and underwent a localized lumpectomy with radiation.

No woman wants to sacrifice a breast unless she has to.

But getting back to that gaff on The Tonight Show—how had Natasha really come to replace Dr. Olsen? And how much of her conversation had been scripted? How many times had it been rehearsed?

Joanie served as Jay's publicist for the first ten years of his career. Suffice it to say that on the day following the show's taping, she, Natasha, and I had a most enjoyable late night dinner with Mr. Leno at his home high above the lights of Hollywood.

Following a rash of anonymous death threats, Dr. Olsen disappeared.

Sometimes I imagine him hiding out in Brazil, playing along the shoreline of its very famous river.

Other times I dream of him standing at its bottom, feet encased in concrete.

No one has heard from him since.