No Cary Grant

Not even a George Clooney lookalike is available at the California Cryobank sperm bank. Also, their lone Oliver Martinez lookalike--no longer available in case you're interested--is said to also resemble Cillian Murphy, who doesn't really look like Oliver Martinez.

Not to worry. There's a Mark Steyn as well as two versions of Anthony Edwards, 1.0 and a "Top Gun" version.

Via

I can almost forgive 'Candle in the Wind'

Even the lachrymose Princess Diana version, thanks to this.

I can't believe I'm defending Christian Bale

Because at heart--deep, deep down in my innermost soul--I really don't care, but the self-righteous tone of this comment to this post is just too much. Actually, the self-righteousness started with these guys, whose apparent horror of the f-word is a revelation to me.

Work can get ugly, people. Besides, he's reaming out a director of photography here, not a cleaning lady. Also, I find the transcript hilarious. I like to read it while picturing different actors in the lead.

Can someone please explain Fran Lebowitz?

She hasn't actually written anything new since 1981 yet she's perpetually showing up in the pages of publications like Vanity Fair wearing her trademark tuxedo at benefits and parties.

She's like a character out of F. Scott Fitzgerald or Evelyn Waugh, a court jester for the idle rich who sprinkles bons mots at the feet of social x-rays and minor nobles in exchange for invitations to their ski lodge in Gstaad. I suppose she's charting new territory here, as these characters of indeterminate sexuality were generally men.

Their female counterparts earned their keep on their backs, which gave them a shorter shelf life but also included benefits such as expensive jewelry or real estate that they could sock away for their old age. And if they were really, really good at their job they would marry their lovers and hire their own court jesters. Like Pamela Churchill Haywood Harriman.

Long before she went under the knife

Cher, 1967/Arnaud De Rosnay

Happy belated birthday, Ann Miller

The dancing sensation, who died in 2004, was born April 12, 1923. She started working as a dancer at age 14 after her mother moved her to LA to escape a bad marriage. Like other actresses of her time--Ginger Rogers and Bette Davis come to mind--Ann supported her mother whose hearing impairment made it impossible for her to work.

TCM aired a 1997 interview yesterday that Miller did Robert Osborne in which she discussed her long career. Among the highlights: She invented pantyhose. Miller complained to a hosiery maker that she had to have her silk stockings sewn to her dress and undergarments for every costume change. If she got a run in her stockings, they'd have to rip everything apart and sew on a new one. "Why can't we have what ballet dancers have but with silk stockings?"

She married three times, unsuccessfully. Her first marriage at 18 was particularly awful. Miller reneged on her contract with Columbia "to become a housewife" to millionaire Reese Milner. He beat her many times, the last time when she was almost nine months pregnant.

Columbia wouldn't take her back so she auditioned for the part of Fred Astaire's former dancing partner for the movie Easter Parade. On the movie she choreographed and performed "Shaking the Blues Away," a showstopper that set the tone for most of her solos. And she did it wearing a metal brace on her back, a vestige of the beating that ended her marriage and caused the death of her only child.



Miller never became a leading lady; she was always the second lead. But she did get to do some incredible numbers to show case those incredible legs.



After the big musical went the way of the big studio, Miller appeared in numerous TV shows and had a nightclub act. And she kept dancing. Here's a commercial she did for Campbell's soup in 1970.



Fabulous, is it not?

At the age of 56, Miller teamed with Mickey Rooney for the show Sugarbabies, a smash hit on Broadway that saw her dancing again.

"At MGM, I always played the second feminine lead; I was never the star in films," Miller once said.

"I was the brassy, good-hearted showgirl. I never really had my big moment on the screen.

"Sugar Babies gave me the stardom that my soul kind of yearned for."

Miller stayed with the show for nine years.



Ann Miller returned to movies in the 2001 David Lynch flim, Mulholland Dr still wearing her trademark raven hair and red lipstick.

After years of refusing film offers because she hated the nudity and violence that had become almost a cliché in contemporary pictures, she went to work with one of the screen's most controversial directors, David Lynch, with a double role in Mulholland Dr. (2001), a film featuring both nudity and graphic violence. Of course, that wasn't what she had signed on for originally. The project was planned as a TV series for ABC, with Miller playing the eccentric landlady at a Hollywood apartment complex. When the network passed on the pilot, Lynch found funding for additional scenes and turned it into a feature. Miller's part became a double role. Her surprise appearance as a Hollywood hostess at the end gave fans a last look at their favorite and an inkling of what she could have done had she had time for more non-musical roles.

Get a hold of yourself, woman

Via Emil Steiner.

Punished for looking at George Clooney's records

Palisades Medical Center suspends 27 employees for four weeks without pay for "improperly" accessing his records. I'm mystified as to why anyone would want to read George Clooney's medical records, but a month's suspension seems a bit excessive. It's not like they copied the records and tried to sell them à la Madonna's pap smear.

Halle Berry as Aretha Franklin?

I think not.

Sean Penn: Useful idiot

When Hugo Chavez closes down a television station, he's not censoring anyone. He just chose not to renew their license, that's all.

Meanwhile in the United States of Amerikkka, the censors are everywhere. We've even taken to censoring ourselves.

Say it with rodents

Show her you love her with a dead mouse. On a brooch.

PETE Doherty decided to reveal his feelings to his ex Kate Moss with a touching and heartfelt gift – a dead mouse.

Brooches featuring a very real dead rodent are currently all the rage in New York.

Pete, 28, got the idea from grungey gob on legs Courtney Love. But there’s been no sign of Mossy, 33, donning the contents of a mousetrap.

Court, 43, gave one to her friend Jason Preston, who is dating fashion designer Marc Jacobs, 44, and he has been spotted around Manhattan wearing it.

Via Spirit Fingers.

Too dumb to cook

UK government study finds that following the recipes of superstar chefs Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith are beyond the capabilities of many Britons.

However, more than 5.3 million adults would not be able to understand Lawson's instructions as her writing style is too "chatty" and she uses long sentences.

Her books, which include Nigella Bites and How to Eat, often draw on personal observations that detract from the point of the recipe, the report said.

Delia Smith was criticised for having too many different stages to her instructions and using unnecessary adjectives.

She used complex measurements, with some of her recipes requiring the ingredients chopped to the nearest half inch.

Up to half of Smith's recipes and three in seven of Lawson's were too difficult for someone to understand if they did not have GCSE standard reading and numeracy skills.

The two most challenging recipes were Smith's pasta with four cheeses and Lawson's slow roasted aromatic shoulder of pork, according to the research.

Here's Smith's pasta recipe:

I know you can see only three cheeses in the recipe, but there is a hidden one, because Torta Gorgonzola is in fact made from layers of two cheeses, Gorgonzola and mascarpone. Add to that ricotta and some Pecorino and you have a five-star recipe – including the best-quality pasta, of course! If you can't find Torta Gorgonzola, there is a very similar layered cheese called Torta di Dolcelatte, which you could use instead.

Serves 2
Ingredients

8 oz (225 g) dried pasta (penne, for example)
2 oz (50 g) ricotta
3 oz (75 g) Torta Gorgonzola, diced
1 oz (25 g) Pecorino Romano, finely grated, plus a little extra to serve
2 level tablespoons snipped fresh chives
Maldon sea salt

You need to start this by measuring out the cheeses on a plate to have them at the ready, then cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water for 1 minute less than the full cooking time (if you're using Martelli or other good-quality pasta this would be 11 minutes) – you need to know your pasta. As soon as it's ready, drain the pasta in a colander and immediately return it to the saucepan so that it still has quite a bit of moisture clinging to it. Now quickly add the chives, ricotta, Torta Gorgonzola and Pecorino, and stir till the cheese begins to melt. Serve it in hot bowls with the extra Pecorino on the table to sprinkle over.

I'm afraid I don't understand how a recipe can get much simpler than this. But for those of you having trouble following it, let me break it down:

1. Cut up cheese.
   
2. Boil pasta.
   
3. Drain pasta.
   
4. Stir cheese into pasta.
   
5. Serve.

You'll note that I omitted the chives so as not to confuse anyone. Nigella's complex recipe is here. It is kind of wordy, but that's a literary judgment, not a culinary one.

Why choose?

The Sartorialist asks: Who had more style?

Cary Grant?

He didn’t cheat like Fred Astaire who created all kinds of innovations in his legendary collaboration with his Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard or Kilgour, French & Stanbury to facilitate his incomparable movements on the dance floor.

Some of Astaire’s innovations were ridiculously pretentious like the time he tied a scarf instead of a belt around his pants, a substitution that was supposed to make his clothes less constricting. Cary Grant just wore clothes that fit.

Fred Astaire was a one-dimensional talent, a dandy dancer, a leggy technician with a lot of skill, and even more discipline. His girlishly lithe figure made it easier for him to defy gravity than a man of Grant’s more manly size.

or Fred Astaire?

There is more a sense of studied nonchalance about Astaire. Grant looked elegant in white tie and tails, but Astaire looked elegant and comfortable. He wore them like they were pajamas and a tux as though it were a part of his everyday routine, rather than borrowed from some Prussian general. It wasn’t supposed to look perfect, it was supposed to look thrown together in a perfectly natural way. Of course, it wasn’t anything of the sort. It’s what Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier defined as “sprezzatura”, a studied casualness that hides itself in purposeful eccentricity.

Is it any wonder she's a mess?

Lindsay Lohan:

DON'T blame Lindsay Lohan for her bad behavior - blame her parents. Lohan's former bodyguard of three years, Tony Almeida, says neither Dina nor Michael Lohan provided any structure for Lindsay when she was growing up and that both were wild, abusive, neglectful partyers who needed to keep their "cash cow" daughter working to pay their bills.

I've always felt kind of sorry for Lindsay. It's tough being the breadwinner of the family at age 12.

What's with the half pedicure

Judging from these photos, Kate Beckinsale either left the salon before her pedicurist was finished or she has some new fangled "French" pedicure in which the toenail is painted white and then a thin layer of black polish is applied all the way around the perimeter to simulate the look of an unwashed foot. Very nostalgie de la boue with a twist, given that these particular shoes cost upwards of $500. Also, her toes are falling off the sides of the shoes.

And while we're on the subject of shoes let me just say: Don't try this at home:



No one loves strappy high-heeled sandals more than me, but the thong strap and the high heel don't mix. One slightly false step and you've got a broken toe. Trust me in this matter.

The Photoshop of Dorian Grey

Dorian eagerly rips the package from the messenger's hands, she'd been waiting for days to see the pictures from the Redbook photo shoot. This would mark the beginning of her comeback tour; she'd been languishing in semi-obscurity for the past 10 years since her marriage to Dale and the birth of her three children.

But her new CD, "Having It All," was scheduled for release in two weeks and she was ready to get back into the spotlight. The album told the bittersweet story of her current life. Once she'd had the world by the balls--she was beautiful, thin and talented--men wanted to bed her, women wanted to be her. Now, she was a little bit older and a little bit fatter but she had the love of a good man; three wonderful, smart and beautiful children; and her creative juices were flowing like never before. She was sure this latest venture really caught the current zeitgeist. She would become a symbol to women the world over, a sadder, but wiser gal who'd aged gracefully and was living life to the fullest--on her own terms. A MILF for the ages.

Still, she was a little nervous about the photos; it had been 10 years, after all. And even a macrobiotic diet, three hours of exercise a day and a fanatical sleep regimen couldn't totally make up for the passing of the years.

So what? I still look great. And celebrity photog Basil Hallward could make even that cow Madonna look young. Well, he couldn't disguise those cords in her neck, but hell, a woman of a certain age needs a little padding and Dorian had it. Then she remembered the sleeveless sundress that stylist Henry Wotton had chosen for the shoot. She'd been wary, but Hank kept telling her how fabulous it looked on her, how it hugged all her curves in the right places, how every woman in America over 40 35 would envy her shape. He talked her into it, now she was thinking she'd been a fool to listen to that woman-hating fag.

Dorian's hands shook as she struggled to open the package. She handed it to to her assistant, Maci. "You open it, I'm too nervous." Dorian shut her eyes. She heard the paper being ripped open, followed by a sharp intake of breath and then a great whoosh of air being expelled.

"What ... Oh My God!" Dorian stared at the photo, enraptured. "I look 10 years younger and 10 pounds thinner." Dorian puts on her reading glasses and scrutinizes the photo. She looks even better than when she first started out as the lead singer of the girl group, Girl Group. Then, she'd been the picture of virginal innocence. Now, she looks just as fresh but there's something in the eyes. A Mona Lisa vibe. She has depth. Depth and mystery.

"Dorian, it's fabulous," Maci said, turning to give her a hug. The phone rings, Basil's on the line.

"How's our cover girl this morning?"

"Basil, it's terrific, but I wonder ..."

"What, pet."

"I don't look nearly as young as this picture. I'll be on the Today Show tomorrow when the magazine hits the newsstands and everyone will see that I'm not as young--or thin--as I look here. I wish now I'd gotten that tummy tuck."

"Sweetie, no one will notice a thing. Hank's on his way with another outfit and the makeup and hair people on Today are real artists. Relax, it'll be fine."

"If only I didn't have to go through with all that. If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture's arms started to jiggle! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!"

"Chill out, pumpkin," Basil soothes. "That's crazy talk."

Dorian spends the next hour looking at the photo and sighing. She tried to call Dale--he and the kids were out at the ranch in Montana while she made the rounds for the next two weeks--but there was no answer. Then Hank turns up, with a fabulous dress in tow, and her spirits start to rise. The two of them spend the day trying on clothes and experimenting with hairstyles. Then Hank convinces her to send home her pilates instructor and hit the clubs instead.

"Hank, I can't. I've got a 4 am call tomorrow for the show. I'll need my sleep."

"Dorian, precious, the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Besides, it will help you relax."

Dorian stumbled into her hotel room at around two. She managed to get her clothes off, but she didn't bother washing her face or brushing her teeth. When the wakeup call came, Dorian groaned in pain. Jesus, what an idiot I am. I'll be lucky if I pull this one off. She took a quick shower and threw on a pair of sweats. Maci was waiting in the limo with her dress.

"Christ, I'll be lucky if I can zip that thing up," she said. "I absolutely stuffed myself with caviar--and you know how I retain water. Ah shit. Maybe the coke speeded up my metabolism. Those makeup people are really gonna earn their keep."

She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke out her nose. I can't believe I started smoking again. Now I'll have a whiskey voice to go with my whiskey face. She took another drag. God, that felt good. A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

At the studio, the makeup girl spends a scant 10 minutes on her face and the hairstylist even less. And when she slips on the dress that had fit her like a glove the day before, it's loose and the wardrobe girl has to pin it at the waist. What the hell was going on? Dorian turns to look in the mirror.

"Jesus!"

It was the girl in the cover photo. The slim, perfectly coiffed girl of 21 with the knowing look. Her hair shines, her skin is perfection. And that body. Her breasts had risen two inches. And her ass! Her ass had never looked so good.

The interview went great. Meredith Vieira threw her nothing but softballs. OK, it was weird the way Al Roker kept coming over to her and massaging her shoulders, but all-in-all it went well. When they got back to the hotel, Dorian runs to her bedroom and picks up the package from Redbook. There she sees last night's debauchery. Her skin is blotchy and the bags under her eyes are like steamer trunks. Somehow her hair manages to look both greasy and dull. But the expression on her face is what really gets her. The Mona Lisa smile is replaced by a disturbing leer that makes her look both horny and desperate.

What a nightmare! Dorian shoves the photo into her private makeup case and resolves to hit the gym. But Hank stops by and the two of them hit the streets.

It goes on like that for two weeks. Then Dorian spends a week with Dale and the kids at the ranch she goes on tour. She's dismissed Maci and hired Hank to take her place. On nights when the two of them aren't out in the bars, Dorian's taken to binge eating. She generally orders a pizza or two from Domino's and washes it down with a half-gallon of Haagen Dasz triple chocolate ice cream. She never gains a pound. But her picture does. It's also grown grey roots, wrinkles and adult acne. And ... are there curly hairs erupting from her now not-quite-double chin?

The tour ends with Dorian on top of the world. She's been asked to grace the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the oldest woman ever to appear on that page. She's exchanged her music producer husband for a younger model, a Hollywood director of only 28 with a string of hits to his name. She's nominated for a grammy and performs a morning concert at Rockefeller Center at another Today Show appearance.

Man, that Al Roker is creepy, but it's all good. Until suddenly it's not. Things start falling apart. Celebrity photog Basil Hallward disappears. Dorian drops Rufus Giancarlo after his film, The Maid of Orleans, starring the 47-year-old Dorian as the teenage martyr, flopped at the box office. Then tabloids get wind of her rowdy behavior. Dorian becomes a frequent fixture on Page Six, until the following blind item appears there:

WHICH recently separated celeb has a new habit to go along with her new friends? The cutie is spending way too much time in the bathroom of the many clubs she visits, hoovering down cocaine that her pals supply her with . . .

Dorian checks into rehab for drug and alcohol addiction, sex addiction and food addiction. Upon her release she vows to turn her life around and retreats to her New Mexico ranch to work on a new CD. The work is hard. Hank, who follows her everywhere, doesn't help. He insists on going out every night to cowboy bars. The last straw occurs one morning after they wake up in bed with two hands from the Imus ranch. Dorian kicks Hank to the curb. But still the music doesn't come.

Then it happens.

Switching on the TV one morning to Access Hollywood, Dorian discovers that her estranged daughter Jemima has written a tell-all book about her.

"This has got to stop," she screams and runs up the stairs. Dorian pulls out the Redbook cover photo and tries to rip it to shreds. Her assortment of hangers on hear a huge crash and run upstairs to investigate. Lying on the floor is a morbidly obese woman clutching a photograph of Dorian, the picture from the Redbook cover restored to its former beauty. The woman, a frightful old hag wearing clothes that seemed to have been shredded, has a scissors stuck in her heart. It isn't until her stylist notices that the tattered top the loathsome old hag is wearing is, in fact, the Prada sweater Dorian had put on that morning that they realize who the dead woman is.

A match made in Hell

Rosie O'Donnell and Don Imus.

According to Mike Walker’s column in the National Enquirer, there’s a hush-hush talk show in the works at Fox to star beleaguered controversial ex-talk show hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Don “nappy headed hos” Imus! The two were said to made fast friends when Fox sent Rosie down to Don Imus’ ranch for children with cancer in New Mexico.

'He doesn't seem the sort of bloke we want in this country.'

Australia bans Snoop Dogg from entering the country.

The 35-year-old had his visa cancelled after recently pleading no contest to gun and drug charges in the US.

"He doesn't seem the sort of bloke we want in this country," Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews told Sydney's Macquarie Radio.

"This man has been a member of a Los Angeles gang, and is still associated with it apparently, that's been involved in murder, robberies and drug dealing in the LA area," Mr Andrews added.

Back in February, when Mr Broadus last visited Australia, immigration officials warned him then that he could face a ban if he got into anymore trouble.

God, I love the Aussies.

In defense of Alec Baldwin

Few people can be as infuriating as a 12-year-old child--especially if she's your daughter. OK, the pig remark was bad--and the self-pitying bits are unattractive in the extreme--but who among us hasn't made a total ass of himself while enraged?

Here's a recording of the call. Here's a mash-up, courtesy of Ace by way of Slublog.

A grande old dame

Kitty Carlisle Hart is dead at age 96. What a life! And what a good time she had living it.

Even into her mid-90s Miss Carlisle was indefatigable. Never one to sit back, sigh and let life pass her by, she was a dyed-in-greasepaint show business trouper who enthusiastically took her act on the road until her health began to fail.

As she reminisced onstage, telling anecdotes that were just salty enough to suggest the foibles of the numerous legends she knew without toppling them, Broadway was “the American musical thea-tah,” a term she trilled with the zest of a schoolgirl. She made you believe that the dazzling world of famous composers, directors, politicians and show folk in which moved constituted an exclusive place of ultimate glamour and civility that has now vanished. Among the standards she sang in a remarkably sturdy voice, tinged with an operatic vibrato, she brought a special conviction to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Something Wonderful.”