Brinkley: All I Ever Wanted Was a Big Happy Family
Christie Brinkley was back on the stand Monday for a tearful day three in her divorce and custody case.
Resuming testimony that began Thursday, the 54-year-old Uptown Girl played up her mothering credentials to the Long Island court, portraying herself as a much better caretaker for her kids than estranged husband Peter Cook, who admitted to having an affair with an 18-year-old staffer and a $3,000-a-month online porn habit during their marriage.
“The role of family to me is the most important thing,” Brinkley told the court, while choking back sobs.
“I’m sorry I’m crying right now, but the only thing I’ve ever wanted was a big happy family.”
The Vacation star told of how horrified she was when she threw an eighth birthday party for daughter Sailor Lee, baking cakes for 40 kids and trying to put on a happy face just a week after learning of the 49-year-old architect’s infidelity.
“It was hardI was devastated,” she said. “I was in this emotional tug-of-war and discovering more every day. It was a nightmare.”
The estranged couple are facing off over who will ultimately get custody of 12-year-old Jack and Sailor, now 10.
The former Sports Illustrated swimsuit fixture recalled breaking the news to the kids, telling them “I think Daddy has fallen out of love with Mommy.”
Brinkley said she went to great lengths to shield their kids from the tabloid tumult that followed, taking them camping in Colorado without access to TV or the Web.
Brinkley said they were atop a mountain under the stars when Cook’s teenage lover, Diana Bianchi, “spilled the beans” on TV “to get her 15 minutes of fame.”
She also went over her résumé, including speaking at the United Nations about the role of a mom as a “peacemaker” and being named Mother of the Year by a New York group.
Per New York’s Newsday, Brinkley also gave a glimpse inside the home life at their $30 million spread in Bridgehampton.
The compound features a children’s library, game rooms, an art studio and music rooms, a tennis court which doubled as a skate park for Jack, and a variety of pets: a Yorkie named Pinkie, a labra-doodle dubbed Sugar, a bunny called Gracie May and an African grey Conure named Kiwi Houdini Valentine.
“He’s a bird who think he’s a cat,” quipped Brinkley.
Brinkley also announced today that because of the roller-coaster ride she’s been on with thisher fourth marriageshe wasn’t planning on dating anytime soon, particularly out of concern for the children.
“They need a lot of attention right now,” she said. “They need to be reassured how loved they are [and] how their place is strong and secure in our lives.”
No Botox For Ashlee Simpson
No Botox For Ashlee Simpson
Stars will go to great lengths in order to look their best. But the rumors that Ashlee Simpson is a Botox junkie have turned out to be completely unfounded.
Recently a source told press, “She is determined to stay looking as young as possible for as long as possible. The fillers get rid of any wrinkles, and keep her face looking young, taut and smooth.”
In response, the “La La” singer’s father/manager Joe Simpson commented publicly regarding the reality of his daughter’s beauty regimen.
He told press, “Ashlee has never had Botox in her life. She credits her eyebrows to her make-up artist who is a whiz with the tweezer.”
The 23-year-old girlfriend of Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz did, however, go under the knife in a nosejob procedure last year. But it wasn’t just for vanity, according to Joe. “Girls have their own ideas. Anyway, there was a real problem with her breathing and that was cured.”
The Return of Jezebel James — An early look
If you’re a fan of Amy Sherman-Palladino — which pretty much means you were a fan of Gilmore Girls — you’ve been eagerly awaiting the arrival of her new FOX sitcom, The Return of Jezebel James.
Unfortunately, if you’re a fan of Sherman-Palladino’s, you’re going to end up pretty disappointed. The two episodes that FOX sent out for review were not only devoid of laughs, but uncomfortably paced as well. The pacing is something that’s important to note, given the unique dialogue that AS-P and her husband, Daniel Palladino, are known for.
But the most disappointing thing about the show is that it’s miscast, in the biggest way possible.
More on that in a second. First, the gist: Sarah Tompkins (Parker Posey) is a hard-driving children’s book editor who is so successful that she has her own imprint at HarperCollins (think Judith Regan if she got into the tweener book business). She’s got it all: the job, the skittish assistant (Buddy, played by Michael Arden) the great duplex in Brooklyn, a relationship (with marketing guru Marcus, played by Gilmore vet Scott Cohen) that’s mainly sex… but she wants a kid. And she doesn’t just want a kid because her parents (Ron McLarty and Dianne Wiest; only McLarty is in the pilot) are bugging her to settle down; she really wants one.
When she finds out that she can’t get pregnant, she turns to her ne’er-do-well sister Coco (Lauren Ambrose), whom she hasn’t seen in a couple of years, and asks her to be the surrogate. The deal: Coco has to live with Sarah through the entire process. Coco is reluctant at first, but changes her mind after reading a book that brings to life her imaginary childhood friend, Jezebel James. It turns out that Sarah remembered Jezebel from their childhood and went to great lengths to make sure the character got her own book series.
If you were to look at the pieces of this show, all the elements are there to make this a perfect AS-P production: rapid-fire dialogue, pop culture references, a pretty brunette in the lead, and a strong female relationship at its core. But what worked in Gilmore Girls doesn’t work here. The choice to make Jezebel James a traditional multi-camera sitcom, complete with audience / laugh track, was the first mistake. As I said when I saw the first version of the pilot earlier this summer, AS-P’s writing works better when it builds some momentum and almost reaches a sing-songy quality; to interrupt the flow in order to pause for the laugh track breaks that momentum.
But the main problem here — and boy, it pains me to write this — is Posey. She doesn’t know whether Sarah is haughty, neurotic, obnoxious, vulnerable, or everything at once. Yes, Sarah seems to be barely in control of her own life, so she should be all over the place. But Posey is so busy trying to get through the thick line readings that she hasn’t been able to get a good read on the character, and that didn’t improve in the second episode, where Sarah and Coco try to hammer out a contract. Her performance may improve with time, but for now it’s painful to watch.
Ambrose is OK; she’s given more to do in the second episode than in the first. One of the more hopeful things about the show is that she has good chemistry with Posey, especially in the second episode. If Posey can get her act together, they might have something there.
They’ll have to overcome the leaden script, though. AS-P strains to combine her unique style with the conventions of the traditional sitcom — repeated one-liners about how determined Sarah was to learn to cartwheel, for instance — and it all falls flat.
With the upcoming onslaught of established shows returning, Jezebel James is going to get lost. Considering FOX has seen fit to shove the show in a Friday death slot, there doesn’t seem to be much hope that the show will have a chance to improve (also the fact that FOX cut the episode order from 13 to 7 doesn’t sound encouraging, either). Which is just as well; maybe the Palladinos can chalk this up as a failed experiment and begin developing what they do best: hour-long dramadies.
The Return of Jezebel James premieres Wednesday at 9:30 PM ET; it settles into it’s normal timeslot on Friday at 8:30 PM ET.
NBC renews Friday Night Lights with the help of DirecTV
Fans of the perpetually unwatched but much-loved NBC show Friday Night Lights have a reason to rejoice this morning: the show has been renewed for a third season, according to Nikki Finke.
NBC executives had been looking for a way to renew their low-rated show, mostly through cost-sharing deals with other networks. They finally found a partner: DirecTV. No details of the deal were given; all we know right now is that the satellite company and the Peacock folks will share the costs of producing the show and will both air the show across multiple platforms.
Give the NBC brass some credit: They knew how good FNL was and they went to great lengths to keep the show going. It’ll probably never get stellar ratings, but it’s doing well enough in the 18-to-34 and 18-to-49 demos to not be a total loss for the network.
Finke speculates in the article that the execs may have picked up FNL to counteract “airing crap like that remake of Knight Rider,” but I’m not so sure. Since when do network executives sacrifice money for the sake of quality?