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Paris Does Martha? What’s this we’re hearing
about Paris Hilton wanting her own cooking/lifestyle show? Could this
be hype fomented by some over-zealous flack on behalf of the already
over-exposed under-talented hotel heiress, who’s more famous
for being famous than for anything else? As improbable as it sounds,
Paris, the ultimate celebretante, told Vanity Fair that she would
really rather stay home and cook for her fiance, Paris
Latsis,
than go out and club crawl.
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Martha
Stewart
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Those
who know her are saying that she does indeed want to curtail her
tabloid-baiting behavior and would like nothing better than
to be a twentysomething version of Martha Stewart. She is shopping
a show she’s developed where she cooks, gardens and gives
such tips as how to re-upholster your old, worn-out chair in the
attic or how to make a mirror frame out of seashells and other
detritus found on the beach in front of your ocean-front, weekend
retreat.
Neither Paris nor her “people” returned our phone calls
to verify the report. Perhaps she’s stuck in the kitchen,
sweating over her Viking range, making an apple tartin for some
network executives. Or possibly, out on the town for one last hurrah
before hunkering down with her boyfriend.
If
you can take the heat, stay in the kitchen…. For many
show biz hopefuls, waiting table is a purgatory they endure while
waiting for their moment of glory. An exception would have to be
Bradley Cooper who is managing to combine his reality with his
dream.
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Anthony
Bourdain
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“When I was a kid, I wanted to be either a cook or an actor,” he
says. Now he gets to be both in Fox’s new series Kitchen
Confidential, loosely based on the best-selling autobiography of
the Gotham celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain, which
plays on the idea that chefs are this generation’s rock stars
with theire egos, torrid romances and chemical demons to match.
“Our appetites seldom end with food,” says Bourdain, who chronicled
his years of shady associations and substance abuse in his memoir.
Now free of drugs, he is a consultant on the show.
“I know I am not a conventional leading man,” says series
star Cooper whom we spoke to recently dining with friends at Koi. “But
on the other hand, the series totally dovetails with my life. Before
I studied acting, I made it as far as prep cook in various restaurant
in (his native) Philadelphia. “Plus the fact that I get to
kiss Bonnie Somerville (the blonde beauty who
plays the daughter of the restaurant owner where his character
works) which is, as
they say, the icing on the cake.”
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Bonnie
Somerville
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Bradley
sweaers he didn’t want to do the pilot but after
reading the script, he loved the character he would wind up playing. “It’s
much more nourishing than flipping flapjacks for Sydney when she
walks in,” he says, referring to his character on his previous
series, Alias.
Home on the range: Another actor who portrays a chef in a new comedy
series this season is the super-likeable Freddie Prinze,
Jr. He
plays an irresistible playboy chef distracted by the distaff members
of his family who move into his home, cramp his style and play
havoc with his privacy.
As it happens, Freddie is a great cook in real life. He went to
culinary school and is definitely a “foodie,” know
to frequent the same restaurant several times in one week.
Meanwhile, out in the diningroom: “As breakups go, it could
hardly have been more civilized.” That’s Keira
Knightly talking to us about her split from hunky Calvin Klein model Jamie
Dorman at MR CHOW in Beverly Hills recently. “They (the tabloids)
have me crying a river of tears but the truth is we are still very
good friends and we’ll continue to see each other as friends.”
Those close to Keira have suggested that Jamie found it increasingly
difficult to be with a woman whose professional success had far
outstripped his own. Keira has never been busier with four major
films in the pipeline. And earlier this year she was selected to
be the face of high-profile jeweler Asprey.
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Keira
Knightly
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Others have whispered that Jamie was growing closer than Keira
had liked to Kirsten Dunst, his co-star in Sophia
Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. (When last we heard, Kirsten and Jake
Gyllenhaal were closerthanthis).
Keira who next goes before the cameras to portray Elizabeth
Bennett in Jane Austen’s Pride
and Prejudice, told us that a newspaper
in London voted her one of the scruffiest people in Britain. “I’m
quite proud of that. It’s completely true,” she said.
Big news in Beverly Hills social circles: Beatrice
Niven, recently
divroced from David Niven Jr., will marry California real estate
lawyer David Phelps sometime this fall in New York. Her mother
and stepfather are Annette and Oscar de la Renta, who
will design Beatrice’s wedding dress. The couple will be living in a
large house that Beatrice recently purchased in Hancock Park. They’ll
need the space: they have five children beween them and a menagerie
of cats and dogs.
“I love Penelope (Cruz), but we’re not heading up the aisle
anytime soon, like the tabloids say.” This is Matthew
McConaughey talking. We caught Matthew at Il Sole, one our fave dining spots,
where he was supping on pasta with Al Pacino, his co-star in Two
for the Money. We joked that that kind of reporting also had Brad
Pitt and Angelina Jolie eloping, possibly all the way to George
Clooney’s Lake Como getaway in Italy. “Yeah, right.
None of that stuff is true,” Matthew agreed. He told us that
he’d be at the 20th American Cinemateque Awards at the Beverly
Hilton on October 21 when they’ll honor Al. And yes, Penelope
Cruz will be on his arm, looking lovely, we’re sure. We were
told that after we left, Penelope joined the party at Il Sole.
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Jennifer
Lopez and Marc Anthony
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Love and Marriage, Hollywood Style: Jennifer
Lopez and her husband
Marc Anthony will be spending more time in New York and have hired
Thom Filicia to decorate Marc’s rambling house on Long Island.
They just want a comfortable, friendly home, nothing like Jennifer’s
showplaces in L.A. and Miami.
You have to give Jodie Foster an A-plus for candor.
Or guts. “I
would rather look my age then have plastic surgery,” she
says. “I don’t want to end up looking like Cher.” (Ouch!)
She continues: I am starting to see all the funny changes, but
I don’t want to compete in a losing battle.” Jodie
can be seen in the country’s multi-lexes in Flight Plan. We’re
still waiting to hear from Cher.
More Flight Plans: Gwyneth Paltrow offered
comfort to her fellow passengers when the plane she was on was
sent back to New York
when it developed mechanical problems mid-flight. Because of this,
she missed the premiere of her new film, Proof, at the
Venice Film Festival. She did make it to Dior’s and Andrew Saffir’s Cinema
Society screening of the film and the after-party that benefited
Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation at 165
Charles Street, the Richard Meier designed building.
“I hated acting,” Gwyneth said, discussing her very public
decision to quit Hollywood last year. “Acting and the whole
circus around it.” If there’s one reason she’s
staying in the game at all, she says, it’s because of Proof. She
said she is now making decisions with a sense of purpose. “I’m
now choosing films that I would want to see,” she said. “That’s
the only reason I’d be away from my daughter.” |
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