art
This painting of
Heath Ledger, by Vincent Fantauzzo, was done weeks before the actor's death, at his family home in Australia. It just won the "People's Choice" award at the Archibald Prize Exhibition. [
UPI]
gossip roundup
- Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are supposedly in the market for another screamless Scientology birth. [E!]
- Paris Hilton isn't engaged to singer Benji Madden, she's just wearing those two diamond bands on her ring finger in an effort to look extremely desperate. She also claimed, "I cook great lasagna," which pesumably involves toggling between 30, 50 and 100 percent power on the microwave when the Stouffer's is in there. [People]
- Liv Tyler is separating from her husband Royston Langdon, a British musician. [People]
- Defeated American Idol contestant Jason Castro on forgetting lyrics on camera: "I definitely did not do that on purpose." [ET]
- Ashlee Simpson calls fellow singer Britney Spears a "trashy girl" on an excruciating celebrity talk show improbably run by Nokia. Also, apparently a "Britney Spears" is code for "a beer" in some parts of the world. [Sun]
- That painting of actor Heath Ledger, for which he posed just prior to his death, won the people's choice award at the Archibald Prize Exhibition in Australia, where the painter lives. [People]
celebrity-industrial complex
So not only has Mattel released the
world's most awkward figurine, depicting
Heath Ledger's Joker in the forthcoming Batman sequel,
The Dark Knight, but the creepy action figures are actually selling. Really, really well. Reports the
Post: "Toy peddlers are laughing all the way to the bank with
Heath Ledger's Joker doll selling out at New York stores. Droves of people lined up early at the Toys 'R' Us store in Times Square... 'There are none left in the warehouse, either.'" The $10 dolls are being re-sold on eBay. Get one for $55 with a Batman figurine! Put it in your morbid
Heath Ledger apartment! [
Post]
(Joker image via Post)
Lies!
New York magazine's Vulture blargh smells a rat in Leon Wieseltier's "thoroughly entertaining" review of a Martin Amis book from yesterday's New York
Times. In a strange non sequitur, Wieseltier wrote that formerly living actor
Heath Ledger once said of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar (Ledger was also nominated that year for
Butt Cowboys 3: Paul Haggis' Revenge): "I thought it was for the best acting, not the most acting." Funny and sort of accurate, but untrue! says Vulture. Conducting a thorough Google search, they were unable to find any mention of this Heath Ledger bon mot. Did Wieseltier make it up? Was it just a small, unconfirmed anecdote he picked up somewhere? Either way, Vulture doesn't like that Ledger's rep will now be sullied for saying a sort of mean thing once, years ago. When he was alive. [
NYM]
Curse?
Healthwatch! Verne "Mini Me" Troyer has reportedly been "rushed to the hospital" with vaguely described flu-like symptoms. Troyer has been working on
The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus, the same film that
Heath Ledger was starring in at the time of his death. [
Us]
too soon?
Prewar building. Stainless-steel appliances. All-night pharmacy around the corner. Service staff have Mary-Kate Olsen's phone number memorized. Get all the details on this apartment, which all but reeks of celebrity death, in the glorious
Craigslist ad after the jump.
More »
gossip roundup
- Heath Ledger may have a love child in Australia, the late actor's uncle said, which would mean he has two children. Isn't that straight out of Lost? I mean, except for the part about Heath fathering the child while 17 and still in grammar school with a woman eight years older who already had a boyfriend. [Daily Telegraph via HollyScoop]
- Cracked-out singer Amy Winehouse has been writing and playing songs for her next album even while battling addiction and her skin condition. Also, while her husband sits in jail. "It is very, very dark." [Sun]
- Woops: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie did not get married in Vegas, as reported in Star. Perez Hiton described Star's retraction as "shoving their baby cock between their legs." Eeww. This is why I should never read Perez Hilton before trying to sleep. [Perez]
- It sounds like Britney Spears did not end up presenting during the Kids' Choice Awards as rumored. Actor Orlando Bloom seemed less than thrilled to get slimed.
- Kiefer Sutherland of 24 wants to direct a music video for British band "the Feeling." It's high time rock videos added some torture scenes. [Sun]
celebrity science
A big magazine industry report came out, and it turns out
People magazine's
top selling regular issue last year featured
Owen Wilson on the cover just after his attempted suicide.
People's biggest seller so far in 2008 was about
Heath Ledger's death. The magazine's top sellers of all time were Sept. 12, 2001 and just after Princess Diana died. But death and misery do not rule completely:
More »
gossip roundup
- Actor George Clooney Googled himself in front of Esquire and addressed the various rumors that popped up. On his alleged feud with Fabio: "There is a moment when you are actually in the argument and you're thinking, 'If I do get beaten down by Fabio, that will be far worse than the pain. I wouldn't shake that.'" On being called "gay, gay, gay:" "No, I'm gay, gay. The third gay – that was pushing it." [People]
- At long last police and maybe the FBI are more concerned about a deranged fan hurting singer Britney Spears than about a deranged Spears hurting herself. A fan is sending sex toys, customized porn stories and a picture of himself with the eyes cut out and, in at least in one case, odd liquid squirting into his mouth. The letters maybe also had talk of bombs and the Middle East. And the only reason you're reading about this is that Spears hasn't gone on a crazy rampage and thus buried the news of her insane stalker. Yay?
- Spears shouldn't worry too much about the crazy, since she has a cussy new bodyguard, seen here about to grope her.
- Also, comedian Rosie O'Donnell made Spears one of those YouTube-esque fan mashups, with just the song "Calling you" by Patti Lupone and some still pictures of Britney. OMG, more of this, please, Rosie. [P6]
- Someone not home with actress Heather Locklear called 911, worried she would commit suicide. When police arrived at her house, Locklear seemed fine so the emergency crews left. ShowbizSpy detailed her love life.
- Heath Ledger left none of his assets to his daughter or her mom. [Sun]
- Matt Damon and his wife Luciana are expecting another child. [Us]
- An aggressive and determined Kimora Lee Simmons conceived another child for her Scientology army. Some guy was involved, but that seems beside the point.
liars
What were the last moments of
Heath Ledger's life like?
Esquire doesn't have the exclusive! So their reporter Lisa Taddeo added a gimmick to her story about the actor's final days:
She wrote her story in the first
and second person as the late actor, using Chuck Palahniuk's dramatic narrative style (which is pretty close to
Esquire's default). The magazine cleverly introduces the piece as "reported fiction," which means we don't get to know which details of Taddeo's piece are true. So why didn't she just invent the whole thing? That seems easier. [Photo: Getty]
the fame game
Ryan Phillippe is
thinking of leaving L.A. He's tired of having the paparazzi following him and his family everywhere he goes. Mary-Louise Parker thinks the
paparazzi culture is sick. And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have opted to travel permanently rather than give the paparazzi a chance to wait outside their eco-friendly gates. But with the popularity of digital cameras and stalking celebrities, there's no escaping fame and having said fame photographed. And whiners complaining to major news outlets are complicit in a culture that has them photographed picking up trash.
More »
heath ledger
Two doctors are being investigated by the feds in connection with actor and Soho resident
Heath Ledger's death. The
Daily News reports that one doctor in California and one in Texas supplied Ledger with Vicodin and Oxycontin, and the feds want to know if the whole deal was legal. Nothing has been established yet. The two painkillers were among the six drugs in Ledger's system when he died of an overdose in January. [
NYDN]
Heath Ledger's Last Portrait
"It was about how we all have different consciences and voices in our head that tell us what to do and how to react. They're not good or bad, they're just voices that we hear, telling us how to behave. That's what the other figures are in the painting." [
Page Six]
Replacements
Deceased Soho resident
Heath Ledger will be replaced by three separate actors—Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell— in his unfinished final role in "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus." [
Ain't It Cool News]
paparazzi
No one ever said the paparazzi were tasteful (far from it!), but sometimes they still manage to surprise us with their indelicate lensing. Like the photos of
Michelle Williams that are floating around today. The images show Williams, who had a relationship (and a child) with now deceased actor
Heath Ledger, walking past, get this!, a
skeleton. The fake set of bones is being used in a film shoot or something. OMG, because her ex-boyfriend just died! Poetry! If you're curious about what sadness looks like, a photo lies after the jump.
More »
Touching Tributes
As you may or may not have heard,
Heath Ledger, the celebrated young actor who died unexpectedly last month, was memorialized this weekend in Australia with a hideous beach blanket bingo party. The wacky weirdos who celebrated his life by diving, fully clothed, into the sea he so loved are definitely tapped in the head. Bizarro! [
Daily Mail]
eerie
heath ledger
Gawker
