Oh, boy. Here we go again. Yet another Hollywood actor wants your vote.
Ben Affleck, an outspoken Democrat who racked up the frequent-flyer mileage campaigning for Al Gore last year, says the world had better look out, 'cause he's fixing to stump on his own behalf just as soon as he scrapes together a little pocket cash.
A vote for Affleck, Ben says, would be a vote for the common man. Never mind the fact that he scores millions of bucks every time he makes a film, is known all over the world and lives in the rarefied air of movie-stardom. Honest, he's just like you and me.
But it seems those Secret Service fantasies of Affleck's (remember those?) may be more political than sexual after all.
"My fantasy is that someday I'm independently wealthy enough that I'm not beholden to anybody, so I can run for Congress on the grounds that everyday people -- be they singers or poets or bankers or lawyers or teachers -- should be in government," Affleck says in the upcoming issue of GQ.
Affleck readily admits that he's all talk, but insists that's a big part of the appeal. "Not to get too Susan Sarandon on you," he tells the magazine, "but part of what I'd get off on would be the oration, the speechmaking and the idea of leading."
And you thought he just got off on big-breasted women ...
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And it's really bad when you make 'em cry
"You certainly didn't bring your baby into the office, the way women do now. It would be like bringing in a puppy that wasn't housebroken."
-- Barbara Walters on being a working mother back in the olden days, in Ladies' Home Journal.
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Diff'rent strokes to save the world
Todd Bridges has finally figured out how to get some good press. Rescue a paraplegic woman whose wheelchair topples into a lake and traps her beneath it, and -- splish-splash! -- instant herohood.
Whether or not the trouble-plagued former "Diff'rent Strokes" star has really rescued his PR karma for good, he is being credited with saving the life of one Stella Kline, a 50-year-old woman whose electric wheelchair was yanked forward and into a Los Angeles-area lake Thursday afternoon while she was fishing. (Her line snagged on the chair's joystick.) Bridges, now 35, and his brother James, 40, who were fishing nearby, immediately jumped in and dragged Kline out of the 3-foot-high water.
Kline, in turn, offered this soundbite to the Los Angeles Times: "I was thankin' God that he was there. And you know, everybody's been saying nothin' but bad stuff about Todd Bridges on the news and in the papers ... He has a heart of gold." What's more, she says she's a "huge fan" of the erstwhile child actor.
Bridges, too, thanks the big guy for his big moment. "We felt God put us there at the right time to save this lady's life, because there was no one else around," Bridges told the paper.
And the actor's mother took the opportunity to publicly endorse the new, improved, clean-and-sober version of her son. "This is just a part of what he is today," Betty Bridges said. "He's just a good human being."
If Mr. Drummond could see him now ...
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Juicy bits
Tom Green is proud. Not just of his recent alleged secret nuptials to Drew Barrymore. He's also quite pleased with himself for leaving certain things out of his gross-out flick "Freddy Got Fingered." "There are no fart jokes," Green boasts to the Toronto Sun. "There is no poo or pee in the movie, I'm actually proud to point out. We made an effort to restrain ourselves in the poo and pee department." What a relief.
George Clooney's current squeeze, British model Lisa Snowdon, has apparently got Angelina Jolie's flair for oversharing -- and she's taken a page from Jolie's exercise book, too. "George and I try to spend as much time with each other as possible," Snowdon tells London's Sunday People. "Sex keeps me in shape. I don't diet, I eat what I like, I love Mars bars, and I smoke and drink. But what I love best is running off in the middle of the day to make love. It really burns off the calories." A little discretion ... stat.
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