Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie have both spent time behind bars …

A crop of girls gone wild dominated the celebrity headlines this year, but the death of former Playboy playmate Anna-Nicole Smith loomed over them all like a platinum-blonde cautionary tale.

Pop-music stars, Hollywood actresses, the talented and the talent-less all found themselves in the news for the wrong reasons in 2007, when the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity was severely tested.

Smith’s death from an accidental drug overdose in a Florida hotel room in February at the age of 39 sparked a worldwide media frenzy, even if no-one could explain precisely why.

Famed for her marriage to an octogenarian oil tycoon in 1994, Smith once appeared to be on the road to supermodel status after she replaced Claudia Schiffer as a Guess Jeans model in the early 1990s.

But the public blonde-bombshell persona unravelled over the course of the following decade, the sudden death in the Bahamas in 2006 of her beloved son Daniel occurring just months before her own demise.

Drug dramas

Smith’s struggle to find happiness was mirrored by the tortured 12 months endured by former pop princess Britney Spears and actress Lindsay Lohan.

Spears and Lohan were two of the biggest names struggling to get their lives and careers back on track after a year where they seemed to lurch from one lurid tabloid headline to the next.

Both stars checked in and out of rehabilitation centres more than once this year, with Spears’ increasingly erratic behaviour ultimately seeing her stripped of custody of her two children following her divorce from Kevin Federline.

Lohan, 21, found herself in the news after being discovered passed out in a hotel corridor following the Golden Globes in January, a red flag warning that was followed by the now customary stint in rehab.

Yet it got worse when Lohan was caught for drunk driving and drug possession in May only to be nabbed for the same offences in July.

Lohan eventually escaped a lengthy prison sentence, spending only 84 minutes behind bars.

Lohan has kept a low profile since completing a spell in an austere Utah rehab clinic in October, but the impact that her wayward behaviour has had on her career remains to be seen.

“Right now, she’d have to pay a studio to get herself into a movie,” a film studio executive was quoted by Entertainment Weekly as saying of Lohan.

The executive blamed Lohan and other young celebrities’ travails on “Hollywood’s compulsion to turn child actors into products, plus a frenzied 21st-century media culture that has made Lohan and other celebs into exotic prey in flashbulb cages.”

Behind bars

While Lohan escaped with less than two hours behind bars, hotel heiress Paris Hilton was not so fortunate.

The reality television star and professional ‘celebutante’ was shell-shocked after a Los Angeles judge sentenced her to 45 days prison in alcohol-related reckless driving case in May.

However the real drama was still to come. Released into home detention after spending just three days behind bars, she was swiftly hauled sobbing back to court where a judge ordered her returned to prison.

She emerged from incarceration to a blizzard of flashbulbs in late June, drawing a line under a celebrity soap-opera that transfixed the world.

Ironically, Hilton’s co-star and friend Nicole Richie also spent time behind bars in 2007, albeit a less-than-harrowing 82 minutes, after being caught driving under the influence down the wrong way of a Los Angeles freeway.

Richie, the 25-year-old daughter of soul singer Lionel Richie, was also fined $US2,048 ($2,351) and placed on probation for three years.

The troubled Winehouse

But the roll-call of troubled celebrities extended beyond the Los Angeles bubble, most notably with British soul singer Amy Winehouse, best known for her autobiographical single Rehab.

Although Winehouse enjoyed phenomenal success with her breakthrough album Back to Black, which has helped earn her six Grammy nominations, the talented 24-year-old’s life has appeared at times to be hurtling off the rails.

A reported drug overdose in August was followed by a stint in rehab, which led to the cancellation of concert tours in the United States.

Winehouse was arrested for drug possession in Norway in October but worse was to come the following month when the singer’s husband Blake Fielder-Civil was remanded in custody for conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Fielder-Civil, accused of trying to persuade a man he allegedly assaulted to withdraw from giving evidence against him, remains in prison.

Winehouse’s career has nose-dived as a result, and a 17-date British tour was cut short for health reasons after a shambolic opening gig that saw the singer stumbling around the stage and swearing at the audience.

December saw tabloid photos of a distraught-looking Winehouse outside her home in the early hours wearing only a bra and jeans.

“The constant bombardment by certain agency photographers at her home has increased anxiety and caused disturbance,” her spokesman said, confirming she was now undergoing medical treatment once again.

But things got worse for Winehouse on December 18, when she was arrested and questioned by police in connection with the charges against her husband before being released on bail.

- AFP

Tags:
arts-and-entertainment, popular-culture, united-kingdom, united-states

Leading personalities who died in 2007

Momofuku Ando, the Japanese inventor of instant noodles, aged
96 in Tokyo (Jan 5).

Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop
cosmetics chain, aged 64 in Chichester, England of a brain haemorrhage. (Sept
10).

Tony Ryan, Irish co-founder of low-cost airline Ryanair, aged
71 at home in Ireland following a long illness (Oct 3).

Tota Miah,
the Bangladeshi “snake king”, who started the country’s first commercial snake
farm, of snake bite aged 38. (Nov 4)

Former General Motors chief
executive Roger Smith, who notably featured in Michael Moore’s film “Roger and
Me”, aged 82 (Nov 30).Bo Yibo, veteran of China’s communist revolution, at 98 in
Beijing (Jan 15).

Hrant Dink, Turkish journalist of Armenian origin,
murdered aged 53 in Istanbul (Jan 19).

Maurice Papon, former top
French civil servant who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II, aged 96
(Feb 17).

Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Soviet president, aged
76 from a heart attack in a Moscow hospital. (April 23).

Malietoa
Tanumafili II, monarch of the Pacific island state of Samoa and the world’s
oldest ruling head of state, aged 94 in the capital Apia. (May 11).

Jerry Falwell, the US evangelical firebrand, aged 73 in hospital of
heart problems. (May 15).

Kurt Waldheim, former UN Secretary General
and Austrian president who hid his Nazi past, aged 88. (June 14).

Afghanistan’s last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, aged 92 (July 23).

Former Angolan independence leader Holden Roberto, aged 84 in
Luanda. (Aug 2).

Iraqi Sunni Muslim leader Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha,
killed in an Al-Qaeda attack in Anbar province, days after he shook the hand of
US President George W. Bush. Age unknown (Sept 11).

Khun Sa, former
Burmese drugs lord who was once on the US “most wanted” list, at around 74 in
Yangon (Oct 28).

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr., the US pilot who dropped
the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945. At age 92 in
Columbus, Ohio. (Nov 1).

S. P. Thamilselvan, the political head of
Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, killed in an air strike aged 40. (Nov 2)

Ian Smith, the rebel white minority leader of Rhodesia, now
Zimbabwe. At age 88 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Nov 20).Carlo
Ponti, Italian film producer who married actress Sophia Loren, aged 94 in Geneva
hospital (Jan 10).

Art Buchwald, US newspaper columnist, at home in
Washington aged 81 (Jan 17).

Omkar Prasad Nayyar, Bollywood music
maker, aged 80, of a heart attack (Jan 28).

Anna Nicole Smith, US
pop-culture icon, aged 39 in a Florida hotel room (Feb 8).

Luigi
Comencini, Italian filmmaker, aged 90 (April 6).

Kurt Vonnegut,
science-fiction writer, aged 84 in New York (April 11).

Jack
Valenti, former Hollywood lobbyist and US presidential aide, aged 85 in
Washington (April 26).

Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian cellist and
conductor, aged 80 in Moscow (April 27).

Ingmar Bergman, Swedish
film director, at his home on the island of Faaroe at 89 (July 30).

Max Roach, US jazz drummer and composer, at age 83 in New York (Aug
16).

Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, aged 71 in his native
town of Modena (Sept 6).

Jane Wyman, US actress and first wife of US
president Ronald Reagan, aged 93 (Sept 10).

Marcel Marceau, French
mime artist, aged 84 (Sept 22).

Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress who
starred in “From Here to Eternity” aged 86 (Oct 16).

South African
reggae star Lucky Dube, one of Africa’s biggest-selling artists, shot dead in
Johannesburg aged 43 (Oct 19).

US novelist Norman Mailer, aged 84 in
New York (Nov 10).

Maurice Bejart, French choreographer, aged 80 in
Lausanne. (Nov 22).

US motorcycle stunt artist Evel Knievel, aged 69
in Florida. (Nov 30)Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer of unknown causes during
the World Cup in Jamaica, aged 58. (March 18).

Alan Ball, England
football great, aged 61 of a heart attack at home near Southampton, Hampshire
(April 25).

Colin McRae, British motoring rally champion, aged 39,
in a helicopter crash. (Sept 15).

Norifumi Abe, Japanese three-time
motorcycle Grand Prix winner, killed in a street crash in a Tokyo suburb, aged
32 (Oct 7).

Baldwin, Burton at Bay Street

Alec Baldwin and Kate Burton will star in Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre in July.The theater announced Tuesday its summer season, which also includes a revival of Charles Busch’s comedy, “Shanghai Moon,” starring Busch and Julie Halston, and a new production of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” which celebrates the music of Fats Waller and is based on an idea by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr.Baldwin and Burton will play Elyot and Amanda, a divorced couple who accidentally book adjacent hotel suites during their honeymoons with new partners. Coward’s 1930 comedy has been on Broadway seven times. Bay Street’s production, directed by Tony winner Jack Hofsiss, runs July 8-27.

Busch’s 1999 play, set in 1931 Shanghai, is a spoof of period melodramas and features Busch as Lady Sylvia Allington. It runs June 3-29.”Ain’t Misbehavin’,” scheduled for Aug. 5-31, will be directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge, who recently staged the world premiere of Julie Andrews’ and Emma Walton’s “Simeon’s Gift” at Bay Street.Tickets and subscriptions ($120-$180) are available at baystreet.org, by phone (631-725-9500) or at the theater box office through Dec. 16, after which the box office will close until Feb. 14 and tickets will only be available online.Individual tickets are $50-$65 for the first two plays, $65-$75 for the musical. Flex passes and student passes are also available.

More articles

Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.

Pop-culture highlights and lowlights

Let’s journey back through a year of pop culture moments:    * T.S. Eliot may have said April is the cruelest month but January was pretty cruel, for this is when the Idol judges sink to their snarkiest behavior ever, calling contestants names, laughing behind their backs, insulting their looks. The worst moment: Simon Cowell tells a stunned young man at Seattle tryouts, Kenneth Briggs, that he resembles a ”bush baby.” (Of course, Briggs is awarded a guest appearance on the finale.)    * Anna Nicole Smith’s strange life – Playboy bunny, jeans model, reality star, billionaire’s wife, Marilyn Monroe impersonator – is eclipsed by her stranger death. As an unsavory cast of characters dukes it out over where she should rest eternally and who gets the baby, the medical examiner says Smith’s body lies decomposing faster than expected – as if even this publicity-starved starlet has had enough.    * Harry Potter’s back in the seventh and final installment in J.K. Rowling’s insanely successful series. We won’t reveal details of the adorable young wizard’s fate in case any of you (like us) haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, in any of the 64 languages that Potter books have been published in.     * It’s not even a moment, just a couple of seconds: A quick comment on a video clip of the Rutgers women’s basketball team lands Don Imus in the biggest trouble of his career. His ”nappy-headed hos” remarktriggers a gathering storm of outrage that leads to his firing. But in December, Imus is back with a new show on WABC with a cast that includes two black comedians and a promise to ”never say anything in my lifetime that will make any of these young women at Rutgers regret . . . that they accepted my apology.”    * Tony Soprano says goodbye, and countless fans curse the cable company, thinking that cut-to-black was a malfunction.    * Paris Hilton spends 23 days in jail for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. Later she tells Larry King she spent her time reading the Bible, though she can’t recall a favorite verse, or, well, any verse at all.     * Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho makes that fateful trip to the airport restroom. His ”wide stance” explanation will be endlessly spoofed, including by Brad Pitt and George Clooney on a tribute show for Julia Roberts.    * What time is it? If you’re a tween or live in close proximity to one, you know the answer: It’s time for ”High School Musical 2,” the sequel to the hugely popular Disney Channel movie. More than 17 million watch the first telecast alone, making it TV’s biggest event of the summer. The year ends with news that HSM3 will film in Utah.    * Britney Spears hazards a comeback at MTV’s Video Music Awards, only to stumble through her song as if she were sloshing through mud. An unfortunately revealing sequined bikini guarantees the next day’s painful headlines.    * Miley Cyrus, aka Disney’s Hannah Montana, turns 15 amid one of the very the hottest concert tours of the year. Hottest kids tours, you ask? No, hottest tours period, with tickets selling out in minutes and scalpers having a field day.

Baldwin offers his home for Golden Globes

NEW YORK, Dec. 15 Alec Baldwin is offering to hold the Golden Globes show in his New York apartment if the writers’ strike isn’t settled in time.
Baldwin, a Golden Globes’ nominee for the television show “30 Rock,” said attendees could choose between “Tuna Salad, whitefish salad or egg salad (choice of one) … Potato salad, macaroni salad, coleslaw (choice of two)” and complimentary wine, People reported Saturday.
Baldwin joked on the Huffington Post that he has cleared his alternative event with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which sponsors the Golden Globes.
“A quick red carpet, hosted by Radioman, will be held at the parking lot of Tavern on the Green before we are all shuttled to my apartment building,” Baldwin wrote. “Looking forward to seeing you all on Jan. 13 at my place.” Copyright 2007 by UPI

Like Mother, Like Son: Daniel Smith's Deadly Cocktail

Testimony this week on the death of Daniel Smith, the 20-year-old son of late Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, suggests that he met his demise in much the same way as his mother ??” a toxic mix of prescription drugs.

Bahamian doctor Govinda Raju ??” who performed the official autopsy on Daniel Smith’s body after he died Sept. 10, 2006 ??” testified Monday that a combination of three drugs found in the man’s system were the likely cause of death, according to Associated Press reports.

Since then, the Bahamian police’s forensics chief Superintendent Quinn McCartney has offered a slightly different theory. Tuesday, McCartney testified that methadone had killed Daniel Smith.

But Cyril Wecht, the forensic pathologist hired by the Smith family to perform a second autopsy, says there is little doubt that Daniel Smith’s death was due to a combination of three drugs, rather than methadone.

“He had died as a result of three drugs ??” methadone, along with the antidepressants Lexapro and Zoloft,” he said. “I would say that they were all at high therapeutic levels, and none on its own was at a lethal level.”

“The three of these together can result in death, unquestionably. It is a classical situation that we see so often known as acute combined drug toxicity.”

Still, methadone was likely the deadliest ingredient in the mix. Dan Anderson, a toxicologist with the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, says that though he is not familiar enough with the case to make any conclusions, methadone was likely the most dangerous drug involved.

“In many cases, it doesn’t matter how much Zoloft or Lexapro you’re taking; that methadone is the one that will do it to you,” he said. “In our line of work, if that person is methadone naive, it’s a potent opiate, and it’ll knock you down.”

Daniel Smith’s Final Hours

When Daniel Smith went to visit his celebrity mother at the hospital in Nassau where she had recently given birth, methadone, reportedly prescribed for the treatment of pain, was already in his system.

Wecht says that the addition of the two antidepressants would have led to a profound sedation ??” one that would only worsen in the next few hours in which the drugs would take full effect.

“Together, it’s a central nervous system depressant,” Wecht said. “All three of these drugs act to depress the brain, and by doing so indirectly result in the depression of cardiac and respiratory function.”

In the initial stages of drug poisoning, Wecht says, Daniel Smith would first have become somewhat drowsy. This symptom would likely have progressed into a state of stupor, followed by unconsciousness.

The final steps in this deadly cascade are respiratory arrest, cardiac arrest and finally cardiac standstill.

During his testimony, Raju said that death likely occurred slowly, over the course of five hours. But Wecht says it is difficult to tell for sure exactly how long it took for Daniel Smith to drift off and eventually cease breathing.

“How fast this death occurred depends on a number of different things,” Wecht said, noting that his baseline tolerance to methadone may have been a key factor.

Drug Combinations Risky

Wecht and other toxicologists say there was no reason that he should have been taking this combination in the first place.

“No doctor should prescribe all of these drugs,” said Wecht, who adds that he personally spoke to Smith’s physician in California who prescribed him the Zoloft.

“I don’t know who prescribed him the Lexapro and the methadone, and I don’t know if anyone has determined that,” he said. “He should have just been taking one antidepressant. He shouldn’t have been taking two at the same time.”

If anything is certain, it is that Daniel Smith’s autopsy, like that of his mother, further highlights the dangers of combining certain medications.

Smith Inquest Adjourns Until January

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — An inquest into the death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son adjourned Wednesday until Jan. 28, while court officials seek testimony from witnesses including an ex-boyfriend of the late reality TV star.

The court, which cannot compel people to testify, will try to persuade Larry Birkhead, the father of Smith’s 1-year-old daughter, and U.S. medical experts to travel to Nassau for the court proceeding, according to Neil Braithwaite, senior counsel in the attorney general’s office.

Braithwaite told The Associated Press that officials also hope to get testimony from at least one of the several people who performed toxicology tests on the remains of Smith’s son. Daniel Smith collapsed and died Sept. 10, 2006 as he visited his celebrity mother at a Nassau hospital where she had recently given birth to a daughter, Dannielynn.

Officials also want to call as a witness California doctor Sandeep Kapoor, who prescribed methadone to Anna Nicole Smith shortly before her own death on Feb. 8 in Florida, from an overdose of prescription drugs. The former Playboy playmate, 39, was buried beside her son at a Nassau cemetery.

So far, 26 witnesses have testified at the inquest before a seven-member jury, which will formally determine what killed Daniel Smith and has the power to recommend criminal charges if it finds evidence of wrongdoing.

Police have said there is no evidence of homicide, and an autopsy found the likely cause of death was a combination of drugs, including the painkiller methadone and antidepressants.

Alec Baldwin Joining My Sister's Keeper

Alec Baldwin’s career has experienced the kind of resurgence that most middle-aged actors can only dream about. Once accused of beating his wife and confused with his lesser brothers, Baldwin is now one of the best parts of the best sitcom on television, 30 Rock. Though his comedic skills as Jack Donaghy are impressive, every now and then the dramatic actor shines through, reminding us how it takes a true actor to play the part, and how Alec Baldwin might be my favorite person in the world even though he yelled at his kid in a voicemail.
Well, now that 30 Rock is on hold for the foreseeable future, Baldwin’s headed back to the movies in My Sister’s Keeper, a movie whose mere plot seems intended to bring about tears. A family has a daughter (Elle Fanning) in an effort to find a genetic match and potential cure for her sister (Dakota Fanning), who has cancer. The younger girl then takes the family to court and sues them for emancipation. Baldwin will play the girl’s lawyer, which will almost inevitably draw back up the yelling-at-kids-on-voicemail thing until he shows everyone how awesome he is.
The movie also stars Cameron Diaz as the girls’ mother, and is based on a Jodi Picoult novel of the same name. Nick Cassavetes, the man who broke a thousand hearts with The Notebook, is directing, which doesn’t give me much hope that this will be anything but a glorified weepie. That’s OK, though. I will watch Alec Baldwin do anything, even if it’s acting alongside a Fanning sister, both of whom I find strangely creepy in a way I can’t explain. Hopefully by the time this comes out the writers’ strike will be over and my beloved 30 Rock will be back, but if not, the sight of Baldwin in a lawyer suit and fancy office will bring back sweet, sweet memories of Jack Donaghy, president of television and microwave oven programming.Blinklist   Del.icio.us   Digg   Furl   Slashdot   Facebook   StumbleUpon   Yahoo!   Propeller  

Merry Christmas And Stuff

That's us for this year, then – we're off to spend a week celebrating Christmas by not staring at two-dimensional flickering screen positioned nine inches away from our noses for 13 hours a day.

Almost – you'll still be able to read our now-traditional Christmas Best-Of lists between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve. But look how good 2007 has been – every single famous person in the world has either overdosed on drugs, made a sex tape, got pregnant, wound up in jail or spent prolonged periods of time locked up in jail. Every single one. Will 2008 be able to top that? Of course it will! At the rate things are going, if Britney Spears hasn't caused a large nuclear reactor to melt down and explode by Valentine's day we'll be awfully surprised. And hecklerspray might even have a surprise or two up its sleeve for you as well…

Not that 2007 hasn't been a sterling year for us. We've won awards, been threatened with legal action from famous Hollywood directors, had our name mispronounced twice by Sky News presenters and – best of all – we're twice as big now than we were at this point last year. A lot of that is down to you, you crazy bunch of kids. All of us here would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts, but our natural aversion to sincerity in any form won't let us. So we've roped in our famous friend Alec Baldwin to tell you all the things we want to, but can't.

We'll be back in full force on January 2 to try and make news out of the scraps of post-Christmas nothingness that'll be bobbing around. But until then, have a jolly bloody merry Christmas, the sodding lot of you.

Related and recent:

• Merry Christmas etc
• Christmas Number One Betting Odds – One Week Left
• SLACKERJACK – Reindeer Training School
• Christmas Number One Betting Odds – The Fun Starts Here
• Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Blah Blah Blah
• SLACKERJACK – Family Feud Holiday
• SLACKERJACK : Holly A Christmas Story
• Christmas Number One Betting Odds: Angels, Tomlinson, McFly

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Alec Baldwin Joins My Sister's Keeper

While looking for a photo to go along with this article, I found this little gem which made me wonder — how humiliating would it be to be an actor of Alec Baldwin’s stature and to have to wear a name tag. I mean, he’s not a superstar by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s at least a household name. Wearing a name tag?! No wonder the guy has anger management issues.

Baldwin has joined the cast ofstarring Cameron Diaz, Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning. Based on the Jodi Picoult novel, Baldwin will play an attorney who represents a child (Elle Fanning) after she sues her parents for emancipation on the grounds they bred her to be a genetic match who could prolong the life of her cancer-ridden sister (Dakota Fanning). The girl’s mother (Diaz) is a former trial lawyer and represents herself in court. Nick Cassavetes will direct for New Line. Jeremy Leven wrote the script. Production begins in February.

Baldwin stars on the NBC series “30 Rock” which is currently on hold due to the writers strike.