I hadn’t seen this before, but I had guessed that celebrities would be the target of your typical bored, unethical passport processor at the State Department.
Bingo!
According to ABC News, “On at least two other occasions during the last eight months, contractors were fired for accessing records of Hollywood celebrities, the official said.”
No, not her, but Sean Young, the (still) gorgeous star of Blade Runner, No Way Out and the MP who pairs up with Harold Ramis in Stripes.
By various accounts bored, drunk and seeking attention, the white fur coat-clad star started heckling director Julian Schnabel at the DGA Awards–and making comments about Piaf star Marion Cotillard in French!
Schnabel “suggested that she should finish his speech for him and started walking off the stage. Music began playing for his exit, but the audience urged him to stay and keep speaking, and he did. Young, meanwhile, was removed from the ballroom.”
She got attention, all right, although probably not the kind she was seeking; it’s off to rehab for Bladerunner’s radiant replicant Rachel, who Letterman points out went to the awards and started “heckling the winners.”
Perhaps the cruelest comeback Schnabel made? “Who was that?”
Paris fired her long-suffering publicist Elliott Mintz over the weekend. No doubt her DUI-related sentencing was all his fault.
Usually, the best media strategy is to and try to move forward. But unlike Prison Break star Lane Garrison, Hilton blames others for her conviction, saying that Mintz had told her she was permitted to drive for work-related reasons.
For his part, Mintz took the high road. “I have nothing but love and respect for Paris and her family. Paris is a wonderful person and does not deserve the punishment that was handed down by the court. I only wish her my best.”
Mintz’ public relations job description, apparently, was not only to keep her in the media spotlight, but to keep her out of jail. Now she’ll have to find someone else to clean up after her.
Reggie, the lovable alligator dumped in a Long Beach lake by his loser owners when he got too big, is back!
This week also brought us a grizzly bear attack and aftermath. It follows the death threat against little Knut the Polar Bear and the pet food panic. Last spring, a coyote in Manhattan was a huge story, even as Californians used to real Wileys said WTF. There’s West’s incredible cover piece on Cheeta, 75-year old survivor of Hollywood’s golden era. Lucky and Flo. And .
Alligators, bears, monkeys and coyotes don’t buy papers. But people who care about them apparently do. Is reading about animals a respite from the depressing doings of humans? Do animal stories pull like Hollywood tales? Do they bring the call of the wild to sedentary urban people? Or are animals part of the reader’s idealized family, as in this 1939 (!) shot of Cheeta with Johnny Weismuller as Tarzan and Maureen O’Hara as Jane.
Or has what was once the summer silly season become a year-round media game of trivial pursuit?
The media loves ‘celebrating’ anniversaries, but there was surprisingly little coverage on the LA Riots this year. What coverage there was talked about how South Central (now South) Los Angeles remains a tinderbox . Worse, the Yuppies are coming.
The Los Angeles Riots began on April 29, 1992, at around 6:45PM. The not-guilty verdict in the trial of four LAPD officers charged with the beating of Rodney King came down around 3:15PM in Simi Valley, a northern (white) suburb of Los Angeles. By 4:30PM, crowds were gathering at Florence and Normandie Avenues in South Central LA. By 6:45PM, a division of LA Police officers had ‘redeployed’, never to return,. The crowd grew violent, pulling (white) truckdriver Reginald Denny out of his truck and beating him.
In the same way many can remember where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, I remember where I was April 29: arriving at a Los Angeles Lakers playoff game against the Portland Trailblazers. Leaving our two year old with a babysitter, we had driven south from West Hollywood down La Cienega Boulevard to the Great Western Forum. Listening to Chick’s pre-game analysis, we probably missed radio news reports about the just-beginning troubles by minutes. We also just missed the rioting which had spread to Inglewood between 7 and 9PM.
The game, which took place long before the cell phone/mobile Web era, was an engrossing thriller. Few had any idea what was going on outside. The Lakers, staggered early that season by the HIV-related retirement of Magic Johnson, won in overtime in what would be their only playoff win that year.
Late in the game, a message flashed on the square scoreboard above center court. ”Inglewood Police Control: Exit to the North and West only.” The crowd had been psyched–until we stepped out into the darkness and fire. A friend’s Honda had the windshield smashed. Our inconspicuous 1987 Chevy Cavalier was unharmed. All the streetlights were out. People threw rocks as we drove through deep puddles where firemen had tried to stop the burning. We raced north on LaBrea, looking into every car as they looked at us, wondering if the people inside were angry enough to kill.
We made it home and sent the babysitter away. The next day, I carried my two-year-old on my shoulders to my office at Larry Flynt Publications. Our child care provider couldn’t make it to work from the devastated area. A curfew was declared, schools and businesses were closed, and we went home and watched TV. Our neighborhood was relatively safe, patrolled by the Los Angeles Sheriffs department rather than the embattled LAPD. Still, opportunistic thieves smashed their way into a Gap store two blocks away. Much of the rest of the city was burned or looted in what the politically correct called “the uprising.” The California National Guard stood with their M-16s guarding streetcorners near our house.
On Monday, May 4, 1992, schools and businesses reopened. The toll: more than 50 killed, over four thousand injured, 12,000 arrested, and $1 billion in property damage.
To this day, my wife tells me I should have known better. I can only hang my head, knowing we had driven into the inferno. The good news: we are still together, Magic Johnson is still alive and going strong and so is Los Angeles.
Even though the first Spiderman 3 DVDs were fakes, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has a serious issue on its hands. Nine out of every 10 DVDs sold in China is an illegal copy. But MPAA spokesman Dan Glickman isn’t the most charismatic and Jack Valenti has passed on What to do?
Put Flo and Lucky on the case!
Flo and Lucky are the silent spokesdogs of the MPAA, deployed throughout Asia to literally ’sniff out’ pirated movies and games. The heroic dogs, trained to detect polycarbonate, even put a stop to a stash of child pornography. No wonder the pirates of Malaysia have put a bounty on their heads.
You don’t have to believe a word of it. It’s still a brilliant PR gambit by the MPAA, as people care much more about chocolate Labs than camcorder-wielding movie pirates or bloated movie moguls.
Journalists are taught that balanced reporting and multiple voices are important. An accepted way to achieve both is with the three-source story. Whether you blame staff cuts, star power or another explanation, such balance may be a thing of the past. Witness the following AP story which ran in the Los Angeles Times of April 20, 2007, P. E18 and on the Web.
Cruise assists 9/11 Workers
From the Associated Press, April 20, 2007
Tom Cruise’s latest effort isn’t for the big screen. It’s for the New York police officers, firefighters and paramedics of Sept. 11.
Cruise was to appear Thursday at a private dinner in Manhattan to raise money for the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, a program he co-founded in 2002.
The program, based on principles developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, offers free treatment to emergency workers who suffer breathing difficulties and other health problems stemming from exposure to toxins at ground zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The program has treated 785 workers since its inception, said Director Jim Woodworth. Each worker is given vitamins and nutritional counseling and participates in daily exercise and sauna sessions.
“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Tom,” Woodworth said.
Quick quiz: how many sources do you see? How many voices do you get? Is this a press release, or a news article?
Believe it or not, both Fox News and US Magazine took the same material and delivered a much more . Money quote: “‘This is just hocus-pocus,’ said Dr. Bob Hoffman of the New York City Poison Control Center.”