Tag: celebrity

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: A Sobering Experience

“It was a sobering experience,” said Lindsay Lohan to OK! magazine upon leaving her rehab facility in Utah this week.

Yes, that’s an actual quote from LiLo (as we call her in the journo biz). Sometimes it’s just too easy, I tell you. These Hollywood people are comedy gold. Here are a few more I dug, er, made up.

“It was truly a revealing experience,” said Britney Spears, emerging from her SUV after a night of partying. “But I couldn’t bare it anymore.”

“I just wish people would stop needling me about my bad habits,” said singer Amy Winehouse, as she stumbled over her boyfriend’s limp body in the street.

“My marriage to Pamela Anderson was a bust,” said Kid Rock on the Letterman show, “though there are a couple of big things I’ll miss.”

And even politicians aren’t immune from such gaffes:

“It was a black day for Memphis,” said Carol Chumney, as she lamented her defeat in the Memphis mayoral race.

“I thought there was light at the end of the tunnel,” said third-place finisher and former MLGW chief Herman Morris, “but we just ran out of gas.”

“What a race!” said Mayor Herenton at his victory celebration. “We had to play every card in the deck.”

And on the national scene, things aren’t much different:

“I think we’ll win by a hair in Iowa,” said John Edwards.

“I’ll be boring into the issues soon,” said Fred Thompson. “In this game, if you snooze, you lose.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” said Hillary Clinton. “Why can’t people understand that I wear the pants around here?”

“I’ve got a Big Love for this country,” said Mitt Romney. “Anything else you’ve heard is a bunch of old wives’ tales.”

“We’re starting this campaign at Ground Zero,” said Rudy Giuliani. “Then we’re going to scare up as many votes as we can.”

“I’m vetoing health-care for 10 million kids because to do otherwise will ruin this healthy economy,” said President George Bush. “Besides, our childrens do learn.”

I only wish I’d made up that last one.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

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News

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel Are In Love. Awww.

And this time it’s real, dadgummit. The London Daily Mirror says the world’s most important romance is on again, and they have the photos to prove it.

From the Mirror (via the Mail website; it gets confusing when you’re borrowing content): “It looks like things are getting serious for loved-up couple Justin Timberlake and actress Jessica Biel.

“Despite protestations that he didn’t want new love Jessica to accompany him on tour, it seems Justin has been bitten by the love bug.

“The couple shared a tender kiss aboard a luxury speedboat

“The couple were seen kissing aboard a speedboat as Justin touched down in Oslo to continue his European tour.

“The SexyBack singer said he was forced to send the actress back to the U.S. recently because he finds it difficult to focus on his work when he is with her.”

“Sexyback” indeed. Was that song written about her??? More pics and story here.

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News

Memphis Homes of the Rich and Famous

CREDIT: Devin Greaney

Most Memphians know that Cybill Shepherd grew up here, and more than a few know that Oscar-winning Kathy Bates is a proud graduate of White Station High School.

But not so many, we suspect, know that actress Shannen Doherty was born in Memphis — in Whitehaven, to be more specific — along with quite a few other celebrities.

Devin Greaney has not only tracked down the childhood homes of famous Memphians (and former Memphians), he has photographed them and compiled them on a website.

Want to see where Tim McCarver, Aretha Franklin, Henry Turley, Elvis, and even Machine Gun Kelly grew up in Memphis? Sure you do. Go to Devin’s website to find out more.

And, even though he’s not rich, semi-famous Flyer writer and former-editor Tim Sampson’s childhood home is also included.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: (AP Illustration/Bill Robles)

“Paris Hilton got 45 days in jail. A lot of people were upset about this; they were hoping for the death penalty.”

— Jay Leno

This is my third column on Paris Hilton, for which I am deeply ashamed. But she is such a train wreck and the antithesis of what I want my kids to become that I am forced to write about her latest escapade. She is so representative of L.A. and the type of kids Beverly Hills produces that I really want to point out that we should never listen to what these celebutards or their parents say.

Each year, I go to L.A. to play with a good friend at his member-guest golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club. He is a great guy who, since his son was born, has wanted to move to Atlanta. I asked him why, given that L.A. seems like such a paradise. He said that L.A. is no place to raise a kid. The values are all warped: It is all about superficial looks and money. He railed on the entitlement mindset of kids who just inherit their parents’ money or celebrity and saw nothing of value in raising a child there.

After I thought about it, I realized that the major recent graduates of Beverly Hills area high schools are Jack Abramoff, Monica Lewinsky, Robert Downey Jr., Nicole Ritchie, and Paris Hilton.

If you missed it, the fair Paris was sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating terms of her parole for DUI. She cited her publicist, who apparently told her that the L.A. police would never arrest a thin white girl who is a cute celebrity. She said, “He told me I could drive to work.” Which raises another question: What does she do for work?

Now she’s scheduled to go to a minimum-security prison, which is about like an average Hilton hotel these days. She will be exposed to video cameras, body searches, and perhaps cavity searches at any moment — not unlike a night out in L.A. for her, so it won’t be much of a change.

The most telling thing was when her mother made fun of the judge and acted like a complete spoiled brat in court. No doubt that’s why Paris is the way that she is — and it is indicative of the way many in Hollywood raise their kids. There is not a more superficial and ostentatious place in the world. While a majority claim to be liberals, they talk about money more than people in any other city in the world. Most of these do-nothing heirs and their parents are hooked on their celebrity as much as they are on drugs. Listening to them speak, it’s obvious the only thing they are not hooked on is phonics.

Paris’ mother went on to say that she was going to appeal her daughter’s case to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Which to me is amazing — the fact that Paris’ mother actually knew who the governor of California was. Good thing he was a celebrity. I doubt that she could have come up with Gray Davis’ name.

Fortunately, unlike with celebs O.J., Michael Jackson, and Robert Blake, California found a way to impose justice in the Hilton case. They will send her away to prison for a few weeks, or as she and her new publicists will try to spin it, “a gated community.”

The main problem I see for the prison system is trying to squeeze in 2,000 conjugal visits in 45 days. And I just hope her friend Nicole Ritchie doesn’t go on a hunger strike for Paris. In fact, in L.A., it might be a better plan for her friends to go on eating strikes.

Let Paris out, or I’ll eat again.

Ron Hart is a columnist and investor in Atlanta. He worked for Goldman Sachs and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents by Lamar Alexander. His E-mail: RevRon10@aol.com.

Categories
News News Feature

Celebs Forever

Every day, Hollywood cedes territory to video games, blogs, text-messaging, MySpace.com, etc. There are bored, lip-syncing teens on YouTube.com now scoring higher Nielsen ratings than half the shows on basic cable.

But here’s the thing: While you may feel no pressing need to see Lindsay Lohan’s latest attempt to out-act Dakota Fanning, you’re at least vaguely familiar with her efforts to out-skeeze Paris Hilton. Not so long ago, celebrity gossip was a moribund art form, domesticated by punch-pulling softies like Liz Smith, neutered by the red-carpet suck-bots of Entertainment Tonight. Once urbane, sophisticated even, a fizzy cocktail of venom and cynical wit, celebrity gossip had flattened into tepid stuff, a supermarket staple aimed at housewives.

But then the Web came along to resurrect it. Visual, voyeuristic, convivial to rumor and speculation, the Internet is to gossip what sheep dung is to azaleas. And everywhere you look, gardens of schadenfreude and comeuppance are in vivid bloom. If you like your creepy sycophantic voyeurism with a dash of corporate polish, try AOL’s wildly popular entrée into the field, TMZ.com. If your tastes run more toward sole practitioners but you find the Drudge Report too wonky and articulate, you may enjoy PerezHilton.com.

In the old days, you had to spit on a photographer to get coverage on Hard Copy, but on the Internet, the demand for content is endless: Just be hungry and vaguely recognizable and eventually you’ll show up on Celebrities.com, a site whose CIA-quality surveillance of popular L.A. restaurants proves that Hollywood stargazing can be almost as entertaining as watching a 7-Eleven security cam.

Luckily, the photos and the video clips don’t all have to be jaw-droppers or even mildly interesting — in the online world, they’re just a jumping-off point. Gossip has always been an intimate phenomenon, a chain of whispers passed from busybody to busybody, idler to idler. Mass media speeded up this process but did little to connect all the nodes on the grapevine. The Web, on the other hand, does this very well. When TMZ.com documented the somewhat counterintuitive way Mel Gibson has of expressing his Semitism, the post inspired nearly 6,000 user comments. Even an unflattering mug shot of Liv Tyler’s latest zit can inspire days of follow-up wisecracks and analysis.

But while gossip on the Web is a communal, user-centric experience, celebrities are, and will always be, a necessary ingredient. You don’t need a movie star to make a YouTube.com blockbuster. And sites like MP3.com and Purevolume.com aggregate so many surprisingly adequate bands that they’re well on the way to making the title of “rock star” as meaningless as “porn star.” A few hardcore fans may recognize the occasional standouts, but to the masses, they function simply as disposable, interchangeable, semi-anonymous content-providers, here today, gone today.

Gossip without celebrities, meanwhile, is like bourbon and water without the bourbon — it may satisfy your thirst, but it won’t warm your heart. That’s because gossip is a dish best served ruthlessly, and while the Web makes it easy to give your worst self free reign under the cover of anonymity — on the Internet, no one knows you’re a homicidal misanthrope with atrocious spelling skills — some gentler souls still hesitate to ridicule strangers. But celebrities are larger than life, not quite human, blessed by fortune. Shielded from our petty swipes by a thick armor of privilege and a great set of abs, they make excellent piñatas. Traditionally, this has been their burden to bear, a fame tax of sorts. Now, as our interest in the forms and mediums that made them famous wanes, it may be their saving grace.