The Liz Smith Column | 09/01/2009 11:00 pm
Liz Smith: Angelina Jolie – In Distress and in Leather?!

"She knows Brad can’t resist her in leather!"
This hilarious quote comes from a recent In Touch Weekly magazine as part of their ongoing coverage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
You just know Angelina dropped this hint personally to someone who overheard it for In Touch.
Brad, the big star of Quentin Tarantino’s "Inglourious Basterds," is, the magazine insists, drinking too much, under stress and ignoring his ravishing lady. According to these "insiders," Miss Jolie, feeling neglected, resorted to provocative clothing to lure him back. (As far as I can see, Angelina always has provocative clothing that doesn’t have much to do with anything except what it’s partially covering up.) Another tipster-insider to In Touch says, "She’s using the best weapon she has – sex!"
Well, I must say, this actress and philanthropist has six children to attend to – even with nanny help and money – that’s a lot of tending. So I just don’t see Angelina getting up in leather these days to light Brad’s fire.
The same issue profiles another couple who are constantly on the brink of magazine divorce: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Again, the details in this reporting are so explicit, they just have to be made up. Nobody in Tom’s camp is running out of the room each time he and Katie disagree, to alert the glossies. And the Tom/Katie article was illustrated with photos of the pair, "analyzed" by body language experts. These "experts" even analyze daughter Suri, age three. They describe her as "sad, after the fight."
If you approach all this stuff like fiction, it is actually much more fun.
***
I watched Ted Kennedy’s mass memorial good-bye on Saturday morning because I was trapped in East Hampton in the rain. So I sat there all morning in my PJs and watched the VIPs, the Catholic Mass and all the wonderful children who spoke.
Then on Sunday, more rain, which kept me out of the Ralph Lauren stores and the Hermes shop fronts of Main Street. Again, I stayed by the TV and watched Maria Shriver on "Meet the Press."
So who says the Kennedy dynasty is at an end?
My new hero is Ted Kennedy Jr., who gave the best eulogy I ever heard for a departed father. And Maria Shriver also, who lost her mother and her famous uncle in the space of two weeks. She told David Gregory – when speaking of lives devoted to service – that she had a strong memory of her mother’s dictum: "Have an idea. If you don’t have an idea, where are you?"
This week I picked up Shelley Ackerman’s astrological newsletter, which is very smart and "with it." Read it on shelley@karmicrelief.com She is quoting Rabindranath Tagore: "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."
***
Newsweek, like many U.S. news magazines, put Ted Kennedy on its cover. The editors went with a shot of the young Teddy, dark-haired and handsome. (Because he lived into a gray old age, many have forgotten that Ted – not Jack nor Bobby – was the real male looker in the family.) And just to prove that JFK, at the height of his powers on the day of his inauguration, was feeling prescient – he gave Teddy a silver cigarette box with the biblical inscription engraved: "And the last shall be first."
And, in a way, so it came to pass.
***
But the Newsweek photo that really stopped me in my tracks is on page 51 and it’s of Yoko Ono. It accompanies a story by Seth Colter Walls on Yoko’s long and controversial career as a musician and her new album "Between My Head and the Sky."
























18 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I agree that new Star Trek was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, they are talking Oscar. Transformers 1&2 were great. Tom has not really made any good movies lately, but he is a good actor and I’m sure he will pull out of the slump.
Liz,
I’m jealous of your time in East Hampton…even in the rain! Do you ever brush elbows with Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa from the Food Network? She’s be a cool interview.
I’ve always laughed at the photo analysis too. I remember one picture they took of just Angelina when she was pregnant with her first child. The caption was, "Angelina, pregnant and alone…. Why has Brad abandoned her." Based on the photo, he *could’ve* been about ten feet away and not shown up.
I’m certainly glad that people aren’t trying to interpret my life through my photos. I suppose famous people learn to ignore it.
I would like to get a photo analysis of Jolie watching her father, Jon Voight, on FOX giving "political commentary"!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpN-dqTNkPc
"Years ago, when a celebrity outlasted his or her shine in the world of ratings and box office sales and their welcome in the hearts of fans waned, there was a game show called "Hollywood Squares" where they could while away the time answering questions and cracking jokes.
Today there is another place that washed up celebrities go once they realize that their career is in the tank. They become celebrity spokesmen for the Republican National Committee. Enter Jon Voight… "
I love the Newsweek photo of Ted Kennedy. Yes, Ted certainly was a looker. Newsweek did a marvelous job of chronicling his life, the achievements and the warts.
And gracious.. look at Yoko Ono in that same magazine! At 76, she looks quite glamorous!