Shawn Levy responds...

Yesterday I posted about my ire at Paul Newman biographer Shawn Levy, a film critic at The Oregonian, and his comments to Ray Pride at Movie City News in an interview about Levy's recently published Newman bio and Levy's remarks concerning Paul Newman's height. I sent a short email to Pride expressing my ire, and Pride briefly responded with a reply email but he must have cc'd Levy because I got a response from Shawn Levy this morning:

As I said in the very brief comment, he was likely closer to 5'10" as a young man than he was when he was in his 60s, when he'd shrunken with age. At any rate, having never met him, I'm just guesstimating from pictures and such.

Shawn Levy

Writers sure are touchy! A little criticism from a nobody like me and he feels the need to defend himself! But, I appreciate the fact that he responded. Oh, and here's my response to Levy's email, and I should point out beforehand that Paul Newman: A Life is Levy's 5th book; his previous book, The Last Playboy, a biography of noted mid-century Dominican cocksman/playboy/gigolo/diplomat Porfirio Rubirosa and his legendary monster schlong is a very entertaining read and one I can recommend to fans of pop culture, histories of cafe society and/or biographies of men with extremely large penises...

I guess I'll forgive you but only because I enjoyed The Last Playboy and have to appreciate any biographer who would bother to write about such a marginal but fascinating figure of mid-twentieth century history.

I wonder if Rubi "shrunk" as he got older?

As for Mr Newman and other average or slightly below average height male stars, I've always thought it a bit silly their desperation at maintaining an image that they MUST be of a certain height in order to project masculinity and a sense of power. On the whole, do audiences really care? And do shorter male stars dread going on Letterman; after all, he's over 6 foot. For that 10 second moment when they meet and shake hands at the desk before sitting down, you can pretty accurately judge the guest's height in comparison to Dave's...

Sorry, Shawn...have to call Bullshit on that...

Ray Price over on Movie City News has an interview with Oregonian film critic Shawn Levy and a conversation about Levy's new book, the unimaginatively titled, Paul Newman: A Life. Here's an excerpt from that interview:

PRIDE: How tall was Newman? Is it just the bad internets having a field day lately with varying estimates?

LEVY: I think that in the fullness of his time he stood about five ten-and-a-half or a smidge taller. But by the time the N. Y. Post started taking potshots at him for being short, he was nearing 60 and probably had ceded an inch or two to age.

I seriously have to question how accurate of a job Levy did on this biography when he's willing to perpetuate a stupid lie about an actor's height, especially since I have personal knowledge of this. I encountered Paul Newman in 1989 when he was filming Mr and Mrs Bridge in Kansas City. I was on my way to work one afternoon and was walking the three blocks from my bus stop to the downtown hotel I worked at, when I noticed a lot of big trucks and trailers parked near an old hotel; obviously, they were filming Bridge in the area, something that had been going on for several weeks at this point and a sight I was used to seeing because I had already run across the trucks not far from my apartment. That day, as I was hurrying to work, I didn't pay much attention to the film trucks. There was little obvious activity going on at street level, but as I got closer to the trucks I did notice a solitary man, in a 1940's period suit, walking towards me in the general direction of some parked trailers. Obviously it was an actor in the film and I thought, "Cool, I'm getting to see some behind the scenes stuff" and as we passed each other we acknowledged each other and did the nodded head/slight smile thing and I walked about another 10 feet and realized that I had just passed by Paul Newman. (the same thing happened to me in NYC when I walked by Paul Simon, who's notoriously short). I immediately spun around to gawk at him as he entered a trailer, and I gaily skipped the remaining two blocks to work to delightedly tell my co-workers that I had just had a Newman sighting!

"Ohmigod! I just encountered Paul Newman on the street!" were the first words out of mouth, and the second sentence I excitedly uttered were words along the line of: "And he's fuckin' tiny! Like 5'7" at best, and maybe 140 pounds!", which surprised no one since this was a downtown hotel and we were used to seeing celebrities in person and the inevitable disappointment of meeting celebrities in person and discovering they are ususlly smaller, duller and surlier in person than they are on your tv or movie screen. And, I should point out, my perception of Mr Newman's height was based on the fact we walked right past each other, and I'm not quite 5.10 (5' 9" 3/4)and Mr Newman was at least a couple inches shorter than me. That was in 1989 when Newman was about 64...is it really common for adult men to shrink three inches by their mid-sixties?

So, judging by Shawn Levy's dorky defense of his dead biography subjects height, I'm guessing that Levy doesn't venture much into the "Paul Newman was gay/bi" controversy in his book...

Oh, and go here for a hilarious discussion of Newman's height...and other celebrities as well including the not quite 5'10 Robert Redford.

Does anyone care?

I mean, seriously does anyone believe in all these "Angie vs Jen" covers we've seen week after week after week on the covers of the tabloids for the last, what, five years? How many times have they confronted each other, or almost confronted each other or threatened to confront each other? I really can't stand either one of them, or Brad Pitt for that matter, and I think they both are a little crazy, in the whole, everyone in Hollywood is a bit crazy/self-absorbed way, but I have my doubts that Aniston spends every waking moment agonizing over her loss of Pitt or Jolie's role in that. I mean, Aniston is kept very busy filming vapid movies, appearing on Oprah, hanging out with best buds, the Cox-Arquettes and romancing mega-talent John Mayer to have time for that kind of ca-ca, right?

Seacrest needs to get Out...

from Defamer:

However, while on the radio this morning, Ryan Seacrest couldn't help getting snarky on his old pal (Clay Aiken)when he sarcastically dropped the line "In other news, water is wet and ice cream is cold" while discussing the news (of Aiken coming out of the closet).

Dear Frosty-Tipped, Mincing, Little, Man-Bitch,

You are strongly suspected of being a Pass Around Party Bottom Homosexual. If not, then you sure as hell look like one. For someone who got his big break in show business courtesy of his "mentor" Merv Griffin, you say a lot of stupid things. I used to kinda like you; now, I hate you.

You are now on my shit list.

You've been warned.

Strangeways

P.S.

You're getting fat and puffy.

And American Idol is running out of steam.

Photo taken from PerezHilton and where he stole it, who knows...it looks vaguely TMZish. It's well over a year old, and the other guy is/was allegedly a close friend of the Seacrest.

All the Stars are in Lower Queen Anne!

I had a HUGE celebrity sighting last night in Lower Queen Anne/Uptown. I was walking with my friends on our way to a fine meal at Mecca and just as we passed Dicks, who do you think we run into??!?!?!?! THIS asshole:Michael Medved, arch-conservative commentator, movie and media critic, gadfly, and Mercer Island resident was lurking around the back of Dick's Uptown last night...(or maybe he was coming from a screening of something at the Uptown; did they show "The Greatest Story Ever Told" last night?)

I used to kinda like Michael Medved back in the day when he was the funny Jewish movie critic who replaced Siskel & Ebert when they jumped ship from their original PBS show. He also wrote a series of entertaining film books called "The Golden Turkey Awards" about movies so bad that they're almost good. Then, he quickly turned into a tiresome, shrewish old bitch ranting about the liberal evils of Hollywood.

He was never pretty, but it's nice to see he's NOT aging well.

More Stars than there are in the Heavens!!!

On my way home from work yesterday afternoon about 5:15pm, I was driving down 15th and was privileged enough to experience not just one, but TWO celebrity sightings! Right in front of Liberty, THIS newly buffed stud and sex columnist was spotted getting ready to either get on his bike to go home to his hubby, or maybe he was contemplating if he could get away with jaywalking across 15th as a act of civil defiance but regardless, he was prominently displayed in front of his favorite Capitol Hill watering hole. It's not really that exciting of a sighting since Savage goes to Liberty after work about 19 times a week, but it still gives me a cheap thrill to see our literati out mingling with the common man, or in this case, the common hipster...

AND, you can only imagine the tingle I got following the Savage Sighting, when about three blocks further south on 15th near the Safeway and the Church of Aquarius when I was fortunate enough to see THIS endearing figure, wafting down the boulevard in his perpetual haze of diaphanously hirsute beauty. I couldn't tell if Mr Odyssey was just out on a stroll or devoting himself to trash removal, but either way his presence on our streets is a vital thread in the fabric of our urban life...

...but only if he keeps his weiner covered.

Credits: Savage/Cooper by Savage/The Stranger
Boe Odyssey by Life is Art/Flickr

Meow!

Who doesn't love a good catfight/celebrity brawl? DListed reports that Nikki Blonsky, (Traci Turnblad from the last shitty Hairspray movie/musical) and her dad got into a fight over saved seats in an airport terminal in the Turks and Caicos islands with an America's Next Top Model reject, Bianca Golden and her mom! Nikki, her dad and Bianca were arrested and Mother Golden was flown to Miami for medical treatment! Nikki and Bianca are out on bail, and Father Blonsky is still in the slammer. This must have been some smackdown, and a foolish one. Any intelligent person knows, you do not fuck with big, fat, white people from Long Island OR wannabe model divas; you're just askin' for trouble. Plus, the Blonsky's are still pissed they couldn't go to the cancelled Golden Globes ceremony this year. They missed out on a free prime rib dinner at the Beverly Hills Hilton and a chance to hang with Miss Golden Globes herself, Rumer Willis!

Irritating side note: Variety reported last week that the producers of the shitty and loud movie musical of Hairspray have hired John Waters to write a story for a Hairspray sequel, which would pickup immediately where the first one leaves off. None of the original cast had sequel options, so it's not even known if original stars, John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Zac Efron or Queen Latifah would be interested in coming back. (I'm sure Nikki would be back in a heartbeat; it's either this, or go back to the Coldstone Creamery from whence she came...)

Well, if Travolta does comes back, I'm sure Zacky poo would come back too; he looks up to Travolta for all sorts of useful fatherly/Hollywood advice...

Source: http://www.dlisted.com/ who got it from TMZ, but I'm not linking to them 'cause they get enough credit.

She's 86 and the tits are lookin' fine!

Happy 86th Bea! We love you!

Cancer Watch 2008

Sadly, both Anderson Cooper and Dame Maggie Smith are battling cancer. The CNN megahunk known as the Silver Fox had a small growth removed under his eye on Monday, but will be back to work tomorrow night.

Dame Maggie is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, but is well enough to continue filming the penultimate Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and is still set to star in another film, "From Time to Time" after the Potter filming is finished.


We hope they get well soon...Strangeways/Sideshow loves us some Foxy and our favorite Miss Brodie...