Trouncing down the red carpet at awards shows isn't always all it's cracked up to be. It can be surprisingly hazardous, even if Joan Rivers isn't there to insult your outfit.
Just ask the stars who made their way down the soggy, sudsy rug outside the BAFTA award ceremony in London over the weekend. A heavy rain mixed flame-retardant chemicals to create a gown-endangering froth that prompted the awards host to quip: "I think it's the years of greasy flattery given to actors which is finally bubbling up."
Kate Winslet, reportedly, was not amused.
"This is a Ben De Lisi dress, and it has been destroyed because of this horrible stuff on the carpet," she griped, according to the London Mirror. "This is just disgusting."
But while Judi Dench kept her composure as the foam soaked her shoes, she almost lost it completely when she was called up to accept the best actress award for her performance in "Iris," beating out Nicole Kidman, Sissy Spacek, Audrey Tautou and Renie Zellweger for the award.
"I was very shaky onstage," Dench told reporters backstage. "I made a million pound bet with my agent five minutes before that I wouldn't win, so I was very shocked. I was very shaken -- if you lose a million pounds five minutes before, it is very shaky."
Foam or no foam.
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Watch your back, J.Lo
"Did you just see my breasts?"
-- Nicole Kidman to photographers as they scrambled to snap her in her revealing black, off-the-shoulder evening gown at the BAFTAs, according to Sky News.
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Bad bite
Tom Cruise: metal mouth?
Penelope Cruz's toothy pal has apparently had himself fitted with shiny new braces -- the clear kind with metal wires -- after his son's orthodontist noticed the star's bite was less than stellar.
Cruise's publicist, Pat Kingsley, confirmed her client's new look in a statement to the press last week.
"Yes, Tom Cruise has braces -- I don't know what else to say," Kingsley said.
However, Kingsley did manage to add that Cruise would wear the dental appliances for about a year, but would "take them off for movies."
Let us all open up and say "ahhh."
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She won't pull a Joan Collins
"I shouldn't make blanket generalizations, but I will. I can appreciate a nicely formed bod as much as anyone. But men, until about the age of 29, lack conversation."
-- Kathleen Turner, 47, on her lack of interest in men under 30, in the Boston Globe.
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Juicy bits
Don't get too excited about Paul McCartney and Heather Mills' impending nuptials; chances are you won't be invited. Friends of the couple have told the U.K.'s Sunday Mail that McCartney and Mills are planning to hop the broom next month in a very low-key way, forgoing the big, glitzy, rock 'n' roll hoopla for a far more modest affair. "They did talk about doing something much more showy," a blabby friend told the paper, "but Paul's not into all the fuss." Who needs the paparazzi and valet parking? All you need is love.
All Leif Garrett needs is a break. The former "Tigerbeat" poster boy is hoping to put his druggy past behind him and make a comeback as a musician, this time with a bit more of an edge. He and his band, F8, have been touring small clubs and are working on a new CD. "I feel like I've got all this knowledge and experience under my belt from the past but at the same time, it's like starting up and I'm brand new to it," Garrett tells the Newark Star-Ledger. "I'm really digging it." After all, you may recall, he was made for dancin' ...
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