Love Nuke

Previously an Celebrity autobiography was a much-predictable affair where the life, loves and opinions of the rich and famous celebrities could be spoken in their own terms.

Today of course autobiographies are as ubiquitous as the celebrities that roil them out and Celebrity Autobiography manages to expose some of more blank bilge ever to be graced with an ISBN number.

Eugene Pack’s simple show presents excerpts from a selection of authors including Katie Price, Mr T, David Hasselhoff and Madonna as read by a team of comedy performers. Needless to say this show is all about delivery and this company is blessed not only with intuitive comic delivery but also fascinating material.

Highlights include Sally Phillips reading from Madonna’s Sex where a nonchalant attitude to sexual behaviour actually sound remarkably like the sexual assault of a minor and Michael Urie, a regular in this show off-Broadway, is hilarious as he offers romance tips from Tommy Lee’s Tommyland.

It is not just the current crop of celebrities that should really have kept quiet about their personal lives and a one point we get three very different points of view of the Eddie Fisher/Elizabeth Taylor/Debbie Reynolds love triangle with Dayle Reyfel, perfect as a girl-scout Reynolds and an exquisite Doon Mackichan as Elizabeth Taylor.

As I sat under the hair dryer this past week at my favorite salon perusing my regular supply of weekly entertainment glossies, I remarked out loud how breathtaking I thought singer Alicia Keys looked in her one-shoulder Vera Wang-designed wedding gown. On one particular tabloid cover, Keys seemed to glow as she kissed her new husband, Swizz Beatz, in front of a fabulous island. Now, usually a comment about a popular celebrity elicits an immediate response in my chatty salon. Not this day. My complimentary words about Keys were met with an odd silence that lasted five minutes or more. (For those who aren’t familiar with the African-American beauty-salon etiquette, that’s an eternity.)Finally, the young lady under the dryer next to mine calmly turned to me and asked how I could admire a husband-stealing “floozy” like Keys. Before I could process that question, the woman on the other side chimed in by adding that Keys had one less fan now that she’d broken up someone else’s home.

To say I was completely floored by the callous reactions of these seemingly sensible women would be an understatement. Yes, I’d read all the blog accounts of how Keys allegedly began an affair with her then-married record producer Swizz Beatz while recording her most recent album. I’d even read interviews where the “jilted’’ wife of Beatz claimed Keys became pregnant months before she and her husband had officially divorced. (Keys have not commented publicly on any of this.) I skimmed most of the stories about Keys, but only partially retained the scandalous and racy tidbits because frankly, I just don’t care much about the intimate details of Alicia Keys’s life. I just really love her music.

When I explained my point of view to the women around me, they were clearly appalled at my lack of outrage. They pointed out the contradiction of Keys’s private life and her pro-female lyrics and classy on-stage persona. As they listed the many ways in which Keys had disappointed them, they spoke as if they personally knew her—as if she were a friend they had drinks with every Friday night after work.
And therein lies the looming problem we as fans now face. Because of the mass influx of social-media networks, celebrity blogs, and endless celebrity-based reality shows, Americans have been lulled into a dangerously false sense of intimacy with the people only meant to entertain us. It’s allowed us to have detailed opinions on the actions and lives of people who used to be just fleeting and mysterious images on a video or in a film. Having “inside” knowledge about stars, their comings and goings, dating habits, and even their shopping choices has somehow made us feel that we share similarities with the faces that flawlessly grace magazine covers, light up the big screen, and sell millions of albums.

Accordingly, that so-called knowledge also appears to have given us the right to judge celebs as harshly as we would our actual friends without ever considering the fact that blogs, magazines, and even the celebs themselves rarely tell anyone the full story. Just take the sad predicament of Fantasia Barrino, the former American Idol winner who recently attempted suicide after the details of her alleged relationship with a married man were revealed in a lawsuit. Barrino was reportedly so distraught by the news—and the vicious and mean comments posted by fans on celebrity blogs—that she took a mix of sleeping pills and aspirin to shut it all out. That’s an interesting and sad turn for a celebrity who was created by a television show that allowed viewers to call in and vote on her success— now they’re apparently voting on her morality as well.
But where does that leaves us as fans when we decide we won’t support the career of some imperfect person whose talent or intellect has profoundly affected us? Is anyone out there really able to live up to society’s standard of being a “good person” and the perfect role model? Is there even such a thing? Thinking about all this led me to reflect on the lives of my all-time favorite singers, Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke—men whose music I simply couldn’t fathom being without. Both were involved in a number of scandalous affairs while still married and both died extremely violent deaths. Cooke was shot and killed by a prostitute, while Gaye was gunned down by his own father during an argument—not exactly the peaceful lives one would expect from men who wrote such iconic and thought-provoking songs as “A Change Is Gonna Come’’ and “What’s Going On.’’ During their lifetimes in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, only bits and pieces of their personal stories surfaced for public consumption. While fans of that generation surely heard the rumors, they never seemed to allow them to impact their love for the true genius of the artist in question. They simply separated the men or women from their music. Maybe it’s time we do the same.

Megan Fox is wigging out!

In a new photo spread for Interview magazine, the 24-year-old actress is barely recognizable: wearing a retro bob wig, she poses suggestively with a lookalike mannequin. The article even notes that Fox asked to keep the doppelganger mannequin’s head as a souvenir at the end of the photo shoot.

“I don’t want to open my mouth or speak anymore,” Fox tells interviewer/actor Zach Galifianakis. “Everything I say becomes scandalous.”

Despite her ubiquitous presence (thanks to the first two “Transformers” films), Fox explains, “I’m one of those people who fiercely guards their privacy, so I hate doing interviews.”

She admits, in fact, to lying during interviews to protect herself.

“I have said some things to throw people off the scent of what’s really going on in my life. So I have sort of aided the media in printing these misconceptions, which I regret.”

She adds: “at this point, I’m not going to go out of my way to mislead people … that doesn’t really get me anywhere”

In the spirit of sharing, the impressively toned star tells Galifianakis of her weakness for “comfort food, soul food.” Despite her six-pack abs, the Tennessee-raised star says her ideal meal would be “collard greens and candied baby carrots and then have some biscuits and white gravy — and for dessert, probably blackberry cobbler.”

How is she in the kitchen? “I can do a pretty good chocolate-chip pancake. I can do a decent smoothie because when I was 15, I worked in a smoothie shop.”

Although Fox won’t be appearing in “Transformers 3,” she hits theaters next Friday in “Jonah Hex,” an action-adventure flick also starring Josh Brolin.

Academy Award winners Matt Damon and Ben Affleck confirmed their return to the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, for the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Ante Up for Africa charity tournament.

In 2009, Damon and Affleck, alongside other poker elites, played for the annual Ante Up for Africa charity tournament during the WSOP. Last year’s entourage included “;Amazing Race”; contestant Tiffany Michelle, Greg “;FBT”; Mueller, 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, Jennifer Harman, Robert Williamson III and Barry Greenstein.

On the red carpet at the Rio last year, Matt Damon said, “;They’ve raised over $2 million so far and we know where the money is going. The Enough Project is fantastic. There’s a lot of transparency there, so we know where the money goes. It’s a terrific cause to give to and hopefully it’s making a difference.”; The Enough Project is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Ante Up for Africa.

In 1997, Damon and Affleck won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay for “;Good Will Hunting.”; Damon’s love for poker was shown in the 1998 film “;Rounders,”; a classic that widely increased awareness of Texas Hold’em throughout the poker community.

Damon appeared in hits like “;Saving Private Ryan”; and “;Dogma,”; as well as films like “;Invictus,”; “;The Departed,”; trilogy “;Oceans 11,”; and series “;Bourne.”; Affleck on the other hand starred in the casino hit “;Smokin’ Aces”; and blockbusters including “;Mallrats,”; “;Boiler Room,”; “;Pearl Harbor,”; “;Armageddon,”; and “;Daredevil.”;

Gary Coleman’s estranged parents abandoned their effort to bury him in his native Illinois Friday after a Utah attorney revealed the actor named an executor in a 1999 will.

“Of course it’s disappointing. We’d be inhuman if it wasn’t, but we’re not up for a fight,” Coleman’s mother, Sue Coleman, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We just want him finally put away to rest.”

Gary Coleman died May 28 in Utah from a brain hemorrhage at age 42.

Salt Lake City Attorney Kent Alderman said he has a will Coleman wrote that he will take to a Utah County court sometime next week. The will was written before Coleman moved to Utah and met his future wife during filming for the 2006 comedy “Church Ball.” Alderman wouldn’t reveal details of the will, including the name of the executor, but said Coleman will not be buried this weekend.

“We will submit that for probate next week and find out if this is the last will. We believe it is. Nobody’s come up with a more recent one,” Alderman said.

Frederick Jackman, an attorney for Gary Coleman’s parents, said the person named in the will is Dion Mial, a friend and former manager of the former child TV star. A message left at a listing for Mial in Las Vegas was not immediately returned Friday.

Sue Coleman and husband Willie Coleman had been seeking to take custody of their son’s body and return it to his boyhood home in Illinois once it was discovered this week that he had divorced wife Shannon Price in 2008. It was Price — who was named in an advanced health care directive — who ordered that Gary Coleman be taken off of life support.

His parents have said they learned about his hospitalization and death from media reports and they had wanted to reconcile with their son before his death.

“We know that we loved him. We know deep in his heart he loves us,” Sue Coleman said Friday. “That’s the way it is.”

She said she wasn’t aware of any funeral details outlined in the will and that she had not spoken with Mial in probably 20 years.