Are Those Breasts for Real?

Now it’s not exactly the question of the day. That’s another kettle of fish. But it is a question that some have asked recently. Has Nicole Kidman, famous star and mother to be, also had some breast augmentation since her 2007 marriage to rock star Keith Urban?

Well, I do recall Nicole saying to me in the distant past that she always felt she wasn’t well endowed and she wished she were. But seeing is believing, and here is a photograph taken back in 2006 where I seem about to lift and toss this beautiful star into the air. No, seriously, take a glance at it. Does this look like a girl who needed breast surgery? No, this is Nicole all natural as the good Lord made her at the Vanity Fair party Oscar night.

I admire a fine belle poitrine as much as anyone, but I can’t stand these added-on half grapefruits that look as unnatural as can be. I have known Nicole for a long time now and her natural assets were quite good enough to start with.

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Speaking of Nicole, she always lends her name as honorary chairman for the “Fete de Swifty,” which we put on in a tent on 73rd Street and Lexington Avenue, NYC, on September 18, to benefit the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York. By the by, the Fete is named for the Boston bull terrier once owned by Hollywood agent Irving Lazar — "Swifty" by nickname. There is a restaurant on Lex and 73rd called Swifty’s and it supports the Fete, but the name was just for fun. (If you’d like to attend this big street party where Mayor Bloomberg appears, call 212- 573-6933.)

Nicole sends Mike Bloomberg some big generous checks, too! Well, this year our efforts to use the Mayor’s Fund to build shelters in the five boroughs to help women and children combat domestic violence have been helped by the addition of another wonderful star.

Mariska Hargitay of “Law & Order: SVU” has joined us for the Fete. She’ll be another honorary chair and says she feels deeply about the plight of battered women and children. In our shelter program, victims of domestic violence can find police help, counseling, legal aid, medical assistance and everything else they need under one roof.

Ok, suddenly I realize that was not exactly Hot Voodoo material, but hey, it was “exclusive.”
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Speaking of Mariska, I have some personal interest in this splendid actress. In 1948, I was at the University of Texas with another actress, then aspiring. She was blonde, beautiful and charming. Her name was Jayne Mansfield and she left Texas to go to greater heights in Hollywood where she became a kind of sex kitten in the Marilyn Monroe manner.

Jayne never won acting honors but to my mind, she was highly under-rated. She had been in the University with some other talented souls who went on to glory in show biz — Pat Hingle, Eli Wallach, Fess Parker, Tom Jones, Harvey Schmidt, Barbara Barrie, Kathy Crosby, Word Baker, Bob Benton, Rip Torn.

When I finally met Mariska Hargitay, I realized she was the daughter of my college chum, the infant who survived the car crash that had killed her mother. So Mariska and I developed a kind of mutual admiration and she has often said, “Liz, you are one of the rare people who appreciated my mother. I can never forget that.”

What a woman! Now Mariska has her own baby and a splendid career that has earned her many honors.

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My friend Dominick Dunne has given an interview to the website mediabistro.com which usually covers who’s who and who’s eating at the popular Manhattan restaurant, Michael’s. So they ran into Dominick and he, too, remembers Jayne Mansfield, recalling that, “As a child, Mariska used to sit with her mother Jayne and her father, Mickey Hargitay, at mass on Sunday. I’d be there with my three kids and my wife. They were always at the 10 o’clock Sunday morning mass. That’s when all the Catholic stars — Rosalind Russell, Gary Cooper, Loretta Young — went. Mariska’s mother, this sexy lady, would be saying ‘Read your prayer book.’”

Dominick tells reporter Diane Clehane that he is now battling bladder cancer and is on a leave from Vanity Fair to finish his next novel titled A Solo Act. Says the crime-buster, “Listen, I’ve got so much time left. I cannot leave an unfinished book.”

Here’s something interesting Dominick had to say about Princess Diana and her butler Paul Burrell. Some people, Tina Brown for instance, think that Diana’s undoing was her spectacularly bad taste in men. Here’s Dominick on Burrell: “What an asshole. Did you know he is supposed to be worth $20 million dollars? He’s made so much money on Diana…he made a secret deal with The Sun to sell his story. They paid him so much money. He’s not a good person.”

And of the Mohammed Fayed idea that Diana died from a royal conspiracy, Dominick notes this quote by writer Martin Gregory: “On the night she died, Diana was traveling from a Fayed hotel to a Fayed apartment in a Fayed car with a Fayed driver sitting next to Fayed’s son and behind a Fayed bodyguard.”

Dominick asks, “Where’s the royal conspiracy there?”