Million Dollar Lady(boy)

She has two Oscars but will Hilary (can that be her real surname?) Swank ever look like a girl? Her Oscar night dress did little to dispel the idea that she is really a cross dresser, literally keeping her crown jewels under wraps. And packing more silicon and corsetry than Ru Paul.


Hilary in a body wrap

After playing a transsexual girl in Boys Don’t Cry and now a female boxer with all the ladylike allure of Danny de Vito, Hilary is going to have to work hard to shrug off her manly charms. Having a husband is not enough, especially one who is clearly just gritting his teeth and shrinking in her shadow.

Poor old Chad Lowe, Rob’s less attractive brother, is apparently seeing a shrink because he feels unmanned by Hilary’s success. Chad, you feel unmanned because you are being felt up by a man.

The Rules

Americans love rules. Rules for dating? Ellen and Sherrie are there to crack the whip if you are tempted to step out of line on your first date. Rules for cholesterol overload? The Atkins diet will take you to the edge of cardiac arrest on a rolling menu of meat and cream. And now we’ve got Rules for the Oscars. To predict who’s going to win what at Sunday’s night Hollywood love-in all you need to do is consult Roger Ebert’s unwritten rules.

According to Roger, any film that kills off one or more of its lead actors is likely to bag the Best Film award. And set the film in the past and little Oscar could be adorning your bookshelf before you know it.

Any actor hoping to win the Best Actor prize should only look at scripts where they will suffer. A lot. Just look at Geoffrey Rush in Shine, Tom Hanks in Philadelphia and Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot. Pain is always a winner.

For actresses, the pain rule also applies. If you play a woman in a tortured relationship with the wrong men (or women), then you should be polishing up your tear-filled acceptance speech right about now. Just look at Holly Hunter taking a finger off in The Piano, Helen Hunt playing a geriatric lover in As Good As It Gets, a beefed up, orthodontically challenged Charlize Theron in Monster.

And old Roger reckons any film about the Holocaust is almost guaranteed a small statuette.

So what does that mean for Sunday night? Based on the rules, here are the predictions:

Blindness will get Jamie Foxx the best actor award for Ray.
The Aviator will get for best film because it’s a big period piece.
Death will give Hillary Swank the edge over Imelda Staunton for best actress.

Shite Rider

In continental Europe, where the tanga brief is king, you could just about understand his popularity. After all, Germans sport mullets and slip-on shoes with no irony. Italian men confidently sling manbags over their shoulders and sport rolled up jeans and deckshoes. And, horror of horrors, they wear Speedos on the beach.

Only in this kind of world, which holds up raddled old cokebag Donna Versace as a fashion icon, could David Hasselhoff still be a pop star.

But now it looks like the Hoff could be making a comeback over here. With a film version of Knight Rider and a voice-over on the Spongebob movie, the Hoff is gradually creeping back into our consciousness like a 1970s venereal disease. And to cap it all he’s got a celebrity endorsement from Scarlett Johansson, who says she used to have a crush on him in Baywatch.

So the Hoff’s days in second-grade musicals and TV movies could be numbered. Let’s just hope he doesn’t bring the Speedos back with him.

Mission Improbable

You know you’re on a bad roll when you’re reduced to picking up Enrique Iglesias and Craig David’s cast-off. So spare a thought for poor (I mean hideously rich) Tom Cruise who is dating Colombian model-turned-actress Sofia Vergara.

The hyphenate should give you an idea of the woman’s calibre (as should her bit part alongside Paris Hilton and Holly Valance in National Lampoon’s Pledge This!). And the fact that her son Manolo owes his name to a pair of shoes.

Undeterred by this dodgy CV, Cruise took the woman out on a classy date of pizza and beer. And maybe this is where Sofia scored points over Nicole “so thin she’s translucent” Kidman and Penelope Cruz. Sofia’s not only willing to eat in public but she’s willing to eat the celebrity’s most feared food group, refined carbs.

Or maybe Tom is just making the most of Sofia's Latina looks. With her dark facial hair, she makes the perfect beard.

Liz Hurley and The Goblet of Soup

When Liz Hurley passes on to the big polo match in the sky, celebrity journalists and obituary writers everywhere will be wondering one thing. Just what did the woman do, apart from push out the big-headed love child of Steve Bing?

Liz could go down in history for three things: safety pins, jostling for mirror space with Pammie Anderson’s airbags at the Oscars and surviving on one meal a day. Which proves that you too can live the celebrity dream if you are willing to wear very little, hang around with C-list silicon dolls and starve yourself.

But it now looks like Liz’s epitaph could be spared from those slim pickings. Producers of the next Harry Potter film want her to play Bellatrix Lestrange. Given that Bellatrix is “a dark, heavy-lidded woman with hair scraggled and a once-handsome face wasted by years in Azkaban” Liz should walk it. All that cabbage soup might have finally paid off.

Cruz control

Should poor Cruz Beckham ever wonder what mood his mum was in at his conception, he just needs to open the Spanish dictionary. Cruz means ‘cross’ and boy, was Posh cross nine months ago. And boy, did she want to see David crucified (preferably by his boys’ bits) for playing away from home.

Never mind the fixed Joker-like grin plastered on her face, Posh was a woman in a rage and Apple, Maraschino and Lychee just weren’t going to cut the mustard for Beckham number three.

Now poor Cruz will have to face a lifetime of being called ‘Crooth’. Or Cruise. And fending off jibes about Penelope Cruz, Tom Cruise and any kind of trip round the Mediterranean in a big boat. And the fact his name rhymes, in English, with one Ms. Loos. Bet Victoria didn’t think of that angle when she was kicking the name around.

Still, there’s one small consolation: at least they didn’t call him Chav.

In the backroom she was everybody's darling

Just what does the Kabbalah say about staring into the gaping jaws of failure? “Throw yourself in with wild abandon and worry about the consequences later”? Madonna certainly seems to be following that advice to the letter. Undeterred by the critical flaying for her last film with hubby, Swept Away, the old girl is trying to bag the role of 60s transvestite/prostitute Candy Darling for a new film.

At least the transvestite bit won’t be too much of a stretch. Thanks to years of self-deprivation and yoga, she already looks like a sinewy old queen in a dress. As usual, the main stumbling block will be the acting, something Madonna still hasn’t cracked.

If she really wants to the part maybe she should follow Candy’s career strategy immortalised in Lou Reed’s classic Walk on the Wild Side. Mads, maybe it’s time to get down on your knees and suck.

Oh Sienna… part II

Could boho chic queen Sienna Miller have finally slipped in the fashion stakes? The actress, who single-handedly turned Mums in Leather Trousers (MILTs) into Mums In Gilets (MIGs), stepped out in a Matthew Williamson dress this week and took a serious tumble in the cool stakes.


Oi Sienna

A summer of vintage cowboys, low slung belts and bedhead were wiped out in an instant by the dress. Somewhere between Zsa Zsa Gabor’s knicker drawer and a box of crepe paper Christmas decorations, the dress did Sienna no favours, proving that you just can’t cross chiffon bloomers with a Chinese lantern.

And what’s with the golden headband? Any passing resemblance to an extra from epic flop Alexander should have set the alarm bells ringing straight away.

Did Raising Arizona teach him nothing?

On the list of things to do when your husband goes philandering, having a baby has got to be fairly low down. If not right off the page and in a whole different book, possibly the one titled ‘10 Easy Steps to Divorce’.

Water retention and constipation clearly aren’t the ways to win back a man who has been trysting with woman gusseted in Agent Provocateur. Still, it’s the road Posh Spice has taken and it’s going to be the road less travelled with husband still in tow (my prediction for 2005). And David, what’s with the overplucked ladies’ eyebrows?

Anyway, a baby should also be low down on the list for cementing your doomed relationship with a 21 year-old waitress. But still Nic Cage trundles on, rug firmly taped in place lest the warp speed of his relationship leave his pate free to the wind. Just like the words ‘J Lo’ and ‘wedding’, ‘ageing celeb’ and ‘young bride’ should have LA divorce lawyers high fiving in the corridors.

Nic is unlikely to read British tabloids but maybe it’s time to get a subscription to The Sun. The sad tale of fortysomething TV mogul Chris Evans and child bride Billie Piper might bring a tear to Nic’s eye, if the Botox hasn’t frozen up his ducts. It’s grim reading for a man hoping that wealth and status will be enough to keep the young hot wife. If getting past the tits on page 3 is a challenge, Nic only needs to tune into Desperate Housewives. Let Gabrielle be a lesson to you. The gardener may be penniless but who cares when he looks like that?

I can't help but wonder...

Dear God. Simon Cowell, for once ahead of the fashion pack with his high-waisters, is threatening to unleash a British version of Sex & The City. As Carrie Bradshaw would say, "I can't help but wonder…”.

There are a number of things I can’t bloody help but wonder. Mainly, why? You just know that our shoddy, half-arsed version won’t be as funny. No disrespect to June Sarpong who’s writing and planning to star in the show, but she should probably steer clear of the triple hyphenate. We all know that model-turned-actress is a surefire way to see your career go down in flames. Elle McPherson anyone? So chancing your arm as presenter-turned-scriptwriter-turned-actress just screams career suicide louder than Jordan singing at Eurovision.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, June has drafted in Lysette Anthony, whose main claim to fame is starring in Night and Day, as Samantha and jazz munchkin Jamie Cullum to write the theme tune.

If, like me, you are already reading and weeping, then spare a thought for the actual script. Will Carrie be swapping her Manolos and Manhattan for Barratts in Bermondsey? And will Samantha just be a sad old slapper with a Bacardi Breezer in her hand and her saggy, sun-raddled cleavage squeezed into a spaghetti top? And as for Mr Big you just know that he’ll be Mr Quite Small Actually But With A Good Line in Self-Deprecating Humour. Suddenly Eastenders starts to look good…

Oh Sienna...

Given the choice between Jude Law and Gael Garcia Bernal (a cruel decision I'm obviously faced with week in, week out), the Sex Mex gets my vote every time. He may be short, but boy does he make up for his low centre of gravity in a myriad ways. For a start he can act. And, in the light of Jude's performance in Closer, which is so far beyond wooden that it could be MDF, acting is not something he should be toplining on his CV.

So God knows why Sienna Miller is playing down her big Saturday night out with Gael. Sit at home missing a wife-swapper with a receding hairline? Or stay out all night with a hot charismatic Mexican? That's what you call a serious no-brainer.

Tampongate

Camilla, the red dress was not a good idea. All I could think of was that famous conversation between you and Charles back in the old days before Diana popped her clogs.

I'd blocked Charles' famous words "I want to be your tampon" from my mind (along with his promise to live inside your trousers) but seeing you head-to-toe in red brought it all flooding back. Literally. The red lapels on Charles' jacket did nothing to wipe the image from my mind. Just where had he been?

As for the wedding, frankly who cares? If it keeps Charles' mind off feminine hygiene, then it's fine by me.


Lady in red

Robbie Williams is OVAH

So from one stumbling wreck straight to another. One day it's Pete Doherty, the undoubted king of self-destruction with his finger hovering shakily over the red button. The next it's Robbie Williams, back from his 'drugs hell' but still able to whip up a tabloid frenzy.

Winning a Brit award for Angels is the biggest sign, if you actually needed one, that Robbie is well past his prime. Without Guy Chambers to write his songs, Robbie has lost his cheeky charm and, more importantly, his catchy music. The songs from his new album have so far been shite. The fact that we still think of Angels when we think of Robbie means that he's stuck in 1997.


Robbie gears up for a stroll down Old Compton Street

And what's with the hair? And the fat gold stud in his ear? Surely it's just a short step to dangling a gold guitar earring from your lobe a la Elton John.

Pop goes the Schadenfreude

How things have changed since biblical times. Sigh. When the Good Samaritan was wandering down the road to Jericho and spotted a broken, beaten man on the ground, he stopped, cleaned him up and sent him on his way.

Fast forward 2000 years and the Samaritan has been replaced by a baying pack of paparazzi eager to snap each frame of the broken's man fall. I say man but of course I mean Babyshambles (and I mean shambles) frontman Pete Doherty, who has quickly becomes the tabloids' favourite walking disaster. David Walliams may keep their gossip columns steadily stocked with news of his latest new woman, but Doherty is a front-page feeder. And the paps gather round, like a morbid crowd at a public hanging.

The pasty-faced singer might be teetering on a knife's edge but the whiff of Schadenfreude is heady. We might have a brief moment of concern for staggering Pete, but what we are really thinking is: thank God that's not me. Or anyone I know.

And of course what we all want to know is whether Kate Moss will succumb to his pasty-faced ways. She's not exactly sitting at home every night with her needle point but she's not mainlining in an alleyway either. Her one salvation is that in the world of celebrity, where seven days are equivalent to seven human years, the relationship might die on its arse before the week's out.


Kate Moss

The lure of the lesbian

What is it that makes straight men heave with desire when a female star comes out of the closet? While women just sigh 'Oh well' at the news that another hot actor is gay, hetero men just marvel at the possibility a lesbian presents. So Desperate Housewives' Marcia Cross is a lesbian? In the mind of the straight male, famous sexy woman + gay = fantasy overdrive. It's not the end of a wet dream; it's just the start of another, with the added bonus of a three-way. The power of male delusion never fails to amaze me.


Flame haired Marcia Cross

And, just out of interest. First Cynthia Nixon and now Marcia Cross. Is there something Gillian Anderson and Nicole Kidman want to tell us?

Wife-swapping - It's so 1970s

Doesn't Sadie Frost know that wife-swapping is like an avocado bathroom suite? It just screams 1970s. Along with the Ford Cortina, prawn cocktails and Angel Delight, wife-swapping has reached a mythical status for what was essential a shit and tasteless idea. First of all, it probably didn't happen, much as the 1960s didn't really happen for most of the world.

Secondly, switching your partner for a frisky night of fun with a neighbour or friend can only, like a ride home in a Ford Cortina on a stomach full of prawn cocktail and Angel Delight, make your bile rise.

Or, in Sadie Frost's case, lead to divorce, a rift in the Primrose hill set and fighting with your nubile young buck.

So why do it in the first place? Well, you can only assume that people like Frost, who are only famous through marriage, don't want to go skinny dipping outside their glamorous gene pool. Or in the the words of Liz 'White Jeans' Hurley, they don't want to mix with 'civilians'. So they go looking in their social circle, which is surely going to make Sunday brunch in NW3 a tricky affair.

The lesson Sadie should take from this mess? Prawn cocktails may be edging their way back onto menus as a postmodern novelty, but it's going to take longer to rehabilitate wife-swapping. If you're bored and looking for a shag, don't involve your husband, your friends, the internet or the Sunday papers.


Prawn cocktail

Marc (Castle Greyskull is mine!) Anthony

Am I the only person to have noticed that J Lo's latest husband looks like an anaemic, underweight version of Skeletor? The evil spirit of He Man's nemesis is alive and well and living with a large-bottomed compulsive bride.

Marc Anthony

Skeletor.

And Marc? A small word of warning. She likes the dress, the veil and the flowers. And the presents, the fuss and the party. Not you.

Brad and Jen's break-up remorse

So Brad and Jen have been spotted together having dinner, hands all over each and goey-eyed. Which proves that you may have a BMI of 2 and a midriff that could hold up a five bedroom house, but you're not immune to break-up remorse.

You break up and suddenly you feel like the girl in the Tampax advert: freewheeling down the road on roller skates in a blaze of single bliss (and confident in your knicker hygiene). You can eat cereal for dinner and leave your legs to fur over.

But the rolled oat dinners and in-built leg warmers can't stop the persistent drip drip of doubt. How long can you keep filling the black plastic sack before you finally relent and take out the rubbish? Who will fish the spider out of the bath? And when will you have another shag?

That's when break-up remorse kicks in. You get your glimpse into a shag-free, hirsute future and suddenly you're reaching for the phone. First a coy text, then a short casual call (sample: "just thought i'd say hi") and then suddenly it's a flood of late night phone-ins. Finally, you crack and suggest meeting up. Out comes the razor, your La Senza specials and the fresh sheets before you race out of the house to outdo this blatant wrong.

So maybe Grammy Betty will be right. Bran and Jen could get back together. As the rubbish starts to leak onto the kitchen floor and she starts washing in the sink whore-stylee to avoid the spider, break-up remorse might get the better of Jen.