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.”
George Clooney Offers Two Cents to SAG, AFTRA
George Clooney doesn’t just play a fixer in the movies.
The Oscar winner, who became an unofficial spokesman for the Biz during the 100-day writers’ strike that screwed things up for a lot of people earlier this year, has spoken up yet again, this time in a letter urging members of the Screen Actors Guild and its little-sister union, the American Federation of TV and Radio Artists, to make sure the very actors they’re trying to help don’t get lost in the shuffle created by the latest studio-union showdown.
AFTRA opted to negotiate with major studios and networks independently from SAG this year, and its leaders have been criticized for their willingness to accept a deal that, as far as SAG is concerned, lets the suits off easy.
“Both are, of course, right,” Clooney wrote in a two-page memo. “AFTRA feels that a work stoppage would be devastating to its members and SAG believes that if they don’t draw a line in the sand, the studios will repeat what they did with DVDs.”
But, the Peacemaker star added, it’s important that union heads remember who they’re really fighting fornot $20 million men like Clooney (although every thesp could be affected by a work stoppage) but the thousands of working actors who don’t necessarily know where their next paycheck is coming from after one shoot wraps.
“Doug Allen (the SAG national executive director) has said on several occasions that this would be a negotiation for ’the linemen, not for the quarterbacks.’ (Doug did a lot of the negotiating for the NFL.) The spirit of the statement isn’t wrong…it’s just the structure,” Clooney wrote.
“Unlike the NFL, in this guild, the quarterbacks protect the linemen. I’ve been very lucky in my career, which has put me in the place that I don’t need a union to check on my residuals, or my pension, or protect my 12-hour turnaround. I used to need that, and may again…but right now I don’t. That means it’s my responsibility to look out for actors who are trying to stay afloat from year to year. Anything less is irresponsible of me.”
In response to Clooney’s attention-getting perspective, a rep for SAG told the Los Angeles Times Thursday that the union “appreciates George Clooney’s observations and opinions regarding our current negotiations and the critical issues facing all actors today. We welcome this valuable input.”
And it isn’t as if Clooney wants anyone kowtowing to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which reps the studios.
“First, we set up a panel…Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks, for instance…10 of them that sit down with the studio heads once a year…10 people that the studio heads don’t often say ’no’ to. Those 10 people walk in the door with all the new data that SAG and AFTRA compile, and adjust the pay for actors…once a year.”
Hanks was tsk-tsked this week for adding his name to an online petition encouraging AFTRA members to approve the tentative deal the union arrived at last month. A host of other stars, including Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen, Ben Stiller and Patricia Arquette, lent their names to an ad in the Hollywood trades urging AFTRA members to reject the deal and take a tougher stance alongside SAG, whose current contract expires June 30.
“We are not finished,” the ad stated. “We believe there are issues that are at the heart of every actor’s career that remain unresolved by AFTRA.”
What would help would be if these hotshots put their money where their mouth is, Clooney suggests.
“Second, we go to the actors who make an exorbitant amount of money, and raise their dues,” he wrote. “Right now, there’s a cap of 6,000 bucks that actors pay their union…based on $1 million in earnings. Make it $6,000 for every million…if someone makes $20 million, they pay $120,000 into the union. That could go a long way in helping pensions and health care. The quarterbacks have to do more.
“What we can’t do is pit artist against artist…because the one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson vs. Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power of the producers.”
Well, here’s hoping a Hail Mary pass reaches the end zone in time.
Angelina Jolie: Peacemaker With Jon Voight?
Angelina Jolie: Peacemaker With Jon Voight?
With all the philanthropic efforts that Angelina Jolie has been making all over the world, it’s good to see that she hasn’t forgotten about making peace with her own father.
It sounds like Ang may be open to mending the broken relationship she’s had with her father. She told British press last week, “I am hoping my relationship with my father will be more private in the future. At the end of the day we both wish the best for each other and we’ll try to start communicating in some way.”
Acting legend Jon Voight, the estranged father of Angelina Jolie, has had very little contact with his daughter lately. It all started in 2002 when Voight told press that she was unstable.
As the feud continued, Jolie became increasingly hostile to Voight, telling interviewers that she didn’t have time for him, and that he cheated on her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand.
Maybe it was Brad Pitt’s parents that made Ang long for her own again. “When I first met them I came in with two adopted children from other countries and I didn’t know how they were going to be. But they are equally loving with them.”
Nevertheless, Angelina has come a long way in reestablishing the lines of communication with her dad.
George Clooney: Nicole Will Be ’Perfect Mother’
Just hours after Nicole Kidman announced her pregnancy, George Clooney offered up his congratulations.
“I’m thrilled for her,” he told Friends at the picket-line-free Critics’ Choice Awards in L.A. Monday night. “[She’ll be] a perfect mother.”
(The two have been friends for years, dating back to their work in 1997’s The Peacemaker. Kidman and Clooney famously bet $10,000 on whether he would be married when he turned 40 in 2001. She lost, of course.)
“She’ll be great,” Clooney said of the Aussie actress, already mother to Isabella, 15, and Connor, 12, her adopted children with ex-husband Tom Cruise. “She’ll be a tall mother.”
Clooney, who lost the best actor award to Daniel Day Lewis, also endured some good-natured ribbing from Ocean’s Thirteen pal Casey Affleck. “Hey you big loser,” Ben’s little brother heckled during Clooney’s chat with Friends. “You’re a loser!”
Clooney, who won a best supporting acting Oscar last year for Syriana, took it all in stride, noting, “[Being] a nominee, it’s fine. But when you’re a loser, you’re a loser.”
The actor was also on hand to present the first-annual Joel Siegel Award (named after the late ABC movie critic) to friend and former costar Don Cheadle for his humanitarian work.
“The fact that [George] only charged me $1,500, I thought was really nice of him,” Cheadle joked in the press room. “Matt [Damon] was around $2,500, and what Denzel wanted, I won’t even mention.”
The Darfur activist did get serious for a minute, adding that “George is . . . someone who I’ve not only worked with onscreen, but we’ve also done things for the cause – and it’s great to have an ally.”