> I just saw a piece on TV about Bette Midler’s latest show and it occurred to me
> that I have never heard her name associated with anyone of either sex.
> Assuming that she was a lonely woman, and that I could chat her up, I checked
> her out on the net.
>
> Seems she used to go out with her manager who died of cancer and has now
> been married to a member of her support act for about a quarter of a century.
> So I guess I’m out of luck.
>
> When I go back to work I will see how many people have any idea about her
> personal life.
I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to disagree here. I’ve known quite a fair amount about Bette Midler’s personal life, and I don’t make that all-fired much effort to keep up with celebrity news. I’ve read and watched a number of news stories about her over the past twenty-five years or so. She dated a number of guys in her twenties and thirties, not just her manager. When she was thirty-eight she married Martin von Haselberg and a couple of years later had a daughter. Haselberg wasn’t a “member of her support act.” He was a performance artist whose day job was as a stock broker or some such. At one time he and his partner happened to be the opening act for Midler. After their marriage he hasn’t worked much because he stayed home and took care of their daughter.
Similarly, I’ve read and heard a reasonable amount about the private lives of Sissy Spacek, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, and Clint Eastwood. Eastwood’s private life has been incredibly messy. As someone remarked in an article I read once, it’s hard to understand why Warren Beatty had more of a reputation as a womanizer than Eastwood. Eastwood’s relations with all the women he married, lived with, and had children with is quite convoluted.
About all I can say about the people mentioned here is that if you only remember the celebrity stories you’ve read or heard in the past five years, you might not know very much about them. I, however, am cursed to remember those news stories from years ago. The people mentioned in this thread may have had relatively calm personal lives in recent years, but they have had their share of publicity before then.
Wow…someone who has not only seen it, but loves it as much as I do! It truly captured WWII in a small town. I just adore everything about this movie. This is truly Eric Roberts’ shining moment. I love him so much in this that I can never completely hate him, regardless of the depths that his future suckitude may reach.
> Maybe we should take less all-fired interest like you do.
As I said, I seem to be cursed to remember every little trivial bit of information I ever read or heard about celebrities, even though it’s mostly things I picked up just half-listening to TV or in flipping through magazines. My point is that the people mentioned in this thread were once significant celebrities who had articles about them in magazines, interviews on TV, and mentions in newspapers. In the OP you said that you never heard anything about their personal lives mentioned in any media. If that’s true, it’s either because you’re too young to remember when they were the hot new celebrities or you’ve forgotten what you’ve read or heard about them. I’m sorry, but having a good memory is really a curse. It’s simply not true that these people have never had their personal lives mentioned in the news.
Kalhoun writes:
> Have you read anything about Sissy Spacek counter to what people here have
> heard? Is she something other than the wholesome farm girl we hear about?
O.K., without bothering to look up anything about her, I can remember the following: She grew up in Texas. The actor Rip Torn is her cousin and helped her get into acting. She persuaded her parents to support her for up to four years of trying to make it as an actor, since she told them that it would be like paying for college.
George Carlin was another example of a celebrity leading a surprisingly low-key personal life. He was married for thirty six years and the first time I heard of this was when his wife died.
The only time you ever hear about **Hugh Jackman **is about a week or so before one of his movie promo blitzes ( blitzes?) is there are photos of him at the beach in Australia, topless and having fun.
Vince Vaughan seems to fly under the radar, except for the Jennifer Anniston thing and knife fight with Steven Buscemi in 2001.
Out of many many favorite scenes, my favorite is her simply doing housework. She has the radio on and is sweeping the floor in time to the Andrews Sisters. I could watch that scene over and over again.
“Drinking rum and Cocaaaa-Cola…” It’s so adorable!
Wasn’t it Harrison Ford who had a deal with the photogs about his kids? As long as they didn’t take pictures of his kids, he would give them whatever shots they wanted of himself.
I don’t think anyone saw a photo of his kids until after they turned 18.
I think you’re being a bit combative here just to talk about your “curse”. Saying that because more than nothing about certain celebs has appeared in the news means their ineligible for this thread is moving the goalposts just a tad. Plenty of “normal people” get written or talked about in the news too.
Basically, I just think disqualifying them for rather mundane articles about births or marriages or new houses is taking the question a bit too literal.
Correct me if I have the details wrong or misread your post, but Vaughan and Buscemi did not fight each other. What I thought happened was both were at a bar in North Carolina when some local drunk picked a fight with them just to see how tough a couple movie stars could be. He found out soon enough.
As for the topic of this thread, I think part of the reason why some celebrities seem live fairly low key private lives is that the tabloid media does not regard them as being that interesting to their target audience. People like Sissy Spacek and Meryl Streep are publicly well-known and highly regarded for their thespian skills but they don’t sell magazines if you put them on the cover.
Meryl Streep is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly this week (the issue of December 5, 2008). So at least occasionally she does get major publicity, even now.
What the OP said was “I have never heard [Bette Midler’s] name associated with anyone of either sex.” No mention was made of a time frame. No mention was made of whether the news was mundane. Back a few years ago, there was a lot of entertainment news about Bette Midler. So why isn’t there any now? Because she’s too old. Remember, to most entertainment reporters, anyone over 30 is a little boring. Yeah, they occasionally mention such people, but it’s clear that consider them over the hill. Anyone over 40 is dead as far as they are concerned. When they have articles about someone like Meryl Streep, it’s a career retrospective. They’re gasping in awe that somehow she hasn’t died.
I agree with Wendell Wagner on this one. Years ago, there were articles about these people, including their private lives. I remember when Bette Midler got married and had a baby. She was on all the talk shows, discussing it. There were pictures and everything! She said that she wanted to name the little girl “Fifi Trixiebelle,” like some other rock star had done. Her husband said that when she was 50 and a CPA she would not appreciate FiFi Trixibelle, so they gave her a more mundane name.
There was a lot of stuff about Clint Eastwood’s private life when his former lover sued him and his studio - something about how in lieu of palimony they set her up with a production company, and then cheated her out of all the proceeds (so she claimed).
I remember these things, and I’m not one who watches a lot of TV, buys gossip magazines, or makes any effort to keep up with this. I do get the sense that the OP is significantly younger than WW and I, and simply wasn’t around or old enough to notice when these things made headlines.
I realize that I probably shouldn’t be, but I am astonished that a 26 year old clip from a crank-em-out-every-night late show is available for my viewing pleasure. Thanks a ton.
Not hardly. Streep is still one of our finest actors, and holds the record for most Academy Award nominations, and she has a new movie coming out, the highly-anticipated Doubt, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams. Streep’s a legend, totally beloved by everyone in the entertainment industry, and she has a huge fan base who are willing to let her alone and live her life until she has a movie to promote. I think she’s one of the few celebrities who even the paparazzi deem way too classy to bother, not because people aren’t interested.
Of the three of them, I’d have to say that Letterman has the weirdest hair of the lot. It’s a close competition, but seriously, Dave, it looks like you’re wearing some kind of varnished rugby helmet.