Word: biz
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...Though she never took director's credit, she supervised every aspect of production. When she founded United Artists with Fairbanks, Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, Pickford was the one with the canniest business sense. Later she had plastic surgery, three fraught marriages, a substance-abuse problem (alcohol) and two show-biz siblings, Jack and Lottie, with a talent for scandal. Instead of ensuring iconic immortality by dying young, Mary outlived her fame, ending up as cranky and isolated as Sunset Blvd.'s Norma Desmond--a role she was offered but turned down...
Senators got into the production too. Presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona and his colleague Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut have proposed a bill to force the show-biz industry to label violent products with government-approved warnings. The labels would fall under the law that requires warnings on cigarettes. (Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, a crabby film producer suggested this text: "Enjoy the Film, but Remember: Uncontrolled Firearm Use May Be Dangerous to Your Health...
Shortly after, Lee landed his first U.S. show-biz role: Kato in The Green Hornet, a 1966-67 TV superhero drama from the creators of Batman. With this minor celebrity, he attracted students like Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to a martial art he called Jeet Kune Do, "the way of the intercepting fist." Living in L.A., he became the vanguard on all things '70s. He was a physical-fitness freak: running, lifting weights and experimenting with isometrics and electrical impulses meant to stimulate his muscles while he slept. He took vitamins, ginseng, royal jelly, steroids...
...sense, the quasi-religious mystique of royalty came full circle with Diana. Monarchy used to be based on divine right. But just as monarchy used religious trappings to justify its rule, modern show-biz celebrity has a way of slipping into a form of popular religion. It is surely not for nothing that an idolized pop singer of recent times so successfully exploited her given name, Madonna. One of the most traditional roles of religious idols is a sacrificial one; we project our sins onto them, and they bear our crosses in public...
...Show biz keeps a hold on us with its near monopoly of beauty, spellbinding us with the power of pulchritude. Here are the faces and figures that have launched millions of fantasies: monuments of loveliness, the fleshy, sleek, skin-deep kind. We know they reflect only our desire, but we still dream they connect with our souls as well...