Actor Leslie Jordan’s voice is unmistakable: Southern charm laced with just a touch of venom, but of the non-lethal variety – the kind that will paralyze you with laughter. You can imagine the twinkle in his eye as he throws out a series of left-field zingers, which was my experience during our recent phone interview. Whether dishing about playing Beverly Leslie on “Will & Grace,” matching barb for barb with Karen Walker, or being offed by “Golden Girl” Betty White on a recent episode of “Boston Legal,” Jordan recanted one delightfully hilarious tale after another.

Jordan’s knack for yarn spinning led to his one man show, Like a Dog on Linoleum, which he will perform at the North Park Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 26, at 7:30 p.m., and again on Sunday, Nov. 27, at 2:30 p.m.

Jordan had a 30-minute chat with the Gay & Lesbian Times before heading off to lend his vocal talents to FOX’s “American Dad,” where he has a recurring role – as he put it – as “a legless, Southern hairdresser who has to ride a little dog all around.”

Gay & Lesbian Times: How did you get your start in showbiz?

Leslie Jordan: I stepped off a bus in 1982 at the corner of Vine Street and Fountain. I had $1,200 dollars sewn in my underpants and a little suitcase and dreams as big as the California sky. And my first job was an Aunt Jemima light syrup pancake commercial. So, for the first five years of my acting career that’s all I did; I did every commercial known to man. Then my first “job” job was on “The Fall Guy” – remember that, with Lee Majors? And there was Heather Thomas ’til they did an intervention – just drug her off the set! She was all screwed up on something.

GLT: How has your experience of working on “Will & Grace” been? And what is your fondest memory of the show?

LJ: It has been an amazing experience. I wish I had some dirt, [but] I don’t have a bit; they are – all four – so nice. You know, I’ve worked on shows where people were nice the first season. And by about the third or fourth season they are nightmares. And you know what? They are in their eighth season and they are just as grounded, and they’re just as lovely and there’s no bickering amongst them at all. I think that’s the secret to the success of the show. When we do our table read the first day of each new episode, there’s probably, you know, 50 people in the room, and the only thing that matters is making the other one laugh. I watch ’em, you know, and they’re such fans of each other.

My fondest memory of the show has got to be [when] we were doing a funny scene where Megan Mullally and I are getting our nails done. Well, all of the sudden, my character spins around in his chair and I say, “Well, well, well, Karen Walker.” And the whole audience just went crazy; they started cheering and whooping! And Jim Burroughs yelled at the audience, “Elton John didn’t even get that kind of applause! Calm down, he’s not that famous!” And I said, “Yet!”

GLT: What lasting impression do you hope that “Will & Grace” will have, not only for the GLBT audience, but for the straight one as well?

LJ: I learned one good way to combat homophobia is through laughter, which is definitely what “Will & Grace” has done. Another way to combat homophobia is to put a face on it, and these four characters put sort of a face onto homophobia. You would not believe how many big straight guys come up to me and always say, “My wife watches that show every week.” And, we get so tickled; it’s always their “wife” or my “girlfriend.” They never say, “I watch that show and I love it.” I think that “Will & Grace” will be remembered as having brought laughter to Middle America with gay characters. There were always grumbles among the gay community, “Well, why doesn’t Will ever date and kiss and carry on.” But, you know, they know their limits. I see the whole process, and we know that we can get away with a lot of sort of veiled inferences.

GLT: Working with both Olivia Newton-John and Delta Burke in Sordid Lives sounds like a gay actor’s dream. How was the experience?

LJ: She [Olivia] was so accessible. I remember there was one day we were shooting in the church, the funeral scene, and it was 90 degrees outside. It’s Burbank, we’re sweating, it’s miserable. We were dying, and Olivia just did a little impromptu concert. I’m thinking, “My God, somebody pinch me.” Over here is Gerald McRaney, Delta’s husband, holding her little Yorkie, and here’s Delta just yakking away, talking about everything. Honey, this is like fag heaven!

GLT: Any chance that we’ll be seeing the further exploits of Brother Boy on screen?

LJ: It’s reopening as a play in February at The Zephyr Theatre in L.A. to get the buzz back up, ’cause we sold it to Logo as a weekly television series.

GLT: Is death at the hands of Betty White a sublime or a bizarre experience?

LJ: She’s so adorable. You know, she’s 84. She was supposed to pop me a good one and I was supposed to go forward, and she kept saying, “Oh, I don’t want to hit him. Could we get a stunt man in here to show me how to make it look like I’m hitting him?” And I said, “Betty, listen. It’s not a cast iron skillet, its rubber. So you can wallop me a good one.” Well, she hit me and I went forward, and I guess she got braver. They had put this rubber mat down on the floor for me to fall sideways on. She walloped me so hard, I flew clear cross that mat and just sprawled on the floor! Of course she was so horrified; I had to act like I was fine, but I literally saw stars.

GLT: Is there anyone that you haven’t worked with that you would like to?

LJ: You know what, one person. I am a rabid fan of Dolly Parton… I was a closet country music freak; this is like early ’70s, so people my age were listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Grand Funk Railroad and all these rock ’n’ roll Southern bands. And I would sit at night and listen to Dolly sing “Jolene” and “Coat of Many Colors.” And, oh, I’d cry and carry on. I want to work with Dolly, and then there’s this other actor that I am so in love with. His name is Giovanni Ribisi; he is so adorable. We were eating in the same restaurant two nights ago, called Ginger Grass, and I thought, I’m gonna walk up to him – I’ve never done this, ever – and I’m gonna tell him, “I have a crush, not on you, I have a crush on your characters.” He always plays the kind of boys I date, little toothless Southerners… he’s just adorable; I want to work with him. No, actually I want to suck his d**k.

GLT: Tell us about your show, Like a Dog on Linoleum.

LJ: It started as a stand-up act. I wanted to just put together some sort of stand-up thing to make a little money in between. And I just sat down and put all of my favorite dinner party stories together, and somewhere in the midst of it, it gelled into this. I have to say it’s bordering on brilliant. I hate to toot my own horn, but I don’t know how it happened. I can’t take full credit for it. My director, David Galligan, shaped it. And it’s just sort of a wonderful romp through gay life, you know, from someone who was around in the ’50s, the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s. It just got optioned by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason’s husband, Harry Thomason, and he wants to shoot it. And it’s just a blast. I have yet to get tired of doing it. … I don’t mind being an actor for hire, I love being Beverly Leslie and Brother Boy; but, you know, this one I wrote, and I had a director that completely honored my vision. So I wrote it, I get up, I do it. I don’t think I’ve ever done it where I didn’t get a standing ovation. So, people are really responding, and I can’t wait to show it to San Diego.

Tickets for Like a Dog on Linoleum are $40 to $50. Tickets for preferred seating and a meet and greet following the show are $75. Tickets can be purchased online at www.brotherboy.com or by calling the automated ticket line at(323) 960-1083. The North Park Theatre is located at 2895 University Ave.