Television’s twin ex-tots target of tabloid tattletales
It’s hard to separate the truth from spin. Politicians know this best of all (just read the front-page headlines). But those whose work it is to present movie and TV stars in their best light are hardly, uh, lightweights when it comes to creating a sense of reality. Case in point: After spending time at a treatment center for an eating disorder, Mary-Kate Olsen is in the spotlight again.
Her publicist, Michael Pagnotta, on Tuesday denied a report on NBC’s “Today” show that the 18-year-old actress had suffered a setback.
“Somehow there’s a suggestion that she has relapsed into an eating disorder,” he said. “That’s just silly. She’s in ongoing treatment for an eating disorder with an experienced team of professionals who are available to her on both coasts. She is working very hard at being well.”
Pagnotta said Olsen is in Los Angeles for a few days on personal business “and will be returning to New York and to school shortly.” Janice Min, editor in chief of US Weekly magazine, said on the “Today” show that the brunette half of the Olsen twins was under too much stress.
“She just got out of recovery when she came to New York,” Min said. “For anyone who has been to college, the freshman year is stressful, and when you are Mary-Kate Olsen and having the whole world watch your behavior and what you eat was too much.”
Mary-Kate and her blond sister, Ashley Olsen, both attend New York University. They started out playing Michelle Tanner as babies on ABC’s “Full House” and have since created a multimedia empire.
Depp is adept at the subtle Bronx cheer
You may call him a hunk, but Johnny Depp just shrugs off such compliments. At least that’s what he did Sunday while arriving for the premiere of his latest movie, “Finding Neverland,” at London’s Leicester Square. Fans lining the red carpet screamed his name. “I wouldn’t say I’m a heartthrob,” Depp said as his wife, French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis, looked on. “I just have a very weird job.” As for winning an Oscar, the 41-year-old Depp (a 2003 nominee for “Pirates of the Caribbean”) was equally unconcerned. “I can’t say that occupies my every thought or every moment,” he said. “That’s not my job to think about that, but if people want to say that, that is really sweet.”
Call him the anti-Donald Trump
This is refreshing: Australian television critic and author Clive James says that reality shows and celebrity-obsessed tabloid newspapers were making people famous for doing nothing. And he did something about it: He quit his own television career. “I fired myself from the small screen and tried to find a path back to normality,” he said.
New Yorkers do it their own way
The New York-based Independent Film Project is among the first groups to hand out movie awards for 2004. Gotham Awards will go to actor Don Cheadle and to the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Cheadle will be honored for his body of work, while “Eternal Sunshine,” written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, will be honored with the group’s inaugural Celebrate New York Tribute.
Next up: Living homeless in Central Park
Reality shows are becoming the buttered bagel of Atlanta-based television network TBS, which now has deal with a Los Angeles firm owned by Courteney Cox Arquette and her husband, David Arquette, and Nash Entertainment, which produced this summer’s “Outback Jack.” “The Real Gilligan’s Island” is set to debut next month, and next up is “He’s a Lady,” where men compete to see who best can live as a woman.
The birthday bunch
Keyboardist Manfred Mann is 64. Singer Elvin Bishop is 62. TV judge Judy Sheindlin is 62. Actor Everett McGill (“Twin Peaks”) is 59. Actress Carrie Fisher is 48. Singer Julian Cope is 47. Actor Jeremy Miller (“Growing Pains”) is 28. Actor Will Estes (“American Dreams”) is 26.