MISSING LINKS

HOW two seemingly unrelated figures in the news are joined by a series of unexpected connections…

NICOLE KIDMAN

The actress last week revealed her newly ripped physique with a striking double-bicep pose for the cover of Perfect magazine. Although she’s Australian, the 55-year-old was actually born in Hawaii, like Barack Obama, singer Bruno Mars and…

BETTE MIDLER

… who worked in a pineapple canning factory there before moving to New York to find fame. She built her reputation by singing at a hedonistic gay bathhouse, accompanied on piano by the then-unknown…

BARRY MANILOW

… clad only in a white towel. He was pursuing his musical dreams following advice he received after writing to Playboy magazine’s agony aunt – and went on to sell 85million records. But not everyone likes him: in February, New Zealand police played his songs on a loop to disperse Covid protesters. As a joke…

JAMES BLUNT

… tweeted: ‘Give me a shout if that doesn’t work.’ Someone must have seen it, as his hit You’re Beautiful joined the playlist. A former army recon officer who played a key role in the 1998-1999 Kosovo war, Blunt has held a pilot’s licence since he was 16. Other stars who can fly aircraft include Carol Vorderman, Richard Hammond, David Jason and…

STEPHEN FRY

… who owns a vintage biplane. He also used to drive around London in his own black cab. Before finding fame, the comedian spent three months in Pucklechurch prison, Gloucestershire, on remand for credit-card theft, joining a list of stars who have seen the inside of a jail cell that includes Paul McCartney (ten days in Japan for drug possession in 1980) and…

OZZY OSBOURNE

… who did six weeks inside as a youth after failing to a pay a fine for burglary. The rocker hit the headlines again last week after revealing that he gave up taking acid in the 1970s after a trip left him chatting to a horse ‘for about an hour’. Which is where this chain of links must end, as surely no other star shares that exact experience…