Celebrity News

Striving for 15 seconds of fame

There is an aroma in Hollywood. Not the scent of old money. The smell of desperation. It hits all the senses. A) You can see the despair. B) You can touch the fear. C) The hills are alive with the sound of faces falling.

Starlets so starved for success that above their bed hangs the sign: “Ask for group rates.” Their legs close only once a year for inventory.

This fabled playland’s denizens are gorgeous. Guys parking cars, handsome. Gals waiting tables, perfection. The village has no need for condoms to fit one specific body part because nobody needs latex. They’re so filled with rubber, they could double for Goodyear.

It’s sculptured bodies, hair that doesn’t fall out, eyes that never squint, mouths that can barely pucker. We’re talking walking erasers.

Perfect noses, moulded chins, upper arms that make Michelle’s look like clothespins. Teeth like Chiclets. Lashes like pine needles. Brows done by Picasso. Fake chignons, fake nails, fake breasts, fake colored irises. Behinds so tiny that I’d go to a dermatologist just to have it lanced. The skin’s dermabraised, lasered, massaged, peeled, facial-ed. Breaking into a smile would give the face seven years bad luck. Walk? They glide.

Lisa Rinna’s talked through plump lips about her plump lips. What Dolly Parton might get off her chest could be silicone. Forget Lindsay Lohan’s natural-born cheeks. A dermatologist told me his busy period is pre-Oscars.

These biggies remember that back aways the 22-karat name, the gold standard, was Jennifer Jones. Five-time Oscar nominee, she won for 1943’s “The Song of Bernadette.” Came another Jennifer. Aniston. With her laundry list of lovers, now engaged to Justin Theroux. Came Jennifer Lopez segueing from Tom, Dick and Harry to a cast of thousands — Cris Judd, Puff Daddy, Ojani somebody, Marc Anthony, now kindergarten’s Casper Smart.

As of this week, the newest Jennifer? Jennifer Lawrence.

Mirror mirror on the wall. Who’s most senior of them all. Jean Harlow osmosed into Elizabeth Taylor into Angelina Jolie into Jennifer Lawrence. With sell-by dates, actresses haven’t the shelf life of cottage cheese.

When a movie star’s wild oats turn into All-Bran, and if what they’ve got doesn’t wear out or fall out, it’ll spread out. That’s when their replacement manager, sharing a phone with “Dial a Prayer,” nails them a Broadway musical titled “Fiddling on the Roof.”

How can each tell when it’s all over? When visiting a doctor comes the realization they now must pay someone to look at them naked.

Every leading lady worth her weight in Botox poses for photos oozing sex. Always one hand on her hip. Why? Mrs. William Windsor, Britain’s pregnant duchess, was instructed to clutch a clutch bag at stomach level with both hands.

Two hands hanging straight down two sides, you look like an ape. Locked behind your back, you look like a prisoner. Best is to tuck an envelope purse under your right arm and hold its extended corner with your right hand. To carry a parcel, manila envelope or briefcase helps. A bag of groceries, no.

And all so skinny. In the movie “Pirates of Bermuda,” they could play the part of a sunken chest. Their outfits? Tight. Low-cut. Even with frontage aging, those parts still hang out. A covered chest means you’re thought to have bronchitis. Gowns so décolleté that the husband, date or reasonable facsimile needs two warm spoons to shove the overflow back in.

Understand, a manless actress at an event is provided an escort. You got black shoes that shine better than your cheapo tux? A manicure so we can see you’re not a mechanic by day? You’re a hired hunk for the evening. You’re to ask the waiter, “What wine goes with nerves?” If driving, you’re to know that you brake for butterflies. And, like Miss Important’s dress, you are disposed of in the morning. Teflon Tom is not there for her cooking.

Hollywood’s whole world is temporary. The tiny studio that grows into the mega mansion that turns into a little house in the country, everything — the fame, the name, the game — disposable.

In the surround are ancillary anthills. Infiltrated by species known as trainers, handlers, accountants, assistants, managers, hairdressers, masseurs, drivers, psychiatrists, therapists, analysts, publicists. And that breed called the agent. One theatrical agency just celebrated a merger. To commemorate this auspicious milestone, they returned a phone call.

Nor are males immune. Producers scramble to find vehicles for birthday-impaired types like Schwarzenegger, whose best hope nowadays is a script in development titled “Grumpy Old Action Heroes.”

The new gents thing is that every actor over age 11 is bearded. Affleck, Clooney, Jack Black, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman, Adrien Brody. Probably half the actresses have beards, too. Kim Kardashian told me she’s into depilatories weekly. Of course, pregnancy via a boyfriend might create more waxable areas than some others of us ever considered.

Hollywood. Where everybody is somebody — until they become nobody.