Vogue's editor is too jealous of her icy mystery to expose herself much in public. She gives few interviews, and shows up to fashion events shielded by a helmet of hair and dark sunglasses. That makes Wintour's appearance before the Oxford Union, a debate club which is a playground for future British politicians, all the more unusual.
I'm going to venture a guess here: The demographic overlap between Valleywag and Seventeen is approximately zero. But it turns out teenage girls are just like us! "Weekends are usually a time for slowing down and relaxing," a Hearst PR flack informs us. They squabble over whether BlackBerrys are better than iPhones! They think the MacBook Air is really thin! They like Wi-Fi enabled bunnies! They have a crush on the Jonas Brothers Band. Okay, not exactly like us. Find more similarities in this feature, available in the April issue of Seventeen, on newsstands March 4.
Angry McCann Erickson ad agency executive Nina Disesa reminisced fondly to the press today about her former colleague Paul Tilley, who committed suicide late last week. She commended his wisdom and sense of humor. Kind words, and quite a contrast to her assessment of anti-Tilley bloggers as hateful, bitter losers. It's worth pointing out, amidst all the hubbub, that Disesa is currently flogging her book, "Seducing The Boys Club," about how to survive and thrive as a woman in a man's world. Its observations seem to have informed her blog-relations tactics. Below, some of Disesa's top "practical, outrageous, and even controversial maxims" for dealing with men—the dogs!
When you're new in Hollywood, or at least a first-timer at the Oscars, one rule to keep in mind: don't act like a diva with witnesses around and then publicly deny your behavior later, for the truth will ALWAYS come back to haunt you. According to a tipster with knowledge of DiabloShoeGate `08, there was a lengthy back-and-forth between Diablo Cody, her stylist, and Stuart Weitzman's people about the diamond-encrusted t-straps that she was supposed to be wearing to the Academy Awards last night. In fact, we have learned that her stylist is the one who approached Weitzman's people in the first place, asking if Cody could pretty please wear his shoes on the carpet. What happened next? Read on for the murky details surrounding a publicity stunt gone terribly wrong.
In case any of you ugly ducklings out there stare at the impossibly adorable and feisty Elisabeth Hasselbeck, The View panel's hawkish contributor, and see in her an unattainably shrill ideal, fear not. She too was once a gawky pre-adolescent, smiling past the sadness through a wall of orthodontic appliances and tragically outmoded frames purchased at the short-lived Sally Jesse Raphael Optical Centers (Your Glasses—and Some Tough Love—in About An Hour!™).
For every swan dress there is a fire engine red body-hugger worn by the likes of Catherine Zeta-Jones, or one of those golden sparkle-y things that just melts all over Halle Berry's body. To prove we're not just big meanies when it comes to discussing Oscar outfits of yesterday, we've put together our Top Ten picks for the most exclamatory, drop-dead dresses ever worn on an Oscar red carpet, and even redeemed one member of the Worst Club by placing her at the shiny top of our Best-Dressed cake.
The cancellation of this year's Vanity Fair party, the social highlight of Oscars night, is a tragedy. Not so much because it deprives gatecrashers of their most significant challenge of the year; but because Graydon Carter's annual party invites represent a definitive list of celebrity. The next best thing: social scientist Elizabeth Currid and her colleague analyzed photographs of guests since last year's gathering, to calculate the most socially connected and socially promiscuous of celebrities. A taster: highly connected Kimora Lee Simmons is a perfect celebrity disease vector, or else simply skilled at working her way into the frame. But one of the flightiest social butterflies, a cute Spanish actress, seemingly devoted to her craft, will surprise you.
Never mind Gene Simmons. What about the radical presumption that you could share your own exploits with a more private audience? How do you aim for the stars without landing in the gutter? Once you've captured the moment, putting it online is a 3-step process in careful handling.
This weekend's episode of Saturday Night Live will not only be its first since the WGA Strike shut down production of the show back in November, but it also marks the debut of the show's newest cast member, Casey Wilson. If that name sounds familiar, that means you're probably a regular at LA's outpost of the Upright Citizen's Brigade. Wilson has been a regular on the comedy scene for some time now, writing and directing several UCB shows, including Rode Hard and Put Away Wet and Worst Laid Plans, as well as her work with Harold teams "Sentimental Lady" and "Hey, Uncle Gary!".
Despite the notoriously hectic SNL schedule, Wilson was gracious enough to steal five minutes from her show prep yesterday for a quick phone interview with Defamer's own Molly McAleer. The two briefly chatted about how Wilson came to join the The Not Ready For Primetime Players, as well as what we can expect from tomorrow night's Tina Fey hosted episode:
In a move that may send the space-time fabric of the Manhattan gossip media folding in on itself with apocalyptic results, Leven Rambin, the Julia Allison-connected 17 year-old All My Children actress, love object of Hud Morgan, and proto-starlet of the celebrity-industrial complex, has announced that she will be playing a "Lindsay Lohan-esque character" in an upcoming episode of "Lipstick Jungle." So, "does that mean she's a messy party girl with a coke problem?" wonders Ben Widdicombe. "'Oh yes,' Rambin nodded enthusiastically, and then added: 'The character that is, not me.'" The implications are staggering. A recap, a link to a handy visual aid, and a guide to the key questions we now face, below.
When you're five months pregnant, sheer fabrics and subtlety don't exactly go together. But Nicole Kidman, seen here promoting The Golden Compass in Japan yesterday, is brazen! She will show you her baby bump and you will like it! On the opposite side of the spectrum is Nicole's replacement, Katie Holmes, who wore a Look Ma, I'm Not Pregnant silk dress to last night's Costume Designer's Guild Awards. How tight was it? So tight that we now possess the knowledge that Tom Cruise prefers his women to wear low-cut cotton undies. But putting their triumphant maternal updates aside, what's with Tom's paramours and their preference for Auntie Mame numbers?
An inspired move by New York to play on Lindsay Lohan's obsession with Marilyn Monroe. Adam Moss' magazine scored one of the big web hits of the week, by persuading the Hollywood actress to strip for the same photographer who took the last, erotic photographs of Monroe before she committed suicide. Like I said, inspired. But not very original, it turns out. If Lindsay Lohan was paying homage to the mid-century bombshell, New York should have explained that it was itself paying homage to rival Vanity Fair. In 2006, Lohan channeled her alter ego in a spread for Graydon Carter's magazine. The styling? Borrowed from the first pictures of a 19-year-old Marilyn Monroe, at the beach in a white bathing suit. To think that, only two years ago, Lohan could play the ingenue without ridicule; now she's more credible as a washed-up actress on suicide watch. (Clockwise from top left: the early Marilyn, by photographer Andre De Dienes; Vanity Fair's February 2006 cover; this week's New York; and, the inspiration, the mid-century actress' "last sitting" with Bert Stein. Below: larger photos.)
Well, first of all: try posting it on the internets, under your real name, on the Cosmo website! Have we learned nothing about the perils of dateblogging? For what it's worth, our favorite Cosmogirl, recent Smith grad Leo, has tried everything. Including consulting Cosmo's sex articles for advice! (Noooo, girl, those aren't real.) So just how bad was it? Details, plz!
Following in the current publishing world trend of putting leading actresses of the day in meticulously art directed recreations of Hitchcock films, naked Marilyn spreads, and other potentially terrifying scenarios, Jessica Alba sat for a series of iconic horror movie tableaus for Latina magazine. The shoot called upon the unsung-serious-actress- trapped-in- the-body-of-a -mindblowing-hottie to reach deeper into her own talent stores than ever before. And reach she did, pulling out every open-mouthed trick in her acting playbook, to put her own imprint on such iconic cinematic moments as (from L to R) Rosemary's Baby, the Psycho shower scene, and the climactic pigeon-attack from Working Girl.
There once was a land — a magical land — where a squarejawed titan named John Tesh and a leggy vixen named Mary Hart reigned supreme. Together, they blazed a pioneering trail in which the worlds of journalism and entertainment converged into 30 minutes of televised bliss each and every weeknight. But much like other creations that were born of the purest intentions (think: The Coreys, Britney Spears and Napster), copycat competitors soon entered the fray and everything quickly turned to shit.
Today, the state of celebrity infotainment is at a crossroads, a crossroads at which the likes of Harvey Levin, Billy Bush and Mark McGrath are honored as the Father, Son and Unholy Ghost of the genre. As new celeb-centric shows spring up with greater regularity than lesions on Paris Hilton's nether regions, we here at Defamer are proud to present a new weekly video feature that we are calling Dirt Sandwich. Culled together by Intrepid Defamer Videographer™ Molly McAleer, each episode will place an unforgiving spotlight on the week's lowest and highest moments (which, as you'll soon discover, are often one and the same). Enjoy!
What do you say about Mark Lisanti that doesn't instantly start sounding like pathetic gushing? Is he one of the funniest, most brilliant writers ever to put fingers to keyboard? Of that there is no doubt. Has he left a mark? Try a Godzilla-sized footprint. Working with him over the last three years has been nothing less than the creative experience of a lifetime. The best part is that beneath that mountain of talent, Mark is one of the most humble, humane, and menschy guys you will ever meet. Also: His career has only just begun.
The Star's Candace Trunzo cheerfully admits that the gossip weekly pays for tips. "I make no qualms about it," says the rag's editor-in-chief. "I think all the celebrity magazines do it." Well, in that case... Star magazine promises $100 on up for useful information phoned into their 800 number, though the exact rate is subject to negotiation; Gawker's pay-for-play experiment is more high-tech. Send us secret memos (like this), revealing photographs (like this), or unique video footage (like this). For every contribution we run, and which isn't shot down as a fake, we'll pay our standard rate: $7.50 per thousand pageviews. Payment by Paypal or Amazon gift certificate. The traffic count is displayed next to every item. The offer runs for the rest of February. Leaks to tips@gawker.com. (Outraged j-school ethics guardians can email me personally.)
Demonstrating fairly impressive comedy turnaround time, David Letterman's top ten list last night was about how Jane Fonda said "cunt" on the Today show yesterday morning. The highlight is less the list (though the Katie Couric joke is funny) than Letterman's alternately gleeful and skittish explanation of the incident (also the fact that he can't quite bring himself to say "vagina."). Clip attached, enjoy.
After seeing photos of Lindsay Lohan at last night's Fendi party, we couldn't help but feel proud of our girl. For the first time in years, that freckled face showed no signs of alcohol poisoning, septum damage, hangover bloat or conspicuous white dust at all. Lindsay's new Sober Face makes all her previous public appearances look like a dismal collage of (fun-filled!) disaster-laced evenings. Speaking of said evenings, we put together a little sampling of some of our favorite past instances of LiLo sporting her Tipsy Face. We think you'll all agree that she looks much better when she avoids the booze. All the dizzying "before" shots after the jump!
