She Still Feels Like She’s More Of A Mud Puddle
Nine years ago, at the tender age of 18 and the not-so-tender tonnage of 250 pounds, Ricki Lake made her film debut in the John Waters cult classic “Hairspray.”
Today, a slimmed-down size 8, the actress turned talk show host is the romantic lead in the upcoming “Mrs. Winterbourne” - every agonizing moment of it.
“I was terrified, in tears,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “I felt more insecure than I’ve ever been. I was questioning my ability … The insecure, ugly girl is so easy. It’s scarier believing that I am a pretty girl.”
Even so, she appreciated the break from the daytime talk scene. “I’ve done a lot of these shows three times now,” Lake said. “We’ve done ‘My Boyfriend Is Cheating On Me’ 20 different ways. So it’s a constant challenge to remain interested.”
Loose talk
Bruce Willis, on being called cocky by the press (in Playboy magazine): “They all seem to remark on ‘that smirk.’ Hey, this is my face. This is just how I look. This is how I smile: crooked.”
Suppose that he’s still drowning his sorrows?
Kevin Costner turns 41 today.
But the real secret is making them both play
“ER” hunk George Clooney, starring in “From Dusk to Dawn” with Harvey Keitel and Quentin Tarantino, says he’s not about to pull a David Caruso and abandon his hit series for the big screen. “The truth is, most people who are on a TV series manage to make them both work, and that is what I am doing,” Clooney told “Extra.”
Maybe so, but he’s still swimming upstream
Salman Rushdie, still facing an Iranian death threat over his book “The Satanic Verses,” continued his cautious return to public life Tuesday with an invitation-only reading from his new “The Moor’s Last Sigh” and appearances on a “Donahue” taping and “Good Morning America.” As he told the GMA crew: “A reason for doing this, for dropping around, is really to say I’m back.”
Are they sure that it wasn’t the Unabomber?
Speaking of celebrity surfacings, some New Yorkers were all agog over what they swear was a Fashion Cafe appearance Tuesday night by Michael Jackson, wearing a hooded black parka and mirrored sunglasses. Said a restaurant supervisor: “It was like a UFO sighting.”
Guess Steve didn’t have that good of a night
And as for anyone who thought they saw “Good Morning America“‘s Joan Lunden do a sexy tabletop dance for actor Steve Guttenberg at a Miami nightspot on New Year’s Eve, take off his shirt and accompany him into the men’s room, well, her publicist says it never happened.
And just maybe the girl will be a woman soon
Finally, feminist fatale Helen Gurley Brown, now 74, announced Tuesday she’s stepping down as editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and named Canadian Bonnie Fuller, editor-in-chief of Marie Claire, to succeed her. Said Brown: “She thoroughly understands the Cosmo girl.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino