As it turns out, there's a limit to how far Melanie Griffith will go. John Waters says so.
Waters told a group of reporters this week that he picked the squeaky-voiced actress to star in his new Hollywood satire "Cecil B. Demented" because he "just knew" she "had a sense of humor about what it is to be a woman in her early 40s and a movie star that grew up in Hollywood. And believe me, many of them do not have a sense of humor about that."
"Plus," he said, "she knows she has to reinvent herself."
But although the actress was willing to do just about anything he proposed, Waters says there was one thing she wouldn't do: reinvent herself as Phyllis Diller.
"The only thing I ever had to negotiate with her a little strenuously was what her hair looked like after it caught on fire," he recalled, chuckling. "I wanted it bald, with clumps. Phyllis Diller on a bad day. She wasn't ready to go that far."
Fang will be so disappointed.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The wimple was ruining her serve
"My manager wants me to dress like a nun, and I want to look like a teenager."
-- Anna Kournikova, who reportedly chose an outfit so sheer for a recent GQ cover shoot, production artists had to lend her a little cover.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Would Divine Brown care to weigh in?
And wait -- guess what? Elizabeth Hurley says she has her limits, too!
Hurley swears she didn't say those nasty things to Jane magazine about Hugh Grant being a dud in bed -- and that, in fact, she'd never say such a thing.
"Hugh Grant is fantastic in bed," she tells the U.K. Sun. "He always has been."
The actress says the article, which will hit newsstands Aug. 14, "infuriated" her so much she's seriously thinking of taking legal action against the magazine, which stands by its story.
"It's just not true. I cried when I saw it. And I reassured Hugh, who is upset, that I didn't say those things," she says. "He knows I'd never say anything horrible about our sex life."
In fact, she says, she'd "never say anything detrimental about" her ex. "He's my best friend in the world," she says.
Or at least, he was.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Grammy amnesia
"Classy, sexy, feminine -- those are the things I look for in clothes. I don't like anything that looks cheap. I don't go for overtly sexual things. I like things that leave something to the imagination."
-- Jennifer Lopez, in a statement nearly as shocking as her infamous hanky dress, in Playboy magazine.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Juicy bits
Where was Steve to boogie right along? A source tells me the "shiny happy mood on the floor" at the Republican National Convention the other night was "so infectious" that ABC News commentator Cokie Roberts was "groovin' right along" to Ricky Martin's "Cup of Life," which was blaring through the speakers over and over and over again. "She was bouncing up and down and tapping her head right along," says the source. Knock yourself out, Cokie.
Forget getting down tonight. Fans of KC & the Sunshine Band are mourning the death of Jerome Smith, the group's founding rhythm guitarist who'd turned to a career in the construction biz and was killed in an accident on a Florida work site. Band spokesman Bruce Merrin says Smith fell off a bulldozer he was operating and was crushed by it. Harry "KC" Casey told the press he was "totally shocked by this overwhelming tragedy." He's more shook up than his well-shaken booty.
Tony Soprano's Uncle Junior knows what happens to mobsters who sing. But fear of consequences didn't stop Dominic Chianese, who plays Uncle Junior Soprano on "The Sopranos," from belting out the tunes and laying down a few tracks on his first album, which includes three songs he wrote himself. "He is a fluty, pleasant tenor," Dino Elefante, co-owner of the Tennessee recording studio Chianese has been frequenting, tells the Associated Press. Just don't mention tuna fish ...
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Robin Hood complex, anyone?
"Ever since I was a little boy I thought I was put on this planet to do good things."
-- Dana Giacchetto, former high-flying investment advisor to the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who has admitted to defrauding his clients out of $10 million.
Shares