Mya’s in the groove with new scent

Even though she didn't win the mirrorball trophy, Mya is still going to tune in to Dancing with the Stars when it debuts March 22. The R&B singer born Mya Marie Harrison in Washington, D.C., finished a very respectable second in the show's ninth season, and remains a fan. more …

Jade Jagger’s guide to politics: vote for your neighbour

Or how the rich and vacuous decide on which party to support

Lost in Showbiz doffs its chapeau to Vogue for doing our job for us this week with its Tom Wolfe-esque feature about who the “party people” will vote for in that general election thingummybob. Jade Jagger, Colin Firth’s wife, someone called “model Poppy Delevigne” and other political bellwethers all put in their red cents and, believe you me, there were looks of terror around the Guardian’s politics desk yesterday morning as they sensed their imminent redundancy.

To single out a favourite moment in the piece would be like choosing the best evocation of hell by Hieronymus Bosch. But one hot contender would be the tableau in which the writer interviews Jimmy Choo’s Tamara Mellon about her political bent, while the two of them lie on sunloungers in St Barts with Marc Jacobs and his partner, “posing like Mr Universes in their Speedos”. Astonishingly, Tamara believes that “Britain desperately needs the Conservatives”. But what does St Barts need, Tammy?

Jagger fille agrees with Mellon, maintaining her family’s reputation for really sticking it to the man (the man who will tax them more, mind). And her reasoning is sound – they live near her: “Dave lives round here in north Kensington” – this is call-me-Dave speak for Ladbroke Grove, readers – “They’re both working parents, they’ve had a lot of heartbreak. I mean, which bit is wrong?” If Jade truly is looking for the wrong bit – aside from the fact that she, as a former single mother, would herself be classified very much as a wrong ‘un by her chosen party – Lost in Showbiz could direct her to an earlier paragraph in the piece: “The Camerons and the Freuds are what can be called ‘tight’: their dinner-party gang includes Jeremy Clarkson, Alex James, Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) and her horse-trainer husband Charlie, and Soho House founder Nick Jones and his wife Kirsty Young.”

But don’t worry if such political tastes differ from yours. Vogue wisely concludes that “as long as they’ve succeeded in inveigling their place at the [No 10] table, [celebrities] couldn’t care less who the victor turns out to be”. Fret no more, Mr Blair – your legacy lives on.

Hadley Freeman

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Can you use Botox – and still act?

There are now classes on how to do it when your face can no longer move

Readers, it is my sad lot to inform you that Marina Hyde is MIA and unconfirmed reports are suggesting it’s a hostage situation. Hyde, who was on an Oscars fact-finding mission, was last spotted flinging herself in front of Trudie Styler while crying, “Trudie! Can I cadge a lift back to London? Don’t make me go commercial!” The Guardian’s top brass are currently studying her final tweets (follow her @PrincessMarinaSparkle – well, you can’t follow her right now but, you know, whatevs), which suggest that something has gone very wrong indeed.

Monday, 1:33am: “LOL at the VF party with Trudie and Elton! More champers, babe??!!???!!”

Monday 1:47am: “Ooh, me and Lily Allen! Twitpic! :)

But even if Hyde is located and returned unharmed, will she be recognisable? Unlikely, because she will have spent more than a week in celebsville, where plastic surgery is so de rigueur that a Los Angeles contact has informed Lost in Showbiz HQ that there now exist special classes to teach people how to act despite no longer being able to move their face. Isn’t that just heavenly? And what would an “Acting on Botox” class consist of? Lots of jazz hands, presumably. And darting eyes. One of this column’s favourite stories comes from the set of Desperate Housewives. Due to the amount of poisonous serum injected into her face, one actor was incapable of expressing surprise at yet another Valley-of-the-Dolls-lite plot revelation. So instead, someone allegedly gave her a coffee cup to hold and drop after said revelation. This is known as acting-by-way-of-panto.

Adorably, Botox doctors are just as accommodating to the needs of acting as acting is becoming to the world of Botox. “I ask them, what expressions, what emotions, are you concerned about losing?” Stephen Pincus, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, told New York magazine this week. “They’ll say, ‘I have to be mad, or surprised,’ or ‘I’m worried about my eyebrows, I don’t want to be a blank stare.’ I say: ‘I can paralyse your forehead from this point up, but you’re not going to be able to wrinkle a good part of it.’” Most, though, ignore the kindly doctor’s cavils: “They’re more concerned about wrinkles than five seconds of emotion people might not notice anyway.” This may explain how Sandra Bullock won best actress this year. A razed playing field, you see.

Weirdly, New York magazine claims that “it is the rare performer who will discuss how her non-existent surgery has affected her craft”. (And if they refer to it as their “craft” then, frankly, thank God.) But Lost in Showbiz knows this is not the case. Fashion designer and director Tom Ford once spent the best part of an hour-long interview showing Lost in Showbiz where on his face he got the jab and made some gentle suggestions about whether LiS should get some, too, as she was in Beverly Hills.

Jenny McCarthy loves a bit of Botox, calling it her “saviour”. Seeing as McCarthy is best known as the public face of the MMR/autism link lobby (Andrew Wakefield being currently on sabbatical), and claims that she obtained her medical credentials at “the university of Google”, there does seem a high likelihood that she has frozen her brain as well as her face.

Vanessa Williams has truly saved the best for last by becoming a “public advocate” for Botox, as one might guess from her recent appearances on Ugly Betty: “All women should have a plan with their own physician [for] how much they’re going to use and how effective it can be with their acting,” says Williams, through presumably clenched teeth.

Remember back in the 80s when plastic surgery was seen as so bizarre that an actor’s career could be destroyed by it? When Jennifer Grey whittled her nose, her career was similarly destroyed. The hoo-hah over Barbara Hershey’s inflated lips in Beaches almost managed to overshadow Bette Midler. What innocent times. Now, if an actor doesn’t look like a Madame Tussauds waxwork, she looks like a Golden Girl stand-in. “I was super against [Botox], saying I’ll never do it, then you see yourself on HD and you want to kill yourself,” says Rosanna Arquette, a reaction George Clooney could relate to: “I was watching Up in the Air and I thought, ‘Jesus, who’s the old, grey-haired guy?’ And it was me.”

What ho, a new twitpic on Marina’s feed has just gone up!

“12:36: Me and Georgie getting the works – matching needles! :) ))))”

Hadley Freeman

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Haiti: GMTV’s must-have fashion accessory

The programme’s fashion stylist has jumped on the Haiti charity bandwagon

Thrilling news this way comes regarding GMTV’s in-house Yves Saint Laurent, Mark Heyes (above). This faction of Lost in Showbiz loves a bit of Heyes in the morning. Honestly, the things he can find in River Island. A bit of Karen Millen here, a touch of Dune there – why, it’s like being at a Balenciaga show, with the priceless presence of Lorraine Kelly instead of that Anna Wintour wotsit.

So we were thrilled to learn this week that Heyes is launching a charity for Haiti. Haiti? It’s so hot right now. And a Haiti charity? Like, the crucial accessory of the month for a celebrity. Scarlett Johansson, Naomi Campbell – they’re all toting one around town and for Mark to start one, well, it’s like when an actor goes from Reveal to Vogue: a career leap that says, “I’ve arrived, and I’m not ashamed to tell you I think so.”

I spotted Heyes’s potential years ago when I bumped into him in a lift (Lost in Showbiz: mixing with the A-list). Introductions and air kisses dealt with, Heyes exclusively revealed that the Guardian is his favourite paper. We always suspected as much. And Mark, you are the Guardian’s favourite GMTV special correspondent. Bog off, Carla Romano.

Hadley Freeman

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Conan O’Brien Takes His Show on the Road With National Tour

The “Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour” begins April 12 in Eugene, Ore.

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Football and Television Star Merlin Olsen Dies at Age 69

Olsen was diagnosed with mesothelioma last year.

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Trudie Styler: now available in ready-meal form

Now Trudie Styler is making ready meals for Waitrose, reports Marina Hyde. What’s next: patting her back pocket for Asda?

How many times have we at Lost in Showbiz looked yearningly at the lifestyle of Dame Trudie Styler, wishing for just a crumb to be thrown from the table of Lake House, the sprawling Wiltshire estate that is home to her and her husband Sting?

Innumerable times, is the answer – and I am wholly thrilled to say that the showbiz gods have heeded our prayers.

And so to the text of an invitation now forwarded to me by several people. “We would love you to join us on Thursday evening,” it begins, “to hear about a new food brand ‘Lake House Table’ – created by Trudie Styler and Ed Olphin. The new range is made up of complete meals ready to take home and cook in just 20 minutes. The meals are all organic, seasonal and ethically sourced and available now in Waitrose.”

“Eating should always be a pleasure,” the Lake House “team” continues, “but often we are all too busy to prepare the delicious food we want to enjoy.” Or our personal chefs have the temerity to fall ill whilst they are pregant, forcing us to sack them in an orchestrated campaign of what an employment tribunal judgement described as “shameful conduct”.

Reading between the lines, it seems that the range will not actually be made by the chef who replaced the aforementioned sacked one. But it should certainly allow commuters schlepping from their dreary jobs to their dreary homes to experience something of the “private aviation fuel” lifestyle – as well as expanding madam’s portfolio of work for the British supermarket sector. Do remember she’s also starring in an exclusive straight-to-DVD move for Tesco, and at this rate will be patting her back pocket for Asda by summer.

“We would be delighted,” the invitation concludes, “if you would pull up a chair and join the Lake House Table team including Trudie Styler and Ed Olphin, for an intimate gathering at Quintessentially Soho on 11 March 2010.”

Tonight …! Alas, like the thirteenth fairy, Lost in Showbiz finds itself NFI to the event – an oversight which might yet prompt it to cast a spell upon Lake House which would see its princess and all her many, many staff fall asleep for a hundred years. Anyone fortunate enough to attend is hereby invited to share the magic.

Marina Hyde

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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MTV Bans the Cast of ‘Jersey Shore’ From Drinking

Jenni ?JWoww? Farley made an appearance in Boston over the weekend, but much to everyone’s surprise, the reality starlet stayed away from the adult beverages.

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Heidi Montag Dumps Spencer Pratt for Psychic Advisor

Her husband had been her manager since Montag was a teen-ager.

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Local film in Tribeca fest

Monica and David, about a married couple with Down syndrome by Miami filmmaker Ali Codina, has earned a spot in the World Documentary Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. more …

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