In body and soul it has been difficult for celebrities in Tabloidland this month, with a surfeit of romantic calamities, plastic surgery disasters, and urological deaths and rebirths.
A more perfect union (of the catastrophic type) than that of Godfather producer Robert Evans, 68, and onetime Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg, 36, would be hard to achieve. It was summed up by a friend of the couple, who observed in the Globe, “Who’d have guessed the marriage would go bad faster than the leftover food from their wedding reception?” While details differ, all the tabs agree that courtship to annulment took the pair less than three weeks. According to the Globe, Oxenberg, daughter of a Yugoslavian princess (who knew there was such a thing?), believed Evans–who is recovering from a stroke–when he promised to help her career. But she began to have second thoughts during their two day Santa Barbara honeymoon, which she spent weeping on the phone to her live-in boyfriend, who was home watering their plants. The publication says the marriage effectively ended in two days and officially ended in 12.
The Star says the marriage, his fifth, lasted a week. The romance began when Evans told her he had a vision of an angel who looked just like her during his stroke-induced near-death experience. She agreed to marry him out of sympathy, says the publication, believing he wouldn’t live more than six months. He must have been disconcertingly robust on their honeymoon, because during it she told him she was returning to her former and possibly future fiance.
According to the National Enquirer, the marriage endured for 10 whole days before Oxenberg returned home to her boyfriend. In its version, Oxenberg had recently been at a spiritual retreat in which she was told to help others. When she met Evans at a party and he told her about his stroke, she “thought this was a sign”–a sign, apparently, to behave as if she had had a stroke. The publication quotes her telling a friend, “Bob told me he couldn’t have sex since his stroke, I figured, what the hell–I’ll marry him because I desperately want to help him.” Unfortunately for their marriage, she was too effective a helper. As she napped one day, he came in the room, reports the Enquirer, “stark naked–and it was obvious he was quite capable of consummating the marriage.” Oxenberg behaved as would any young bride: She “jumped out of bed and said, ‘I’m not you’re wife anymore. I’m leaving you and never coming back.’ ” On the other hand, perhaps this is a custom of what must be the ever-dwindling band of Yugoslav royals.
Also this month, the tabs implicitly pose the question: Can love flourish again once the restraining order has expired? According to the Enquirer, Roseanne and her husband Ben Thomas recently showed up hand in hand at a West Hollywood restaurant, having skipped a court date for their divorce suit. Roseanne and her former bodyguard husband became estranged on New Year’s Eve, when in an excessive spirit of revelry he threatened to drive his truck through their house. The comedian filed for divorce and got a court order keeping him 100 yards from her. But now a friend of the couple reveals Thomas has stopped drinking, and Roseanne has supposedly said, “I feel like I actually divorced Ben and married a new husband–because Ben is a new man.” No word if New Ben has to abide by the prenuptial agreement of Old Ben.
And actress Halle Berry, who had obtained a restraining order against her ex-husband, Cleveland Indians outfielder David Justice, during their acrimonious divorce, was recently seen dating him, according to the Star. Also in a forgiving mood is singer Whitney Houston, who, report the Star and Enquirer, was seen in Paris with her often-arrested husband Bobby Brown, only weeks after the tabs promised their marriage had come to an end.
While the Star is alleging that Bruce Willis realizes his marriage to Demi Moore is really over and that he is ready to fight for joint custody of their three daughters, the Enquirer believes reconciliation is in the air. According to the publication, Moore is willing to consider giving it another try, but first she wants Willis to compile a list of all the women he slept with during their marriage, in order to have “an honest relationship.” Willis, probably fearing that compiling such a list would cause crippling writer’s cramp, has refused. And he would certainly be backed up on that decision by a couple currently in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
The Enquirer does not speculate on the legal ramifications, but it does report that Clinton accuser Paula Jones has completed her makeover with a nose job. Although Jones has not yet unveiled her newly diminished honker, the publication offers a computer generated “preview” that makes her look terrifyingly like Kathie Lee Gifford.
While it’s too early to tell if Jones will join the legion of plastic surgery victims, the tabs this month report on attempts at surgical improvement gone awry. Pity poor Melanie Griffith. A few weeks ago the Enquirer reported that the 40-year-old actress “desperately” needed a face lift. So, just last week, the Globe reports, she underwent a five hour overhaul. Let’s hope she’s taken the advice of her husband, actor Antonio Banderas, as reported in the Star, and laid off the lip collagen. According to the publication, he is concerned that her lips–the upper one sometimes appears as if a hot dog has been inserted in it–are starting to look “unrealistically big.”
U ncooperative implants are another celebrity plague. After getting cheek and chin implants and facial liposuction, talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael ended up with such a “lopsided smile,” reports the Star, that viewers called in wondering if she’d had a stroke. The publication also alleges that “Carol Burnett’s wandering chin is the result of an implant that won’t stay put.” Rocker Stevie Nicks solved the wandering implant problem by having her silicone breast implants removed and keeping them in her freezer “to remind me of the agony,” according to the Globe. And the Enquirer reports that singer Tina Turner’s breast implants “drifted so far apart she lost her cleavage.” She went back to her plastic surgeon, and after he fixed them she admired his handiwork so much that a romance between the two might have ensued, says the publication.
A change in ethnic identity is another danger of an overzealous scalpel. According to the Enquirer’s plastic surgery consultant, Dr. Jerome Craft of Palm Beach, Fla., TV news anchorman Peter Jennings had his face pulled a “bit tight, giving his eyes a slightly Oriental look.” Changing identities is the goal of Monica Lewinsky, according to this week’s Star. Though the publication doesn’t report any plastic surgery in her future, when her legal troubles are over she wants to make a “fresh start” and plans to do so with a name change. Her current favorite is “Audrey Seville.” The publication doesn’t report where “Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton” ranks on the list.
Perhaps if the president had suffered the same terrible fate as Dudley Moore, he would now be suffering less. According to this week’s Globe, the actor’s estranged fourth wife, Nicole Rothschild, claims he became impotent after they wed. “All Dudley ever wanted to do was go to bed with women,” the publication reports she said. “But when he became impotent, it took his identity away.” Rothschild did what any loving wife would do in those circumstances: “I tried everything. I had my breasts enlarged. I had a nose job. Nothing worked.” Moore is in dire shape after a series of strokes, says the publication. It does not report whether he has sought the services of Catherine Oxenberg.
Hugh Hefner, 72, allegedly needs no nursing, just a little blue, diamond-shaped pill. According to the Globe, friends of the Playboy magazine founder “are worried that he’s popping Viagra like candy and eventually his heart is going to explode.” Hefner, recently separated from his 35-year-old wife, Kimberly, a former Playmate of the Year, has been seeing a 22-year-old centerfold, among others. Kimberly is worried that her husband, who had a stroke in 1985, will be “found dead of a heart attack while in bed with one of those bimbos,” the Globe claims. Hefner’s spokesman says his boss does not appear to be in any danger of imminent demise, but if he does die the way his wife fears, “I’m sure that’s how he’d want to go.”
