STARS, STRIPES AND GRIPES

Forget the winners — at last year's Daytime Emmys, everyone was talking about Melody Thomas Scott's dress. But why did Scott refuse to name the designer? "That was just me being revengeful," grins Scott. "I was treated so badly. They insisted on doing the alterations for me, which was a big mistake. I had wanted my studio to do it, but no, no, no. So many things were done improperly..there was the dreaded last-minute panic of making the dress wearable. I told them: 'You know, when I step out onstage in this, it's going to stop the show. Everybody's just going to go crazy.' They handled the whole situation badly. I thought: Why am I going to give them the publicity? And, indeed, pictures of me in the dress were printed everywhere.

"Had I had a good experience with them, of course I would have told the world who the designer was," adds Scott, who will auction off the dress March 22 in Jamestown, N.Y., at a fund-raiser for The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center Inc. "I'm on the board of directors, and we are having a huge fund-raiser," notes Scott. But even the highest bidder on the infamous gown won't find out the designer. "The label isn't there."