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Marriage-type
Love ...
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Goldie
Hawn and Kurt Russell |
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Are Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis the Goldie
Hawn and Kurt Russell of the 21st Century?
Oh, we don’t mean acting-wise or anything
like that. We’re comparing the duration and commitment of
the Depp-Paradis relationship, at seven years, to that of Goldie
and Kurt, which clocks in at more than 21 years. Both couples’ co-habitation
is without benefit of legal paperwork. At least, not a marriage
license.
However, unlike Kurt Russell, Johnny Depp claims he would like
to get married to his stunning singer-actress girlfriend. “But
she’d have to ask me,” says Depp. He thinks they’re
as good as married already “after all those years. But if
she ever said, ‘Let’s do it,’” he would
do it in a second.
We attended a party for David and Victoria Beckham at La Cienega
hot spot Prey and were fortunate to run into Keira Knightley with
her Irish model boyfriend, Jamie Dorman. We asked
them if perhaps congratulations were in order since we’d just heard that
the couple is planning a Caribbean wedding. “No, we’re
not getting married,” Keira stated without even a modicum
of equivocation. “Oh, Jamie is a really great guy, sweet
and sexy. I am really mad about him. He keeps me sane when things
get stressful and we always have fun.” But for now, the only
thing on her mind is her movie career, not matrimony or motherhood.
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Johnny
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On the unexpected death of Domino Harvey,
Keira says it is a “shame
that Domino won’t see (my) film.” Domino, the daughter
of the late actor Laurence Harvey and model Pauline
Stone, was
found unconscious in her bath a few weeks ago and later died. She
was, in Keira’s words, “so happy the film about her
life was finally being made after twelve years.” Domino had
a great modeling career going when she suddenly abandoned the catwalk
and became a bounty hunter, going after real criminals who’ve
skipped the scene. When the movie finally began shooting and looked
as if it were really going to happen, Domino told director Tony
Scott that the film made her “feel classy.”
As has been the case at any gathering of
people in the entertainment business since “The Tom and Katie Show” hit town, talk
at the Prey party got around to another example of Cruise control,
with someone asking us if we’d heard that he (Cruise) had
urged David and Victoria Beckham to go on the Oprah show.
Just as this was being related to us, we happened to see David
and Victoria close by and couldn’t resist asking them, “so
when are you two going to appear on Oprah?” Both smiled slyly
and said nothing, leading us to wonder about the veracity of the
gossip. We did warn them that using Oprah’s sofa as a trampoline
had already been tried and that it didn’t work. That brought
even bigger smiles from the attractive husband and wife.
Meanwhile, back at Cruise control: Has
Rome replaced Paris as the geographic center of the Tom
Cruise-Katie Holmes romance? Perhaps.
Cruise is filming his latest movie, the third in the Mission: Impossible franchise,
hereinafter referred to as M:I-3, and
rumors emanating from the set have Tom trying to find a cameo in
the film with which he can surprise Katie. That shouldn’t
be too difficult since this is a Tom Cruise production from top
to bottom. What may prove a bit more difficult to achieve (and
almost as hard to believe) is that Katie wants to do a big-screen
re-make of William Wyler’s 1953 film Roman
Holiday, in the
role that earned Audrey Hepburn an Academy Award.
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David
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Naturally Tom would essay the Gregory Peck part.
At least 99% of the success of the original was the casting of
Hepburn and Peck
and the resultant chemistry that flooded the screen. (Not to throw
water on Katie’s idea but there was an unremarkable small-screen
version of the film in 1987 with Catherine Oxenberg and Tom
Conti.)
No matter. Tom and Katie have fallen head-over-heels in love with
the Eternal City and have been spotted tossing coins in the Trevi
fountain and presumably making the requisite wishes, one of which
just has to be a studio to fulfill their dream to re-make the 52-year
old comedy classic.
So how does Katie occupy herself while Tom is filming? Sightseeing;
but not by a chauffeur-driven limo, but by bicycle, one that has
designed by Giorgio Armani. Armani’s finale at the recent
menswear show in Milan featured a string of suit-clad models pedaling
up and down the catwalk in Emporio Armani bicycles, produced by
Bianchi, a leading bike manufacturer. Mr. Armani recently had Tom
and Katie to dinner and presented them with twin Emporio Armanis – black
with the logo spelled out in white on the crossbar. The couple
reportedly rise at the crack of dawn and take a ride on their new
bikes which will be in the Armani stores in November.
Actress Lee Grant was just 17 years old in 1951 when she made her
screen debut in the gritty, police procedural drama The Detective
Story. The film got loads of Oscar nominations including one of
Grant and one for its star, Kirk Douglas.
For
the next 17 years after this auspicious beginning, Grant suffered
the ignominy of the Hollywood blacklist. Her “crime” was
holding a memorial service for her friend and fellow actor J.
Edward Bromberg, himself an admitted former Communist
party member. Bromberg’s
death from a fatal heart attack was generally conceded to be the
result of the stress brought on by the Congressional probe into
Communist influence in the film industry.
Eventually after a 5-year court fight, Lee Grant was able to prove
her innocence. She was exonerated and given a written apology by
those members of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
who were still in Congress. Grant would go on to receive four Best
Supporting Actress nominations, winning for her brilliant comic
turn in Shampoo in 1975.
Why all this history? We all need to be reminded
of the ruined lvies, damaged careers and tragic consequences of
that dark, brutal
period in Hollywood history. We also wanted to establish a link
between Lee Grant and Kirk Douglas, who is the subject of a touching
heart-felt documentary directed Grant – A Father ...
a Son ... Once
Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was recently
aired for the first time on HBO.
Seven decades of the Douglas family’s personal and public
history are lovingly recounted, including how parental-child alienation
over time can become admiration, the appreciation, then and acceptance
and finally awe.
The press preview and reception was held at the
DGA theatre on Sunset and was hosted by George and Jolene
Schlatter.
Kirk was unable to attend because of recent knee surgery, but we’re
sure he got a chapter-and-verse report from son Michael and daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones who were there to represent the Douglas family.
Also in attendance were Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Danny
DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Karl Malden, HBO’s Sheila
Nevin, the aforementioned
Lee Grant and her producer husband Joe Furey. |
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As
a near fatal plane crash and a couple of strokes did
not slow down Kirk. Neither, we suspect, will his recent
knee surgery hinder his determination to be on ABC’s
surprise hit Dancing With the Star which the network
is bringing back for a second season. After Liz Smith broke
the story about Kirk wanting to be on the show and urged
the show’s producers to “respond enthusiastically
to the 88-year-old Oscar winner’s wish,” we called
supervising producer Izzie Pick to find
out if Kirk had been invited to appear. We were told they’d
have to get back to us.
Competition runner-up John O’Hurley, who made his Seinfeld character
J Peterman a household name, has already benefited from the show, having signed
a series development deal with the network. Now it seems that the overall dance
contest winner, Kelly Monaco may be waltzing over to ABC’s
other hit Desperate Housewives.
While
we’re on the subject, we might as well tell you about
the reports of Teri Hatcher’s diva-like behavior on the
set of the Sunday-night ratings winner. It seems that reports in the tabloids
say that some ABC exec’s noses were out of joint over an interview Teri
gave in which she said she is “looking forward to her next career challenge
and the world of film does sound appealing again.”
The result of that remark was the network and show execs calling
a meeting and
one of the execs blasting, “If Teri wants to pull a Chrissie Snow, she
can be my guest” (referring to Suzanne Somers’ character
on Three’s Company, which was abruptly written off when “her
people” made what many felt were outrageous demands.
We called ABC and were told that no one in the show’s production company
had made any statements to the press. “We love Teri and if she wants to
do film work (during hiatus) that’s fine.”
“Tabloids are going to write whatever they want,” Teri told us. “Next
week they’ll have me fighting with someone else. It’s all crap.” We
ran into Teri at Sprinkles Cup Cakes in Beverly Hills with her daughter Emerson
Rose who was outfitted head-to-toe in merchandising gear from Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory. Teri said the Johnny Depp movie has almost become
an obsession. “We’ve seen it ten times.”
We congratulated Teri on her Emmy nomination. She was gracious in her praise
of her fellow cast members, two of whom were also nominated. Teri credits writer/creator Marc
Cherry with taking her character more toward the physical comedy that
Teri is so good at and which really helps define her accident-prone, prat-falling
character in the show.
Teri, Johnny Depp and Candice Bergen were among the honorary
cruise directors who helped to raise awareness and money for the recent star-studded
event aboard Disney’s Magic Cruise Ship to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Roy
Disney was among the attendees and presented a $2 million check to the
Foundation. Other Disney bigwigs attending included Michael Eisner and
Bob Iger. |
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