Russell Crowe is doing us all a favor and taking a much deserved timeout.
Coming off a series of confrontations in the past few months -- including that fisticuffs episode with a businessman in a London restaurant last week -- the Oscar-winning actor has decided to cancel his band's upcoming U.S. tour and spend a little quiet time with family and friends. He will, however, continue to make movies.
"Though I love all aspects of my work, the success of the last three or four years has also brought with it an undeniably massive level of stress, not only to me but to my immediate and extended family and to my friends and friendships," Crowe has told the press.
So he's relieving the stress by heading home to help his pops, who's having an operation next month for carpal tunnel in both wrists.
"With the recovery period plus the physical rehabilitation between operations, I need to be at home and available to him and my family during this time," the habitual gladiator adds.
And while he has the world's ear, Crowe would also like to take the opportunity to declare his loyalty to his longtime girlfriend ... and she's not Nicole Kidman, no matter what the press thinks.
"Let me clarify something else. I am in love with Danielle Spencer, but I don't get to spend nearly enough time with her," he shares. "Dani has been very patient with all of the speculations of the past year or so, which I thank her for. I feel a great need to wake up with her as many days of my life as I can."
Aww. He wants us to like him. He really wants us to like him.
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Pavlov's fans
"The older people scream because they remember screaming. And younger girls have seen it on films, so it's like a tradition."
-- Paul McCartney on the nostalgic noise he encounters when he performs onstage, to TV Guide.
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Aaaaaaaaay!
Joanie may love Chachi, but it turns out Chachi likes a Swedish babe named Janette.
He likes her so much, in fact, he's marrying her.
"She's an MBA student," Scott Baio says of his foreign fiancée in an interview with the Calgary Sun.
And her obliviousness to his former sitcom fame is one of the things he likes best about his bride-to-be.
"The great thing is that when we met at a party, she had absolutely no clue who I was," he says. "I'm certain if she knew I was the guy from 'Happy Days' or 'Diagnosis Murder' she would have thought I was a player and wouldn't have gone out with me."
Oh, now, I'm sure Fonzie could have shown him a few good moves ...
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Live and let die of lung cancer
"Bond goes around shooting people in the head with his gun -- he can't really be called a role model."
-- An unidentified Bond film bigwig responding, in the Times of London, to objections to Pierce Brosnan's being shown smoking cigars in the new Bond flick, "Die Another Day."
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Free Leo
And speaking of wild Hollywood men who are itching to settle down, Leonardo DiCaprio says he's ready to go the way of Crowe and Baio.
"I want a kid someday," the actor shares in the upcoming issue of the New York Times Magazine. "I would love to have a wife I feel comfortable with."
But it can't be just any woman, of course. Leo's looking for a very special gal, someone away from the celebrity scene. Oh, and he'd also like the lucky lady to come equipped with a leash that leads all the way up north.
"It just has to be the right person, where you still treat each other as equals, and you're both independent enough to a point where you can go off to Alaska at a moment's notice with your friends and leave for two weeks, and it won't be an issue," he says. "And that it won't get monotonous, so you don't feel like you're wasting your life just lying around all afternoon with your wife. You know what I mean?"
And all that stuff about the "pussy posse"? Well, that's just a thing of the past. He was, he admits, "a little bit of a Don Juan" in the olden days.
"But," he insists, "I'm certainly not like that anymore."
Unless Alaska calls or the missus wants to lie around all afternoon.
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We believe it
"My life is very complicated ... There is so much going on that it is astounding, it really is."
-- Michael Jackson on life in Neverland, while testifying in his $21 million civil suit.
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