Robert de Niro gained 50 pounds for his role as Jake LaMotta in ”Raging Bull,” John Travolta pumped iron for ”Staying Alive,” Jose Ferrer walked on his knees in ”Moulin Rouge.” For Bette Midler, it`s fingernails. In ”Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” she had peach talons. In ”Ruthless People,” she had blood-red stubs. In ”Outrageous Fortune,” she alternates between acid-green and glitter-splashed yellow claws. ”Laurence Olivier changes his nose,” says Midler. ”I do it with my nails.”
Lionel Richie came up the hard way. He didn`t do drugs, he wasn`t an orphan, he didn`t live on the streets. What kind of training is that for a rock-`n`-roll star? In the March issue of Playboy, he says: ”I was a Boy Scout, I was an altar boy. I grew up on a college campus.” It`s tough being a clean singer, but Richie has learned to live with his burden. When critics call him wimpy, he just turns the other cheek because, as he says, ”wimpy to me means–guess what?–sales.”
There have been so many David Bowie personae–Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, the New-Wave Fred Astaire–that we have to go back a bit in time to remember the original Bowie. In ”Bowie” (Macmillan), Jerry Hopkins recalls Bowie`s first visit to the U.S.: ”By 1971 airline employees were used to seeing outrageously dressed long-haired Londoners. But David seemed somewhat odder than most. His hair was unusually long, hanging well below his shoulders. With a full-length purple greatcoat and effeminate hand movements, he appeared more female than male. Some said–and photographs largely confirm –he was a dead ringer for Lauren Bacall.”
REPLAYS
”There is so little difference between husbands, you might as well keep the first.” Adela Rogers St. John
”You don`t know anything about a woman until you meet her in court.”
Norman Mailer
”Most couples devote less time to deciding custody than to deciding how to divide up their furniture.”
Richard Warshak
