He’s not just a sexy guy; Clooney’s also a star’s star
TO THOSE CHEERING him at the Los Angeles Film Festival Saturday night, George Clooney is far more than his swaggering superstar persona would indicate.
Such Hollywood luminaries as Clooney’s “Ocean’s Eleven” co-star Don Cheadle, Oscar nominees Virginia Madsen and Shohreh Aghdashloo and Emmy winner Allison Janney celebrated Clooney for his longtime support of emerging filmmakers and art-house cinema.
Clooney said that recent back surgery has kept him out of the tabloids. Yet his name popped up again earlier this week with news that he and English model Lisa Snowdon had ended their on-again off-again relationship.
But nothing dimmed Clooney’s famous sense of humor.
Having arrived at Saturday’s event to receive the festival’s first annual Spirit of Independence Award with actor Sam Rockwell, Clooney told AP Television News, “I’ve got to tell you something. He’s one of the worst dates I’ve ever had.”
Jar Jar Binks was left off the list
Everybody’s a “Star Wars” fan, especially when the drinks are free. And the wine flowed on Saturday when George Lucas opened the doors to his sprawling new 23-acre Lucasfilm Ltd. complex with a party of some 2,000 of his closest friends, all of whom were serenaded by the likes of Chris Isaak, Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs and the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart.
The bash celebrated the move of the company to the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio, a former military base and national park in San Francisco.
“I see it as an opportunity to save the park,” Lucas said. “I love the park. I did not want to see it turned into a shopping mall.”
They want other stuff as well
According to a poll conducted by In Touch magazine, singer and “Dukes of Hazzard” star Jessica Simpson has the hairstyle most women want. Simpson won out over former “Friends” star Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Alba of “Sin City” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” actress Angelina Jolie. The rest of the Top 10 vote-getters were, in order, desperate housewifes Eva Longoria and Marcia Cross, Paris Hilton‘s one-time pal Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton of “The O.C.,” Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Emancipation? Well, negotiation anyway
Barack Obama sees parallels between Abraham Lincoln‘s life and his own, but he says the nation’s 16th president might not have envisioned a black man occupying the seat he now holds. Obama, who occupies the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois that Lincoln lost to Stephen Douglas in 1858, wrote about how Lincoln shaped his life in a special issue of Time magazine on newsstands Monday.
“I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator,” Obama said. “As a law professor, civil rights lawyer and as an African-American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a military document than a clarion call for justice.”
Welcome Yanks, bring your checkbooks
Anti-poverty campaigner and musician Bob Geldof said he was delighted that the European Union has pledged to double aid to the world’s poorest nations by 2015, but urged the United States and Canada to make a bigger effort. “The Americans, they need to come to the party. Although they may not bring cash they will bring goal-orientated objectives and that’s all right, that’s fine.”
The birthday bunch
Comedian-director Mel Brooks is 79. Actor Pat Morita is 73. Bassist Dave Knights of Procol Harum is 60. Actor Bruce Davison is 59. Actress Kathy Bates is 57. Actress Alice Krige is 51. Actress Jessica Hecht (“Friends,” “The Single Guy”) is 40. Actress Mary Stuart Masterson is 39. Actor John Cusack is 39. Actor Gil Bellows (“Ally McBeal”) is 38.