Miscellaneous Celebrity News

[BoBoFan]

I was shocked to learn that Paris and I are about the same age. She acts (acted) like a slutty 14 year old. The ones who go on Maury Povich and have to visit a real jail to straighten up.

Is it just me or does she look like an Anteater? Heck if she stuck her tongue out, she'd look like a zipper.

[Amy Lee]

Not only was it not cute, it wasn't an act.

[prhoshay]

Is it just me or does she look like an Anteater? Heck if she stuck her tongue out, she'd look like a zipper.

Interesting analogy! I always thought she rather resembled an ostrich. Facially, at least. Then you can throw in the long, skinny legs and the big feet!

[barefootdyke]

on the way home from work today, i saw a car with "FREE PARIS" written across the back window. i tried to get a picture of it, but i couldn't keep up with the driver ... she was going waaaaaay over the speed limit and dare i say it? driving rather recklessly? (i.e. cutting across THREE lanes in order to turn)

[Krom]

Jamie Lee Curtis blasts Paris Hilton's mother and others...

Add another voice to the chorus weighing in on Paris Hilton's latest travails: Jamie Lee Curtis.

In an essay on The Huffington Post titled "Mom, It's Not Right!" (which refers to Hilton's outburst as she was ordered back to jail last week) the 48-year-old actress slams the lack of parental guidance given to Hilton and others of her generation.

"It was a painful episode to watch," Curtis writes. "A young woman, begging her mother, the person who should have taught her right from wrong, to help her, to teach her the rules of life. It was a little too late. And so she wept as the Universe was bringing the teaching and settling the score."

Curtis, who has a daughter, Annie, 20, and a son, Thomas, 11, with husband Christopher Guest, is no stranger to being young in Hollywood: The daughter of actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, she made her film debut in 1978's Halloween at age 20. (She's also Jake Gyllenhaal's godmother.)

But she says today's celebs are lacking guidance: "The sad paths of the three most popular young women" – Hilton and, presumably, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears – "have ended in prison, rehab and mental illness. I hope their mothers are worried sick and wondering, 'What could I have done differently?' And our culture should be asking the same question too."

Parents her age, she says, are more concerned with being friends with their kids than teaching them important lessons. "We were the generation who applauded every move they made. Every step they took. 'Good climbing, Brandon' was our hue and cry. We were raised by people who didn't 'understand' us and now we don't 'understand' why our children are so messed up."

She concludes: "Can we take the wrenching sight of Paris asking her mother, 'why?' and ask it of ourselves? ... Wake up, Mothers, and smell the denial."

By all accounts I recall, Janet Leigh, despite being Hollywood royalty at the time, was a very good, responsible mother. Jamie Lee knows what she's talking about--at least on the one point about what's lacking in the parenting of the Celebutantes.

One thing she's terribly WRONG about is the then/now comparison. Old Hollywood was not some golden age of good celebrity parenting. Hollywood parents have ALWAYS been horrible, and likely always will be (with the occasional rare exception--as always). Hollywood is filled with tales of alcoholic, abusive manipulative parents, and Jamie Lee is looking through rose colored glasses via her own relatively good upbringing. Ask Christina Crawford if she agrees with Jamie, and she'll likely tell you that all that's happened is that harsh over-parenting has been replaced as the "Hollywood problem" by woeful under-parenting. But ultimately, even if it seems like the reverse, its all the same: Bad parenting.

[Broadway]

I don't think she has tried to indicate that a previous generation was better parents at all, Krom. I think she was just pointing out that her generation has been focused on trying to be friends with their kids, and that's not good parenting. You could then infer that previous generations weren't as interested in being friends... not that they were better.

At least that's how I read her comments.

[rt1ky]

I used to watch this show. I even had one of his books of experiments.

TV's 'Mr. Wizard' Don Herbert dies at 89
Don Herbert, who as television's "Mr. Wizard" introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science, died Tuesday. He was 89. Herbert, who had bone cancer, died at his suburban Bell Canyon home, said his son-in-law, Tom Nikosey.

"He really taught kids how to use the thinking skills of a scientist," said former colleague Steve Jacobs. He worked with Herbert on a 1980s show that echoed the original 1950s "Watch Mr. Wizard" series, which became a fond baby boomer memory.

In "Watch Mr. Wizard," which was produced from 1951 to 1964 and received a Peabody Award in 1954, Herbert turned TV into an entertaining classroom. On a simple, workshop-like set, he demonstrated experiments using household items.

"He modeled how to predict and measure and analyze. ... The show today might seem slow but it was in-depth and forced you to think along," Jacobs said. "You were learning about the forces of nature."

Herbert encouraged children to duplicate experiments at home, said Jacobs, who recounted serving as a behind-the-scenes "science sidekick" to Herbert on the '80s "Mr. Wizard's World" that aired on the Nickelodeon channel.

When Jacobs would reach for beakers and flasks, Herbert would remind him that science didn't require special tools.

"'You could use a mayonnaise jar for that,'" Jacobs recalled being chided by Herbert. "He tried to bust the image of scientists and that science wasn't just for special people and places."

Herbert's place in TV history was acknowledged by later stars. When "Late Night with David Letterman" debuted in 1982, Herbert was among the first-night guests.

Born in Waconia, Minn., Herbert was a 1940 graduate of LaCrosse State Teachers College and served as a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot during World War II. He worked as an actor, model and radio writer before starting "Watch Mr. Wizard" in Chicago on NBC.

The show moved to New York after several years.

He is survived by six children and stepchildren and by his second wife, Norma, his son-in-law said. A private funeral service was planned.

___

On the Net:

http://www.mrwizardstudios.com

Yahoo

[dagwood]

Bummer. I used to watch Mr. Wizard all the time.

[ness]

I'm so sorry about Mr. Wizard.

I used to watch him, too.

R.I.P., Mr. Wizard.

Re Paris Hilton:

Seems to me as though Rick and Kathy need to be sitting in their own cells right now, contemplating exactly where it was that they went wrong with raising this child.

I tend to agree with the poster above who said that Nicky probably stood back, watched Paris' antics, and decided not to jump into the deepest end of the pool after her sister.

I think she peeked in, saw there was only about two inches of water in the sucker, then said:

"Uhhhh . . . Think I'll just sit on the edge and let my feet dangle."

[Nemeses]

I don't think she has tried to indicate that a previous generation was better parents at all, Krom. I think she was just pointing out that her generation has been focused on trying to be friends with their kids, and that's not good parenting. You could then infer that previous generations weren't as interested in being friends... not that they were better.

At least that's how I read her comments.

That's exactly how I read it too.