Rejection slip for ‘literary genius’
Celebrity fugitive Salman Rushdie wasted no time proposing marriage to redheaded New York socialite Michelle Barish in December, making his move a mere two days after she split with N.Y. Giants owner Steve Tisch, several recent reports say.
Why am I not surprised she declined, returning his seven-carat ring? The timing? The fact that he’s much older? His four previous failed marriages? His reputation as a serial womanizer? The fact that she was still legally married to nightclub owner Chris Barish? All of the above?
At the time, Sal had just dumped another young society queen, Devorah Rose, who later called him a “literary genius with the emotions of a horny child.”
Rushdie is 64. Barish isn’t saying, but looks much younger.
J.K. Rowling is working on a new novel that will be “very different” from her Harry Potter series, the BBC quotes her as saying. That’s all we know, except that she’s writing this one for a different publisher: Little, Brown.
Quote of the day: Entertainment Weekly’s preOscar interview with host
Billy Crystal included this defence of geezer moviemakers:
“I say if there are young filmmakers making really good, strong movies for that age group – and not just vampire movies – (and these movies get Oscar nominations) then young people will watch. But, I mean, look at the nominees this year for best director: Woody (Allen) is 76, Marty (Scorsese) is 69. Those are the best films. Is Twilight a best picture?”
Desperation is always sad, so I can’t manage to make a joke about Jennifer Anis
ton having given herself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a shabby little publicity gimmick used mainly
by stars on the way down. Not just a pretty face: Tyra Banks is now a Harvard grad.
Well, sort of. She just completed a two-week Harvard Business School course for owners/president/managers of companies with sales of at least $5 million a year. (She has her own production company, called Bankable, and other business interests.)
For this course she paid tuition of $31,000, which suggests to me that she still has a lot to learn about money. She’s 38.
The geek world has been all atwitter lately at the news that Google chairman Eric Schmidt is planning to sell $1.5 billion worth of his stock in the company, an amount equal to about a quarter of his total net worth.
He’ll still be a big player in Google stock but what’s this about, the tech-money crowd wants to know. Is he starting a new company? Where will he invest the dough?
Well, the N.Y. Post has an answer: he is “working toward a transition and an amicable separation and settlement with his wife,” Wendy, One Who Knows told the paper. Nobody seems to know if they have a pre-nup.
“They are both very private, so they’re quietly dividing up assets without drawing attention. There’s been no paperwork filed.” They have two kids.
He has been seeing somebody else for 18 months. He’s 56.