Nate6
02-10-2003, 05:54 PM
This rather amusing story shows how shallow actors and actresses can be - but does it also show how shallow Hollywood is? Were embarrassing (and admittedly, privacy-invading) wedding pictures really dangerous to her career? (Personally, I'd say no, and while I don't know how mean Hollywood can be, maybe she should calm down). Discuss the big tub of lard otherwise known as Catherine Zeta-Jones! ;)
http://www.eonline.com/
Zeta-Jones' Fat Testimony
by Julie Keller
Hell hath no fury like an actress who looks "large" in her wedding photos.
Indeed, the fat factor seems to be a major component in the ongoing legal beef between Catherine Zeta-Jones and hubby Michael Douglas and Hello! magazine. The very pregnant actress took the stand Monday in London for the couples' lawsuit over unauthorized photographs of their November 2000 wedding and alluded to the unflattering quality of the photographs as a major part of the problem.
"The quality was what every bride would hate to have out there. It was cheap and tacky and everything I didn't want," Zeta-Jones vented about the guerrilla snapshots of their reception.
She was particularly miffed by a photo showing Douglas feeding her cake, saying it made it look like all she does is eat. "I did not want my husband shoving a spoon down my throat to be photographed," she snipped. "It is offensive."
She also said that aside from being embarrassing, the chubby quality of the photos could be detrimental to her acting future, yet another reason for the lawsuit. "It was extremely important for my career that I regain my figure after giving birth to Dylan [the couple's son who was born a few months before the wedding]. I had put a lot of work in at the gym, which I loathe going to. It is all too easy for the film industry to conclude that an actress is past her best," she added.
The Chicago star's courtroom performance is just a small part of the legal onslaught hammered at Hello! by the 33-year-old actress and her 58-year-old husband. The newlyweds had signed an exclusive $1.7 million agreement with OK! magazine to print pictures of the three-ring affair at Manhattan's posh Plaza hotel in front of some 350 guests. She said they decided to sell the photos in the first place because "after living in a world where many people are very interested in what we do and how we live, [it would] quash the intensity of people stealing and being voyeuristic in a very private situation."
But Hello! somehow managed to scoop its rival, publishing poorer quality shots three days before OK! and royally irritating the Tinseltown glamour couple.
"This was going to be an overall look into the life of us...in a classy way," Zeta-Jones told the High Court of London. "We wanted to show the world a little slice of that...in our control, without us becoming a media circus."
The Hello! photos most certainly did not fit that bill, she said. Aside from the whole fat problem, Zeta-Jones' cool and collected 90-minute testimony revealed several other problems with the photos, including invasion of privacy, and said she is determined to make an example of the intrusive tabloid, regardless of the cost.
"There are so many different things that I wanted to keep secret. There are certain moments of emotion, certain moments of embrace," she said, drawing appreciative laughs from the courtroom when she added, "There is embracing, and there is embracing."
Douglas added his two cents to the mix by saying it seemed like the unauthorized photos were a ploy by the magazine to punish the couple for not selling the official wedding shots to them. "We believed Hello! was exacting revenge on us because we had decided to provide the rights to publish photographs of our wedding to their competitor," he told the court in his testimony Monday. "The whole thing felt spiteful."
Zeta-Jones also said the $1.6 million they banked for the authorized shots is chump change to the couple and should not be considered a factor in the case. "I get well compensated in my job and my husband has had a long career, financially successful, and it is a lot of money maybe to a lot of people in this room, but it is not that much for us," she said.
If Zeta-Jones and Douglas get their way, the magazine and its minions will have to cough up $815,000 for loss of income, stress and damage to couple's careers because of the poor quality of the shots. The suit also includes Hola! (the Spanish edition of the magazine), the magazine's owner (Eduardo Sanchez Junco), media consultant Marquesa De Varela and her company (Neneta Overseas Ltd.) and photographer Philip Ramey.
For their part, lawyers for Hello! are defending the photos, claiming in legal documents that the couple forfeited any right to privacy by actively seeking publicity for the event.
Douglas and Zeta-Jones appear to have remained intact, in spite of those big, fat wedding photos.
The actress who could snag her first Oscar nomination Tuesday, for Chicago, is anxiously awaiting the impending birth of the couple's second child, who is due in April. As a duo, the high-profile stars have just inked a deal to reteam with their Traffic producer Laura Bickford and star in Monkeyface, a racetrack heist thriller that will shoot in Miami in September, according to Daily Variety. They will take their first true spin as costars (they appeared in different story arcs in Traffic) as two hustlers trying to cash in on a big-money horse race.
Zeta-Jones will next appear opposite George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty from the Coen brothers. Douglas can be seen in two films, the ironically titled comedy The Wedding Party and It Runs in the Family with his dad Kirk, mom Diana and son Cameron.
http://www.eonline.com/
Zeta-Jones' Fat Testimony
by Julie Keller
Hell hath no fury like an actress who looks "large" in her wedding photos.
Indeed, the fat factor seems to be a major component in the ongoing legal beef between Catherine Zeta-Jones and hubby Michael Douglas and Hello! magazine. The very pregnant actress took the stand Monday in London for the couples' lawsuit over unauthorized photographs of their November 2000 wedding and alluded to the unflattering quality of the photographs as a major part of the problem.
"The quality was what every bride would hate to have out there. It was cheap and tacky and everything I didn't want," Zeta-Jones vented about the guerrilla snapshots of their reception.
She was particularly miffed by a photo showing Douglas feeding her cake, saying it made it look like all she does is eat. "I did not want my husband shoving a spoon down my throat to be photographed," she snipped. "It is offensive."
She also said that aside from being embarrassing, the chubby quality of the photos could be detrimental to her acting future, yet another reason for the lawsuit. "It was extremely important for my career that I regain my figure after giving birth to Dylan [the couple's son who was born a few months before the wedding]. I had put a lot of work in at the gym, which I loathe going to. It is all too easy for the film industry to conclude that an actress is past her best," she added.
The Chicago star's courtroom performance is just a small part of the legal onslaught hammered at Hello! by the 33-year-old actress and her 58-year-old husband. The newlyweds had signed an exclusive $1.7 million agreement with OK! magazine to print pictures of the three-ring affair at Manhattan's posh Plaza hotel in front of some 350 guests. She said they decided to sell the photos in the first place because "after living in a world where many people are very interested in what we do and how we live, [it would] quash the intensity of people stealing and being voyeuristic in a very private situation."
But Hello! somehow managed to scoop its rival, publishing poorer quality shots three days before OK! and royally irritating the Tinseltown glamour couple.
"This was going to be an overall look into the life of us...in a classy way," Zeta-Jones told the High Court of London. "We wanted to show the world a little slice of that...in our control, without us becoming a media circus."
The Hello! photos most certainly did not fit that bill, she said. Aside from the whole fat problem, Zeta-Jones' cool and collected 90-minute testimony revealed several other problems with the photos, including invasion of privacy, and said she is determined to make an example of the intrusive tabloid, regardless of the cost.
"There are so many different things that I wanted to keep secret. There are certain moments of emotion, certain moments of embrace," she said, drawing appreciative laughs from the courtroom when she added, "There is embracing, and there is embracing."
Douglas added his two cents to the mix by saying it seemed like the unauthorized photos were a ploy by the magazine to punish the couple for not selling the official wedding shots to them. "We believed Hello! was exacting revenge on us because we had decided to provide the rights to publish photographs of our wedding to their competitor," he told the court in his testimony Monday. "The whole thing felt spiteful."
Zeta-Jones also said the $1.6 million they banked for the authorized shots is chump change to the couple and should not be considered a factor in the case. "I get well compensated in my job and my husband has had a long career, financially successful, and it is a lot of money maybe to a lot of people in this room, but it is not that much for us," she said.
If Zeta-Jones and Douglas get their way, the magazine and its minions will have to cough up $815,000 for loss of income, stress and damage to couple's careers because of the poor quality of the shots. The suit also includes Hola! (the Spanish edition of the magazine), the magazine's owner (Eduardo Sanchez Junco), media consultant Marquesa De Varela and her company (Neneta Overseas Ltd.) and photographer Philip Ramey.
For their part, lawyers for Hello! are defending the photos, claiming in legal documents that the couple forfeited any right to privacy by actively seeking publicity for the event.
Douglas and Zeta-Jones appear to have remained intact, in spite of those big, fat wedding photos.
The actress who could snag her first Oscar nomination Tuesday, for Chicago, is anxiously awaiting the impending birth of the couple's second child, who is due in April. As a duo, the high-profile stars have just inked a deal to reteam with their Traffic producer Laura Bickford and star in Monkeyface, a racetrack heist thriller that will shoot in Miami in September, according to Daily Variety. They will take their first true spin as costars (they appeared in different story arcs in Traffic) as two hustlers trying to cash in on a big-money horse race.
Zeta-Jones will next appear opposite George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty from the Coen brothers. Douglas can be seen in two films, the ironically titled comedy The Wedding Party and It Runs in the Family with his dad Kirk, mom Diana and son Cameron.