Charlton Heston Can't Take It With Him, But Man, If He Could...

UPDATE (11:31am): Looks like we've been pap'd! If only Ashton Kutcher could've come up with a ruse this elaborate, maybe Pop Fiction wouldn't have been unceremoniously dumped after 3 episodes. Instead, we got Audrina Patridge tattoos! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted... More »

Get Your Hands Off Stanley Kubrick's Prosthesis, You Damned Dirty Ape

A startling revelation from the '60s emerged this week when Dan Richter, who played the contemplative ape in the prologue of 2001: A Space Odyssey, acknowledged a top-level, primate-swiping security breach on Stanley Kubrick's set. It all started with the embittered recollection of losing a special 1968 Make-Up Oscar to Planet of the Apes — and then, like a slo-mo bone in the prehistoric sky, the conspiracy theories flew: More »

A Week Of False Terribles

As we put this week to bed, it's time to reflect, project, deflect and genuflect on the week that was... More »

Rob Lowe And His Vicious Laundry List Of False Terribles

If you're planning on going out and getting bombed tonight, it's best to do so on a full stomach. Enter Dirt Sandwich, carefully crafted by Defamer's Top Chef, Molly McAleer. Each week, she grazes through the rich pasture of tabloid television for the juiciest ingredients and then stacks them all together into an easily digestible sammy, one that's guaranteed to soak up all the booze you'll be pouring down your gullet this evening. This week's Dirt Sandwich features Robin Williams' appearance at Idol Gives Back (not showing any sign of his personal troubles!), the first interview Denise Richards has ever given in her bathroom (an E! News exclusive!), Jamie Lynn Spears' romantic birthday dinner at a Louisiana Ruby Tuesdays (say what you will, but their Double Chocolate Cake is KILLER) and, of course, Rob Lowe's allegations that his nanny was set to blackmail him with "a vicious laundry list of false terribles" (which, btw, became word of the week at Defamer HQ). Enjoy, kids ... False Terribles! More »

The 'NY Times' Regrets Not Knowing Charlton Heston's Real Name, Age

If you've ever been a fact-checker, you probably had beaten into you the fact that — above everything else — you must get a person's name and age right. When we were starting out, we once let "Kerri" Kennedy Cuomo slip by us and we can still count the cane lashing scars on our ass. So our buttocks started tingling in sympathy when we read the New York Times' corrections admitting that they'd screwed up Charlton Heston's birth name and age in his obituary. There were some other goofs as well. More »

We Are All Made Of Diamonds

If having your loved one cremated and poured into a jar that sits in your house isn't enough remembrance for you, LifeGem has a better idea: take those ashes, subject them to a huge amount of force, and create a diamond to wear around. You'll always know the gem was made from, as the company puts it, a very special "carbon source"—that means your loved one! You can even get them for your pets, which are also diamond-worthy carbon sources. Once your order is delivered, we imagine, you sing a creepy little song about "the diamond within you," and cackle maniacally. Strange business. As TNR points out, this would be an apt fate for Charlton "Soylent Green" Heston. Below, some of the company's gently persuasive sales pitch, which is somehow hair-raising. There's no right way to sell this product. More »

A Snapshot of the American Psyche

The papers and the news shows (and next year's Oscars) are going to bore us stupid with footage of Biblical and gladiatorial chesty male sweatiness. But what do everyday folks think of when they think of Charlton Heston? Soylent Green, and "from my cold dead hands."

Gun Champion and Sometimes Actor Charlton Heston Dead at 83

Charlton Heston, whose turns in epics including The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur reset the leading-man standard in Hollywood and who later won all of our hearts as the president of the National Rifle Association, died Saturday in Beverly Hills. He was 83. A family spokesman declined to specify a cause of death, but Heston had been suffering from "symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer's disease" since 2002. More »