And didn't I just read that Travolta and his wife are using IVF to conceive a third child? How is that usage of drugs sanctioned?

http://entertainment.sympatico.msn.ca/celebs/articles/1261239.armx

"You know how to embarrass yourself, don't you, Tom? You just put your feet on the couch and jump."

Treach, you're fucking hilarious.

I saw Ms Bacall on Letterman long ago - she was perhaps 70. I was struck by how she commanded everything in the room. "Classy dame" is how Bogart would put it, but I haven't seen anyone else actually radiate reality and substance as well through the small screen.

How cheaply we would regard her memory if she and Bogie had made a spectacle of themselves!

I prefer that kind of dignity to the nasty spectacle of legions of mouth-breathers who think the most important issue today is whether J-Lo will get married...

JT, that's *too* cool!

> It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely
> unacceptable to use your private life to sell
> anything commercially...

Seekers, this is BEYOND IRONIC, and well past absurd. Did anyone in midcentury showbiz do more to leverage their private life for commercial benefit than the woman who gave us the phrase "rat pack"? I could have sworn she wrote a chatty autobiography a few years ago, something about her years as paramour to the middle-aged Bogart and Sinatra....

To hear this silly old crank whine about Cruise reinforces my belief that nothing produced by Hollywood is as entertaining as watching moist young beauties shrivel and hit the wall.

Re "my belief that nothing produced by Hollywood is as entertaining as watching moist young beauties shrivel and hit the wall"...

Why would anyone celebrate the decrepitude of age other than their deep-seated need to feel superior by observing the demise of others?

Better you should appreciate that there is beauty and fortune in the world. The success of the few chosen by Hollywood and your neighbors is, after all, success: something to be celebrated when it happens.

Notice something? The heights of success reached by a few celebrities is the exact same phenomenon, albeit that of opposite polarity, cited by those benighted folk claiming anecdotal exception to Amy's data about genetic success trends.

By the way, Crid - please go on about how Bacall & Bogie exploited their relationship for the paparazzi. Oh. They didn't. Didn't you read her book?

Cruise is no Bogart; in fact, he's not even Mickey Rooney.

> Why would anyone celebrate the decrepitude
> of age ....

It ain't the decrepitude. I delight in seeing some of the most narcissistic, comfortable, inexplicably rewarded personalities in human history come to grips with life's dark verities... Like the song says, that's entertainment.

> other than their deep-seated need to
> feel superior by observing the demise
> of others?

Free psychotherapy! Do you do prescriptions? Can you get me some ritalin?

Besides, it ain't demise, it's merely humiliation. A silly old coot of an actress is going to spend her last hours ranting about how they don't make stars the way they used to, no matter how much more money or fame is involved. And I'm like, whatever.

> ...how Bacall & Bogie exploited their
> relationship for the paparazzi. Oh. They
> didn't.

Then how in the name of Christ would YOU know about it?

> Didn't you read her book?

No; how much did you pay for it?

Before you get all precious about these dorkweeds, I'd like to recommend a website . (It's a friend of Treach's, at least in spirit.)

PS- Not only did I not read the book, I didn't even follow Amy's link. What good is showbiz if you have to study like school?

Sorry for three in a row, Amy's site won't let me include in links in comments written from some computers. See THESE websites:

http://www.thesuperficial.com/

http://jimtreacher.com/

http://www.defamer.com/

Crid -

Don't forget IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com - formerly the writer of The Superficial (I think).

it's an excellent site

Crid, there is such a thing as a public library - but you have to realize that you don't even HAVE to read the book to notice that Bogie & Bacall did not use their relationship to make money while it was going on. The hypocrisy you insist is Bacall's is just not there.

> did not use their relationship to make
> money while it was going on.
> ---------------------

While it was going on? That's a goalpost being moved.

Dude, if you want to get all delicate 'n' sensitive about a "classy" movie star, have at it. I prefer the cynical view that took hold in pop culture just when her generation lost its grip, as people figured out that cocktail-hour "class" was deeply suspect as a measure of character.

These people sell NOTHING but fragments of their private lives. When you see Jessica Alba in a tight blue suit fighting guys from outer space (wuddever) in a movie, you're having a piece of her intimacy leveraged for commercial purposes. Lauren Bacall has spent a wealthy lifetime in the Dakota not because she built a better widget or harvested bigger bales of cotton. She's lived well because people are fascinated with her on a superficial yet profoundly personal level. The most common feelings in the most common people made her rich.

It's LUNACY for such a person to complain about "vulgarity." And it's transparently bogus to pretend that your knowledge of this woman's private affairs differs meaningfully from the "sickness" she pretends to decry.