Sunday, June 29, 2003		Hollywood Hues

Book crook

SHE’s back again looking as devastating at 55 as she did in the heady ’70s. And she’s back with a bang. In Booked, Jacqueline Bisset plays a serious university teacher who leads a secret double life, creating blueprints for failsafe crimes and selling them to the underworld.

For Jackie it has been a decade of near-anonymity as far as big films go. "I took a long vacation from films because I wasn’t getting the kind of roles I was interested in," says the star of films like The Greek Tycoon, Murder On The Orient Express and Thief Who Came To Dinner.

She almost said no to Booked but then read and re-read the story before inking the deal. "I didn’t want to compromise on my comeback. First I said no because I thought the story was a bit frivolous. But then I said to myself, it’s not the same. After all, there’s another side to the role as well — that of a cerebral teacher." A half-and-half compromise?

He’s going boldly where very few have gone before. But William Shatner is determined to bite the hand which has fed him for most of his professional life.

The celluloid and TV world’s Captain Kirk is writing a kiss-and-tell book about what goes on behind the scenes of Star Trek — the quarrels, the petty infighting, the indiscipline and the starry tantrums. In short, just the reverse of the good values the film and series have been promoting.

But the bosses at Paramount Studios, the producers of the show, are not amused with the now-retired captain of the Enterprise. They have threatened the 66-year-old star with legal action and warned that if he did not drop the proposed book, for which he is getting a fancy royalty, they will also withhold rights to photographs and the Star Trek logo which goes into making Shatner’s highly circulated monthly comic book.

Which has put the star in a dilemma. If he accepts the million-dollar offer he kisses his huge income goodbye. If he doesn’t, his comic book empire comes crashing down. This time he has really sky-rocketed into trouble and there’s no one to save him when he calls out, "Beam me up, Scottie."

She is the queen of all supermodels, but 36-year-old Cindy Crawford is a hot-headed star as well. Recently, when she went to London she found a group of photographers waiting for her at the airport. She was very put off, and just blew her top. Not at the Press guys but at the poor stewardess who met her at the airport to make her passage through immigration more comfortable.

First, she took her to task about the photographers for which she or the airline were hardly to blame. Then, as if to humiliate the lady, Cindy gave her her heavy baggage to carry. Husband Rande Gerber, however, was a picture of professionalism. He smiled for the papparazzi and also took the trolley from the heaving stewardess and began pushing it himself. No wonder they are calling him the "Mr Gentleman’ in London these days!

She started her career as a sleaze movie star and a much sought after pin-up of X-rated magazines, who could be banked upon to unzip at the drop of a hat. But somewhere, at the back of her mind, Sharon Stone wanted to make it big though she didn’t know how.

Then came the movie offer which put her on a rollercoaster ride to superstardom. That she was approached after top actresses Michelle Pfeiffer and Kim Basinger refused to do the steamy role of novelist Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct is not important. What matters is that she saw it as the chance of her lifetime and put in all she had.

And the results are there for all to see. Not only did Basic Instinct become one of the biggest grossers of the nineties, it put Sharon Stone in the league of Julia Roberts as Hollywood’s reigning deity.

This truth dawned on Julia when a studio boss, who’d promised to cast her in The Ghosts of Beverly Hills about a sex siren’s hot affair with a fading star, called to say that she wouldn’t be needed for the film.

He said the movie’s backers would only put up the money if Sharon Stone was cast in the lead role. Julia Roberts was first livid, but like other heroines, she’s learning to live with the reality that when Sharon’s in competition it’s best to withdraw.

Since the day she separated from her superstar husband, Sylvester Stallone, sex bomb Brigette Neilsen has not stopped twittering about the supposedly superhuman sex life she shares with her paramours. And the list is long. "I’m seeing all the top stars," she boasts.

In a current French magazine interview she says, "I hope I’ll still be having men around me when I’m 90. That is the best way I can maintain my figure." The truth, however, is that today, over a decade after their divorce, Brigette has joined the long line of femme fatales whose husbands do the running act.

Explains Hollywood’s reigning celebrity author, Jackie Collins, "Women like Brigette spend so much of their time being sex machines that at the end of the day they are too exhausted to even think about being witty or being sparkling company." Which explains why most men turn turtle when they see the siren.

Newsmen Features