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Category: Celebrity

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Anna Nicole Smith.

Ah, Anna Nicole. I have such a soft spot for her, in all her boozy, crazy, now-she’s-fat-now-she’s-thin glory. And now she’s won the right to pursue her claim to a share of her late husband’s estate in a California federal court.

The case itself is a pretty esoteric matter of jurisdictional jurisprudence, and Justice Ginsburg’s opinion is a pretty dry analysis of the competing claims and various exceptions to limitations on federal court jurisdiction. But the case has been pretty sensational from the get-go because of the whole narrative: buxom and zaftig blonde topless dancer marries 89-year-old billionaire Texas oilman, becomes Playboy centerfold, becomes widow, throws late husband a bizarre teddy-bear-filled funeral, asserts claim for trust promised to her by husband, gets into probate fight with husband’s son, stars in scary reality show in which she abuses loyal assistant and mugs with lawyer, gains and loses tremendous amounts of weight, shills for TrimSpa, shows up drunk/drugged at awards shows, cries during oral arguments at Supreme Court, causes commotion on courthouse steps during which several photographers get knocked over while jostling each other for shot.

She’s not out of the woods yet; she’s only won the right to pursue her claim. But best of luck, Anna.

Of course, the big shocker for me was learning that J. Howard Marshall III, Anna Nicole/Vickie Lynn’s husband, was a professor of Trusts and Estates at Yale Law School. And yet he left his will in a mess. The hell?

How Not to Apologize

Hilarious.

My personal favorites:

“The comment was not meant to be a regional slur. To the extent that it was misinterpreted to be one, I apologize.”

— Lawyer Kenneth Taylor, after referring to people living in the mountains of Kentucky as “illiterate cave dwellers.” Oct. 17, 2003

and

“I’m sincerely sorry…. There was no anti-Semitism whatsoever on my part.”

— Major League Baseball umpire Bruce Froemming, after calling an umpiring administrator a “stupid Jew bitch.” Jan. 31, 2003

NY vs. LA

It’s a showdown: Who has the best absurd tabloid stories?

Ever the loyal New Yorker, I’d like to think that we win on this one, if only for the presence of the Post. We had STAB BABY. And then we had CAT IN A WELL.

But LA seems determined to catch up, as Defamer links to this story: DOG IN A PIPE!

Usually, I’d say DOG IN A PIPE beats out CAT IN A WELL. But DOG IN A PIPE was actually in Texas, and just reported in the LA gossip pages. Pssh.

NY 1, LA 0.

Hot New Director Kalen Egan

Is now online.

Kalen, actually, is a good friend from way back in the day (6th grade) who has been making movies ever since I’ve known him. His 8th grade epic, “Burns,” remains forever etched in the memories of all who were present in Einstein Middle School’s Honors English class of 1995. Also forever etched in our memories is how he used to tell us that we had big heads and shiny noses and that we were the ugliest people he had ever seen in his life, which was particularly devastating considering that we had big crushes on both him and his friend Jason Dingman. Or maybe that was just me.

Either way, Kalen’s a talented kid. Check out his stuff.

Dita von Teese, No Less

Dita von Teese, fetish model and wife of Marilyn Manson, has something to say about Hollywood standards of beauty:

Rocker MARILYN MANSON’s wife DITA VON TEESE has hit out at Hollywood standards of beauty, branding them unrealistic and unoriginal.

The curvy burlesque dancer, who has dark hair and pale skin, is frustrated with the pressure on women to be stick-thin, with blonde hair and tanned skin.

Von Teese tells UK’s Cosmopolitan magazine she wishes women would value their health over their looks and be individuals.

The showgirl says, “My advice would be to experiment, ignore trends and work out ‘this is how I look best.’

“We don’t all have to blend in or look like SIENNA MILLER.”

Good for her! Mind you, I wouldn’t call wearing a corset “valuing your health,” necessarily (have you seen an X-ray of a woman wearing a corset?), but she’s on the right track.

I especially like that she mentioned pale skin. Skinniness as a Hollywood value is oft-criticized, but it’s very, very rare to see even thin women with pale skin in movies, Nicole Kidman notwithstanding (and she’s gone blonder as she’s gotten more famous). And rarer to see anyone complain about it.

I remember reading a post on Big Fat Blog about the infamous Dove ads, and amidst all the discussion about the weight of the models (there were those who felt they were too thin to be representative, and those who were happy to see any flesh on a model), someone posted about how disgusted she was that one of the models was very pale; of course “pasty” was used. She did get her consciousness raised by some of the other commenters, but cripes.

Why is it okay to hate on pale people? (And yes, I’m looking at some of you who snarked about pasty redheads).

Speaking of Parts of Women

Rebecca Traister at Salon has a good piece on Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue. You know the one — the cover features designer Tom Ford and two wax figures. Oh, wait. Aren’t those Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansen?

You may ask yourself why they’re sitting next to a clothing designer yet wearing no clothes. He, of course, is fully dressed, though his manly hairy chest is on display. Well, see, this is Tom Ford’s Hollywood, Tom Ford being the guest editor for the issue, and his Hollywood apparently involves a lot of waxen nude women and nude women’s body parts. And racial stereotypes. But men get to keep their clothes on. Unless they’re black.

Oh, but the nudity on the cover was “accidental!” Just part of Tom Ford’s spontaneity.

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The Dread Pirate Parton

Suddenly, she makes more sense now:

I’m developing a new theory: that Dolly Parton is an enterprise run almost identically to that of the Dread Pirate Roberts. So when the Dolly Parton we know grows weary and decides to retire, she identifies a replacement who will seamlessly merge into the life of Dolly Parton and carry on the Dolly Parton name and brand, as if nothing had ever happened. That way, Dolly is ageless and lives forever, and people will never have to know what a dark and woeful place the world would be without her and that hair, and the breasts that unwittingly prepared a nation to cope better with Anna Nicole Smith.

Read the rest to find out who’s getting ready to take over the franchise.

Love and Hate for Celebrity Fit Club

I am both fascinated and repelled by the trainwrecky goodness that is Celebrity Fit Club. If you don’t know the series, here’s a brief synopsis: it’s a weight-loss contest in which a bunch of overweight has-been or B-list celebrities form teams and compete in various fitness-related challenges, with the team losing the most weight overall winning at the end. The show is structured around a ridiculously solemn weigh-in ceremony in an over-the-top gothic mansion in LA, with a panel of “experts” (a diet doctor, a psychologist, and a drill instructor) and an annoying host with a bad hairpiece. Each celebrity goes before the panel and steps onto a huge honkin’ light-up scale, where the diet doctor tells them what they weighed last week, what their goal was, and then the current weight. Then the other panel members have a crack at the celeb, who often respond with displays of ego and overinflated senses of their actual fame level. At some point, there’s a flashback with each one to something that went on the prior week, such as a fitness challenge, individual workout, therapy session or medical visit. Someone cries. Then, at the end, the two teams get onto a giant scales and this week’s winner is determined.

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