O’Neal still fights own worst self
Tatum O’Neal‘s life is straight out of a Lifetime melodrama.
Only the incidentals are real. The actress, youngest ever to win an Oscar (for 1973’s “Paper Moon at age 10), was arrested Sunday night in her Manhattan neighborhood.
Police found two bags of cocaine in her pants pocket.
O’Neal, the daughter of Ryan O’Neal and ex-wife of John McEnroe, has publicly chronicled her struggles with heroin and cocaine addiction. She thanked the police officers for saving her.
“Just when I was about to change that and wreck my life, the cops came!” the 44-year-old actress told New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser in a phone call shortly after being released from custody Monday.
She told Peyser she had sought out drugs Sunday evening because she was sad about the death of her 16-year-old Scottish terrier.
Speaking of troubled souls …
Amy Winehouse gave her jailed husband loving glances when he appeared in an east London court on charges of assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The 24-year-old British singer sat in the front row during Blake Fielder-Civil‘s appearance on Monday, smiled at him repeatedly and patted the empty seat next to her. Winehouse told spectators outside the court that her husband looked gorgeous.
Some, though, are happy
Actress Michelle Monaghan and her husband, graphic designer Peter White, are expecting their first baby together this fall. Monaghan, 32, co-stars in the romantic comedy “Made of Honor,” portraying the object of Patrick Dempsey‘s affection. The couple married in August 2005. They began dating after meeting in a New York City bar, said Jennifer Allen, Monaghan’s publicist.
Avoid barbershop quartets, too
Presented with The Great Princeton Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award, comedian Stephen Colbert had some words of advice for the Princeton University student body. “When you leave here,” the comedian said, “no one will ever, ever want to hear you sing a capella.”
He doesn’t want to be alone
Nick Bollea, 17, son of professional wrestler/actor Hulk Hogan, is serving eight months in jail after pleading no contest to causing a car crash. Even worse, he’s being held in solitary confinement at the Tampa, Fla., jail for his own protection. Bollea’s lawyers say the situation is causing him “unbearable anxiety.”
He’s empathetic but not sorry
Comedian Chris Rock, in South Africa to open his “No Apologies” tour, said Monday he doesn’t consider a wave of attacks on foreigners in South Africa as black-on-black violence but a problem of poverty. “It’s broke-on-broke violence,” the 43-year-old actor-comedian said at a news conference. “It’s broke people robbing each other. That’s the sad thing.”
The birthday bunch
Actor Bruce Dern is 72. Singer-actress Michelle Phillips is 64. Actor Parker Stevenson is 56. Singer El DeBarge is 47. Actor Scott Wolf (“Party of Five”) is 40. Comedian Horatio Sanz (“Saturday Night Live”) is 39. Actor Noah Wyle is 37. Bassist Stefan Lessard of The Dave Matthews Band is 34. Actress Angelina Jolie is 33. Drummer Zac Farro of Paramore is 18.