Today, June 6, is also D-Day. A day of remembrance, gratitude, thanks. Yet, for some, a time to ponder their lack of faith . . .
Ian McKellen: “I’m an atheist. So God, if She exists, isn’t part of my life.”
Björk: “I’ve got my own religion. If I get into trouble, no God or Allah sorts me out. I have to do it myself.”
Bill Gates: “In terms of allocating time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s lots more I could do on a Sunday morning.”
Jodie Foster: “I believe in Out There’s awe-inspiring undiscovered mysteries. There’s scientific explanations for the phenomena but no direct evidence to believe in anything else.”
Salman Rushdie: “Satan, Paradise and Hell vanished in my 15th year. I partook of my first forbidden swine flesh, a ham sandwich. When no thunderbolt struck me, I then turned wholly secular.”
Sir Elton John: “Organized religion doesn’t work. Isn’t compassionate. I’d ban it completely. We’re nearing World War III, and why aren’t each religion’s leaders coming together in a conclave?”
John Malkovich: “I believe in humans. I believe in a car. I grew tired of prayer not long after birth. People think analysis or psychiatry is mad, and they go to church?!”
Rocker Marilyn Manson: “Bible stories of murder, adultery, sacrifice, sickness seem as entertainment to some. Yet devout groups still attack entertainment and use these tragedies as an excuse for their own self-serving publicity.”
Best tweeter
GRAMMARLY, a Twitter audit — and whothehell knew there was such a thing — says proofreaders declare Kim Kardashian’s the best Twitterer (or just plain twit) in terms of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Beats Oprah. Or — ready? — even the Dalai Llama. And who knew His Holiness twitters???
Petite Bette
BETTE Midler — big hat, sunglasses, white skinny jeans, shoe-shopping in Chuckies for the highest heel to tramp in grass. Says 5-foot Midler: “Misconception is my height. I look 6 feet tall. In person people say: ‘You’re so short’ or, better yet, ‘Where is she?’ ”
Actress ‘Free,’ back on-screen
Tippi Hedren. Age 83. After 50 TV and feature films, and 50 years after her 1963 debut in Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” she’s out in the movie “Free Samples,” which opens Friday. She says: “Great people like Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Ritter and I did this low-budget film because we love the script and almost didn’t care if we were paid. I play an old lady who’s friends with a young lady selling ice cream from a truck. I tell her stories of my early glamorous Hollywood days. And I won’t enter an old age home because they’d see I’m no longer a beauty queen.”
Tippi says: “I have a huge library. I keep my old movies. I haven’t worked lately because there aren’t older-woman roles. I now look at my face and remember all those glamorous parts.”
About her finances: “I’m not really OK. I’m kind of ekeing it through.” About marriage: “Not again. I’m happy staying up late, blaring my music, being left alone. Three husbands was enough.” About Shambala Preserve, her 80-acre animal rescue habitat founded in ’83: “I take no money. It’s all privately funded. Last year I raised $1 million. My animals need the money.”
About her daughter Melanie Griffith and husband Antonio Banderas’ involvement: “Melanie hasn’t this interest. She says it’s too hard to raise the money. She tells me to quit. But I can’t do that.
“We’re close though. We keep saying how much we love one another except we’re such busy women that we haven’t always a chance to be together. We missed Mother’s Day, but we’re planning a belated one.”
Pay attention
Seeming unaware Rob Morrison left his WCBS-TV anchor job February after allegedly menacing his wife, he’s still listed on Ch. 2’s news crawl where, post-Morrison, Mary Calvi is partnered with Chris Wragge.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.