I’m surprised it took this long. Jest.com, which is sort of like Funny or Die, has sent out a casting call for Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise lookalikes. They’re planning a short film parody of the Cruise-Holmes divorce story, tentatively titled “Suri.” The listed casting director is Dan Siegel. Jest is owned by College Humor was started by Ricky van Veen and Josh Abramson in 1999, and sold to Barry Diller’s IAC a few years ago. There’s no word yet on the script or the director. And so far, Suri herself has not been cast. Neither have any of the other potential characters but you can only imagine who else these funny folks will throw into the mix– maybe even Rupert Murdoch, as he Tweets his anti-Scientology messages! By the way, the movie is non-union. Each actor will get a rate of $110. The shoot is set for Friday. Expect to see it go viral on Jest.com by next week.
Whitney Houston’s Family Making “Sparkle” Premiere Difficult
We’re all looking forward to seeing “Sparkle,” featuring the final work of Whitney Houston. The movie opens from Tri-Star/Sony on Friday, August 17th. It’s all finished, which means it could be screening for critics. And it should have premieres in New York and Los Angeles well before the opening day. But it won’t. So far “Sparkle” has one premiere very tentatively set for Thursday, August 16th in Los Angeles. And “tentatively” is the key word here. According to two sources who don’t even know each other, Whitney Houston’s family has made having a premiere a night mare. The Houstons objected to any date near Whitney’s 49th birthday–August 9th. And that’s just the beginning.
Then there’s the question of who’s coming from the family– will they let Bobbi Kristina bring the so called boyfriend/stepbrother? And will Whitney’s brother Michael and sister in law Donna continue to get short shrift? Will Cissy Houston attend? It’s all still very much up in the air. “I’m surprised they’re having it in Los Angeles, where Whitney died,” says one source. “They should be having it in New York.”
It’s nice to know that nothing has changed in this group. But having a premiere a few days before the opening allows press to circulate through the country. This way, the “Sparkle” red carpet photos, etc, will get lost in the weekend after the movie opens. If this group is smart, they’ll reconsider and have their premiere on the Monday of that week. Lost in all this, of course, are the living stars of the movie like Jordin Sparks and Derek Luke. They might like some attention and a premiere which they can enjoy.
Tom Cruise Before Katie: From the 2004 “Collateral” Premiere
From 2004, and the premiere of “Collateral” in Harlem, this was pre Katie Holmes:
Maybe you had to be there early yesterday evening on 124th St. and Frederick Douglass Boulevard to believe it: Tom Cruise, Hollywood’s boy-wonder superstar, lost in a crowd of black fans, signing autographs like he was Reverend Al Sharpton.
Of course, what makes Cruise such a big movie star is that his popularity cuts across racial and class lines.
This could not have been clearer than on the block behind the Magic Johnson Theater, where DreamWorks had set up a long red carpet and Oscar ceremony-style bleachers for the premiere of Cruise’s new movie, “Collateral.”
Why Harlem? “Collateral” was the opening-night film at the UrbanWorld Festival, which is mainly for black filmmakers. Michael Mann — who created “Miami Vice,” directed “Ali,” “The Insider” and “Heat” — is not black, but the other stars of “Collateral” are Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett Smith. Thus, the qualification.
For a solid 90 minutes at dusk in Harlem, Cruise worked that crowd, signing everything that was put in front of him: old magazine covers, movie posters, even a dollar bill.
When he was pulled away to do press on the red carpet, the scorned crowd would shout, “Tommy! Tommy!” And then Cruise, accompanied by his sister/publicist Lee Ann Mapother, would go right back and pick up where he left off.
If he’d been running for office, he would have won.
Not to be outdone, petite Pinkett Smith, in a slinky dress, did the same thing, rushing to greet fans and giving less attention to the media on the carpet. At one point she ran over to a group in the bleachers, without her famously attentive publicist or even a security guard in tow, and dove right in. The fans went wild.
Meanwhile, director Mann gave his red-carpet interviews accompanied by a sunny-looking older woman with blond hair and a big grin.
This was legendary publicist Pat Kingsley, who recently dropped Cruise as a client after 14 years, and no longer has to run after him or keep a watchful eye over him. The result is that she looks a decade younger. She even removed her jacket in the humid summer air, a Kingsley first.
But “Collateral,” even with Tom Cruise at its command, belongs to Jamie Foxx. This is the year of the Foxx, you know.
He stars in the upcoming “Ray,” about Ray Charles, and will likely get a Best Actor nomination for it. There’s a good chance he’ll also be in the Best Supporting Actor category for “Collateral,” in which he plays a nerdy cabdriver who gets pressed into service as getaway driver for a hit man (Cruise). Foxx nails every bit of this role, holding on even when the movie itself gets a little sketchy.
Happily, I can report that Foxx’s biggest fan at last night’s screening — which started an hour and 10 minutes late and was followed by a rat-cluster of a party that yours truly skipped for fear of being trampled — was … Jamie Foxx.
He sat through the whole film, clapped, laughed, shouted out and had a grand time watching himself on screen. He has good taste.
Most actors don’t like to watch themselves on screen, but Foxx seems to have no such inhibition. Only a few times did he check his cell phone for messages while the film wound along.
HBO is a sponsor of UrbanWorld, and right before the screening it treated us to a promotional clip for the network, featuring every black actor on their shows, as well as James Gandolfini and Edie Falco from “The Sopranos.”
I don’t know if this was a contractual thing or if the marketing department says “The Sopranos” has a black audience, but it was interesting from a cultural perspective to see how the cable studio pitches itself to a “niche” audience.
What of “Collateral”? Michael Mann returns to his “Miami Vice” moodiness in this one, with gorgeous cinematography, a moody soundtrack and an overall stylish, edgy feel that should make the film a hit.
All the acting is good — Cruise is underrated as the robotic, existential hit man. (The movie is essentially a two-character play.)
Ironically, “Collateral” winds up on a commuter train, bringing Cruise’s career full circle from the ending of “Risky Business” in 1982. Maybe that’s a good thing, because he’s got to go to another level next or risk getting stale. Something tells me he won’t let that happen.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128082,00.html#ixzz20L4ZpK9Z
Sofia Vergara’s New Modern Family Is Very Very (Very) Wealthy
Congratulations to Sofia Vergara. The star of “Modern Family” has landed her self another family, and this one is rich, rich, rich. She’s marrying Nick Loeb, son of former Ambassador John Loeb, who himself is now head of the 200 year old German Jewish banking clan that bears his last name. The Loebs are from the original “400”–the wealthiest families in America. This is old, old, money. Ambassador Loeb’s mother was from another famous banking family, the Lehmans. If you need a comparison: the Kennedys are newcomers compared to this family.
Years ago, they merged their Loeb business with Shearson, after another merger with Rhoades and Co. They became Shearson Loeb Rhoades. Ambassador Loeb, who’s a very nice guy, has owned a very successful winery in Sonoma, California since 1973. His first cousin is Thomas Kempner, who was married for years to the late “social X ray,” thin as a rail socialite Nan Kempner. (Kempner also had a famous affair with socialite Iris Sawyer that left her broke and destitute, a story I wrote in New York magazine. That’s another story. He married his secretary ten days after Nan died.)
Nick Loeb, the fiance of Sofia, has tried a couple of unsuccessful political runs in South Florida. It’s a little unclear what he does now. He doesn’t really have to do anything. He and his sister are the Ambassador’s only children. He is loaded. He was also married once before, to a Swedish woman. They were profiled in the Palm Beach Post. http://www.postonpolitics.com/2009/10/stung-by-divorce-nick-loeb-to-drop-state-senate-bid-and-pledge-full-refund-to-contributors.
Young Loeb was criticized in some Palm Beach blogs for raising record amounts for his campaign, dropping out, and then paying back a fraction of the money to contributors. http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2009/07/businessman_crushes_veteran_po_1.html
The tabloids all reported that Loeb and Vergara briefly split in May after a little spat. Insiders say that was probably after the Loebs presented a prenup to Vergara, who has a child from her first marriage. Although she’s doing very well from “Modern Family” and commercials, Vergara could never imagine the kind of money and lineage she’s walking into. She’s even beaten Drew Barrymore, who did very well this year by marrying the son of Arie and Coco Kopelman, of Chanel fame. But she’s still arguably a step behind Salma Hayek, who married billionaire Francois Pinault, whose father owns just about everything including Gucci and Samsonite luggage.
John Loeb: http://sonomaloeb.com/bio/john-l-loeb-jr/
The Story of Iris Sawyer and Thomas Kempner: http://books.google.com/books?id=Sr0BAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Denise Rich Is Gone, Friends, She’s Left New York and the USA
Denise Rich is gone. Denise, what a time we had! Denise has gone to “Europe,” a vaguely mystical place. She’s a woman of the world now. She will carry an Austrian passport even though she was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. I will miss her. Despite Denise’s strange adventure with Bill Clinton, the pardon, and her ex husband Marc–who can only return to the U.S. if he pays back taxes totaling more than $100 million–she became a popular, fun figure. No kidding. She has dimples, a hearty laugh and a sweet nature.
In the mid 90s, Denise wrote a song called “New York, I Love You.” Bobby Zarem pushed it every single day in the NY Post in Neal Travis’s column. Denise also started writing songs with lots songwriters, became friendly with Clive Davis, opened a little record label. She also started her foundation for cancer research and raised a lot of money. That money is credited with funding a lot of successful projects including the drug Gleevec at Novartis.
Denise is being called a tax evader in the press. I don’t know. If that was her intention, she learned from the best. Marc Rich is the enemy of the people. He left the U.S. in a tax dispute, became a federal felon, bribed his way to a pardon, and still remains aloof, elusive, rich as hell, and completely above all world laws. He also for years operated his company Novarco from White Plains, New York. A decade ago I wrote extensively about how he’d made monkeys of all of us, and how the government- Democrat and Republican–had looked the other way. Business just went on and on. It was only when he feared that Paul O’Neill, an enemy, would become Secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush, that he aggressively sought out his pardon. And Bill Clinton gave it to him.
What about Denise? Let’s give her a break. Her kids are in Europe. Her boyfriend is, too. She lives between Cannes and Vienna, and St. Tropez. She has a big yacht and lots of homes and hundreds of millions of dollars. Next week in St. Tropez she’ll still give her annual part on her yacht, Lady Joy. And her Angel Ball in New York and the cancer fundraising will still go on. But Denise Rich as a regular New York celebrity is over. The triplex apartment on Fifth Avenue and 60th St. is for sale, for $65 million. All the art work and the furniture is being packed up. It’s sad to say goodbye.
Here’s a picture of Denise with Ivana Trump. You know, I think the Nineties may be over.
Katie Holmes Still Being Monitored 24-7, But by Her Parents
When Katie Holmes ran off with Tom Cruise in the spring of 2005, she was never alone. Always by her side was a Scientology monitor. Now she’s never out of sight, but by different minders–her parents. Her mom, Kathleen, re-surfaced today in photos. She’s in lock step with Katie wherever she trods. This time, the minder is approved. Kathleen Holmes and another woman–maybe a relative– are all over photos taken back in March of Katie in New York. There’s a whole sequence of them.
Indeed, the last time Katie and Tom Cruise appeared together (prior to her fake Iceland visits in June) was at the Vanity Fair Oscar party on February 26th. After that, Cruise seems to have been feeling bold enough to leave Katie to her own devices in New York. The good money is on that time period–late March–that the Holmeses were alone with Katie and Suri for the first time in a long time.
The planning that was involved–deprogramming her, finding the right lawyers, getting the new apartment, etc–would have taken at least April and May to sort out and put into action. Again, well played on the part of Kathleen and Martin Holmes, who must have been waiting the last 7 years for an opportunity. Kathleen Holmes’s hair isn’t white for nothing.
And what of Tom Cruise? He’s not seen in photos after the Oscars until the premieres begin in June for “Rock of Ages.” Katie is not with him at any of them– a first. Her last premiere with Cruise was “Mission Impossible 4.” For Cruise, the situation becomes more dire when he appears at the completely uncomfortable bust of a Friars Club dinner, bringing Suri as his date. Katie, he said, was in China. (She was– there are pictures.) But when she returns that very night, the two go their separate ways. Did Cruise know the end was near? Possibly. But instead of fighting it, he went to Iceland. And there’s been a chill in the air ever since.
“General Hospital” Ratings Outflank New “Good Afternoon America”
“General Hospital” almost got the axe this summer. It was saved by the failure of ABC’s godawful “Revolution,” which involved watching people iron, sew and cook after an hour of watching them only cook on the just-as-bad “The Chew.” These dregs of reality replaced “All My Children,” which had been hobbled, and “One Life to Live,” which was booming. The executioner, Brian Frons, was himself given the axe, not a lot of consolation for fans of what used to be called ABC Daytime.
Anyway, now “GH” has sort of merged with “One Life” and it’s booming by comparison with the reality shows. On Monday, “Good Afternoon America” debuted to a limited run–it’s a place holder for Katie Couric’s new talk show, and replaced “The Revolution.” “GAA” brought in 1.370 million viewers, of which 297,000 were in the desirable age range of 18-49. “GAA” was up 40% over “The Revolution.”
But “General Hospital” is still doing much better than that. Despite ABC’s attempts to kill it, “GH” had 2,277,000 viewers last week. The key demos had 558,000 women 18-49. So there. The fact is, if ABC had just put some money and real talent into the soaps, they wouldn’t now be in this weird whirlpool of ratings anxiety. “GAA” is totally unnecessary. It’s just more of “The Chew” with less bite.
If Katie Couric is smart, she’ll bring on every cast member of “GH” over the first week just to win over their viewers. It’s like inviting the neighbors when you know you’re having a big noisy party. But something tells me that won’t happen. And if “Katie” fails, ABC should just re-start “One Life” and admit their mistake.
Seth Meyers Still Leading “Kelly” Co-Host Candidate Despite Timid Brush Off
Seth Meyers is very much the leading candidate to succeed Regis Philbin on “Live with Kelly” despite his timid denials today. Meyers is on every day this week in the middle of July sweeps. He’s the only candidate to get a full Monday-Friday shot. He’s terrific, too. I’ve never seen someone so confident and poised–he’s also very funny. Ripa and Michael Gelman will be lucky to get him. And there’s no one else. Next week singer Josh Groban returns for three days, followed by Kristen Chenoweth and rock star Rob Thomas of matchbox twenty.
After that “Live!” goes on hiatus until Labor Day. There are no more co-hosts. Meyers was given the primo spot to show off in, and he’s doing an excellent job. Today’s report in the Florida Sun Sentinel doesn’t have him denying it, just sort of brushing off the question. My guess is he’ll continue to do the news at “Saturday Night Live” through the presidential election, but step down as head writer.
All of this will disappoint The Hollywood Reporter. They were very fast to reprint the Sentinel quotes, and quote this column as if to prove us wrong. It’s hilarious. They never give credit or a link for anything positive. But the Meyers story is pretty right on. And good for Seth. He can five years there, be 43, and ready for a spot on a nighttime talk show.
Katie and Tom’s Quick Divorce Did Not Shut Down the Scientology Investigations
The reason Tom Cruise caved so quickly on his divorce: the promise of no further investigations of Scientology. Alas, it hasn’t happened. NBC’s Rock Center show is planning a big expose on Thursday, interviewing two people who found it very hard to extricate themselves from the cult. Rolling Stone has just put back on its front page its 2006 expose at http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/inside-scientology-20110208. For years prior to this Jann Wenner and Tom Cruise had been thick as thieves. This ended the friendship. And the stories keep on coming. Radaronline.com has done an excellent job with Karen de la Carrier, the ex wife of the missing leader of Scientology, Heber Jentzsch. Her son, Alexander, died mysteriously a couple of weeks ago. There are several people “missing” from the Scientology core group including leader David Miscavige’s wife. But the real story now is how Tom Cruise can look in the mirror and not realize what damage he’s done to himself by continuing to belong to this group. Three divorces by age 50 is not so good. And he’s got to be living in great isolation to not see his declining box office in relation to comments from strangers all over the internet. Maybe he should watch NBC on Thursday.
Also read this update from Radar: http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/07/l-ron-hubbard-granddaughter-david-miscavige-father-left-scientology
Jagger and Bowie Hook Up? Bebe Buell Never Saw It
There are loads of stories out there from the 1970s about David Bowie and Mick Jagger perhaps carrying their friendship a little too far–taking it to another level, let’s say. There’s a new book just published by Christopher Andersen that more or less retells old stories from Angie Bowie’s previous books–Angie was married to David. But Andersen’s book also includes an interview with rocker-writer-ex model Bebe Buell, mother of Liv Tyler. Buell wrote her own book, “Rebel Heart,” a few years ago and told very specific stories about all her fabulous experiences with A list rockers.
But Buell tells me that Andersen went too far in characterizing her observations of Jagger and Bowie. “I want to make it clear that I never saw Mick Jagger and David Bowie having sex,” Buell tells me. “I knew them to share women, but not each other.” Jagger and Bowie have never denied all the talk. “Maybe they enjoyed the press and the p.r. about all the androgyny. But I never saw Mick Jagger sexually active with another man. But his dance card with women was legendary.” Buell says she was very good friends with Bowie and dated Jagger back in the day on and off for years. She stayed so friendly with Bowie that he and wife Iman came to daughter Liv’s wedding in 2003.
Buell, by the way, has a great new album out on iTunes and amazon.com called “Hard Love.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19cYIkyMDeY&list=LPeYyUPej6-ys&index=3&feature=plcp