SNL DREAM HOSTS

I adore SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.

I grew up with the reruns. It’s classic television.

But I can’t remember the last time I watched a new episode. I’m never home.

Our awesome friends at EW asked their illustrious readership who they would really love to see as hosts. They came up with quite the worthy compilation for their slideshow.

I’d definitely make time to watch a lot of these performers.

They include: MERYL STREEP, LAUREN GRAHAM, ROBERT DOWNEY JR., JOHNNY DEPP, KRISTIN CHENOWETH, CRAIG FERGUSON, NATHAN FILLION, RICKY GERVAIS, KELLY CLARKSON and ED HELMS.

For the whole damn thing, please go here

BILL NIGHY: ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS

I saw PIRATE RADIO last night. Though I’ve been passionate about film my entire life, I can’t possibly see everything.

That wouldn’t be much fun. Now would it?

Friends (particularly from other countries) have talked about BILL NIGHY on occasion. But I had seen him in almost nothing.

I don’t go to Harry Potter movies. I’ve avoided the Underworld franchise. I loathed The Constant Gardener. Everything (except for RALPH FIENNES and RACHEL WEISZ) is a complete blur. Love Actually was on TV around Christmastime last year. I watched it until the 15 minute mark and then gave up on it.

What can I say? Bleakly depressing and monumentally sappy just don’t do it for me.

I can only recall BILL from NOTES ON A SCANDAL. His role was rather small.

But in PR he genuinely has his day in the sun. Now I get it. He’s obviously a very gifted performer.

Plus I just found out that he was the long time companion of the brilliant DIANA QUICK. Awesomeness indeed.

So here’s to WILLIAM FRANCIS NIGHY. He’s definitely (as JACK LEMMON once said in a rather famous motion picture) a little bit of terrific.

DREAMING OF THE FUTURE (BUT THE WEEKEND’S HERE ANYWAY)…

So…it’s the weekend once again, boys and girls.

I have at least one fascinating cinematic event that I will be involved in. Sooner rather than later.

But don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret. At least until I write about it. That will be next week some time.

Are you all giddy with feverish anticipation? Hope so.

Our Friday musical highlight takes us all the way back to 1967. It’s the fabulous and artfully amusing HELLO HELLO by SOPWITH CAMEL.

Never fear. I shall return tomorrow.

Until then, be good.

Lights out…

BLAKE LIVELY: THE ERA’S BEST HAIR

I have the exquisite good fortune to be blessed with world class hair – long, thick, golden waves.

There have always been many beautiful women in the public eye. But a scant few have become iconic over time because of their hair: RITA HAYWORTH, JULIA ROBERTS, FARRAH FAWCETT, JENNIFER ANISTON, KIM BASINGER…

Now BLAKE LIVELY has come along to claim the distracting title for this postmodern era.

I haven’t seen BLAKE in enough to comment on her talent. But she certainly possesses a powerfully glamorous presence.

She also has magnificent hair. But that goes without saying…

According to THE NEW YORK TIMES’ recent survey, BLAKE LIVELY’S cascading blonde mane is the most requested style by the clientele at salons in Manhattan.

“I didn’t really realize the extent of it,” Ms. Lively said of her hair’s popularity. Though she did have a discernable inkling.

Fashion forerunners like VOGUE staffers routinely approach her at events and fixate on her hair.

“That’s always kind of odd, but unbelievably flattering,” she commented.

MARTIN SCORSESE TO BE HONOURED WITH CECIL B. DE MILLE AWARD AT THE GOLDEN GLOBES

FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Director MARTIN SCORSESE is receiving the CECIL B. DE MILLE AWARD for lifetime achievement at the GOLDEN GLOBES.

The award will be presented to him at the 67th annual ceremony to be held on JANUARY 17.

MARTIN SCORSESE is an ACADEMY AWARD winner for directing THE DEPARTED. He also took home GOLDEN GLOBES for that film and GANGS OF NEW YORK.

VERA FARMIGA, who appeared in THE DEPARTED, made the announcement Thursday at a press conference in Beverly Hills.

For Mr. Scorsese, filmmaking is “a holy experience,” she said.

“He has the power to rouse a crowd. He considers it holy work and cinema is his shrine. He instills in the actors, in the crew and everybody around him just what a powerful tool it is.”

Past winners of the De Mille award include last year’s recipient, STEVEN SPIELBERG, as well as WARREN BEATTY and ANTHONY HOPKINS.

PHILIP BERK, president of the HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION, said that, for the first time, the GOLDEN GLOBES will be broadcast live across the country, instead of tape delayed on the West Coast.

“The entire country will find out our winners at the exact moment.”

The GOLDEN GLOBES will also have a host for the first time since 1995. Comic actor RICKY GERVAIS, whom PHILIP BERK called “a fabulous godsend,” will host the show at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

Nominations come out DECEMBER 15 for the GLOBES, which are Hollywood’s second biggest film honours after the OSCARS.

ON THE NET:

THE GOLDEN GLOBES

THE EVERLASTING POWER OF COUTURE

FROM REUTERS

Owning more than 3,000 dresses – many of them designer, many from eras long gone – is a dream for most women. For Sydney based fashion curator CHARLOTTE SMITH, it’s a reality.

Ms. Smith, who handles the collections of THE FASHION GALLERY at the Australian branch of internationally renowned school L’ECOLE SUPERIEURE DES ARTS ET TECHNIQUES DE LA MODE (ESMOD), inherited a trove of priceless clothing from her American godmother and renowned couture collector DORIS DARNELL.

Dating from 1790 to 1995, the clothes – originals by CHANEL, DIOR and UNGARO, wedding dresses from centuries ago, handbags and plumed hats – were given to DORIS DARNELL over the years by friends and acquaintances who knew of her love of dressing up.

But it was only when CHARLOTTE SMIITH unearthed her godmother’s book of stories about the dresses and the women who wore them that she discovered the true significance of what she had inherited.

“This is not just a collection of dresses. It’s a social memoir of sorts,” remarked Ms. Smith, who moved to Australia after many party filled years in Paris, London and New York.

“This is a collection of lives, snapshots of women’s joys, disappointments, their entrances and exits, their changing role in society. Whether you’re a man or a woman, everyone has a special outfit that triggers a memory and Doris was collecting to keep these stories alive. This is what I want to share.”

Ms. Smith’s recently published book DREAMING OF DIOR showcases 140 outfits from the collection that became her godmother’s life long labor of love.

Beautifully illustrated by GRANT COWAN, who teaches at ESMOD, the book is also an entertaining, at times poignant, look into the lives of hundreds of women through the ages.

There’s a cotton printed dress, much loved and much mended, worn by a young pioneer woman who followed her husband into the American Wild West. There is also the demure striped dress that one EMILY ASHLEY, who lived in the 1880s, was fined for wearing because she did not have a corset on underneath.

EMILY ASHLEY sounds like a kindred spirit to me…

The book also reveals snapshots of CHARLOTTE SMITH’S own colourful life and the equally fascinating journey of her godmother, who spent the last few decades of her life sharing her collection with the world to raise funds for the Quaker Society of Friends.

Ms. Darnell died in March of 2006, just before her 90th birthday.

“I never dreamed I would take this on,” commented CHARLOTTE SMITH, who took over the Darnell collection in 2003.

“She had children, grandchildren, but I think she knew that I would love her collection as much as she did and that I would do my best to promote it.”

In addition to the book ESMOD will hold rotating exhibits of the clothes.

Ms. Smith said her goal would be a huge space dedicated to the dresses so that people can come and study them – and the stories they have to tell.

“This has totally changed my life. I never thought I would get so passionate about a 1940s dress or a gown from the 1800s. But this collection has so many stories to tell that you’ve just got to listen.”

BRITNEY SPEARS TAKES HEAT DURING TOUR OF AUSTRALIA

FROM PEOPLE

Total tempest in a teapot.

Lip synching is as old as the concept of musical performances on television. It goes back decades.

As I’ve said repeatedly on site, BRITNEY can actually sing - and sing well. But she (as well as many other people that also incorporate dance into their concert appearances) does lip sync at least part of the time on stage.

She’s done this from the beginning. I thought everyone knew this. So ten years later it’s an issue?

Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever…

Despite a recent flap over alleged lip synching at a concert in Australia, BRITNEY SPEARS isn’t letting the media storm deter her from what matters most: her fans.

“I hear there is a lot of controversy in the media about my show,” BRIT commented in a statement.

“Some reporters have said they love it and some don’t. I came to Australia for my fans!”

While scrutiny about whether or not BRIT’S singing would be live or prerecorded arose last week, it was actually alleged incidents concerning audience members walking out of her concerts that put the singer on the defensive.

“It’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard,” BRITNEY’S tour promoter PAUL DAINTY told THE AUSTRALIAN about the reports.

“I’m so angry. We can take heat if there’s something wrong and people can review shows badly – that’s something you have to live with – but to say people stormed out of the show was an absolute fabrication.”

Meanwhile, the Musicians Union of Australia released its own statement in response to the lip synching controversy, saying that concertgoers should be told if they’re buying tickets to a lip synched performance.

“It’s not right that people are going to the concert when they are being misled,” TERRY NOONE, the union’s federal secretary, told ABC NEWS ONLINE.

“That’s the issue. It’s not about music. It’s about false advertising.”

BRITNEY is set to perform three shows in Melbourne this week before continuing across Australia for the rest of her CIRCUS tour, which will conclude at the end of November.

DEMI MOORE: THE SELF DESCRIBED PUMA ON CAREER, HER MARRIAGE & HOLLYWOOD

In the DECEMBER issue of W magazine, the seemingly ageless DEMI MOORE talks about everything from being labeled a cougar for her marriage to the younger ASHTON KUTCHER to aging in Hollywood.

The actor, who stars in two upcoming indie films HAPPY TEARS and THE JONESES – and is also the face of the new HELENA RUBINSTEIN fragrance ALL YOU’VE EVER WANTED – said getting older has affected her acting career to some degree.

“The frustrating part is that the types of roles I’d be interested in are not really coming to me. I hate to say it’s a function of my age – but yes, I think in some ways it is. The majority of [female] roles are geared between 25 and 35.”

Asked about her cougar title, DEMI clearly prefers the term puma.

“I’m certainly not the first person to be in a relationship with a younger man. But somehow I was plucked out as a bit of a poster girl. I don’t know why that is. But I just kind of step back sometimes and say, ‘There is some reason…and what is it that I have to share in a positive way?’ ”

Get the full interview with DEMI at W MAGAZINE

MARIANNE FAITHFULL TALKS NOSTALGIA & HER NEW CD

FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MARIANNE FAITHFULL has never been much for nostalgia throughout a roller coaster career that’s found her constantly reinventing herself.

But when her band played AS TEARS GO BY on her fall U.S. concert tour, she found herself flashing back to where her wild ride began.

“If you’d have told me that at 62, I’d still be singing AS TEARS GO BY to a rapt audience, I couldn’t imagine that,” remarked the legendary singer.

“It’s incredibly moving for me. It’s like turning back the years.”

The song takes MARIANNE back to 1964 when the 17 year old convent school girl turned up at a party at an art gallery owned by her future first husband, John Dunbar. ANDREW OLDHAM, THE ROLLING STONES’ manager, spotted the blonde and asked her if she could sing.

“The first party I went to in London I was discovered by ANDREW OLDHAM – all the Beatles were there and the Stones were there too.”

Soon after, ANDREW OLDHAM brought the soprano with an angelic voice into the studio to record the melancholy AS TEARS GO BY, the first song cowritten by KEITH RICHARDS and soon to be boyfriend MICK JAGGER.

“It’s a strange song to get a 17 year old to sing. It’s all about a woman looking back on her youth, not participating. I couldn’t really feel it. But now I can really feel it and it’s very beautiful. I got to the right age where the woman in the song is.”

MARIANNE now sings the song in her world weary contralto which is roughened by too much tobacco and booze from her colourful past.

But she has little in common with the song’s protagonist who is content to sit and watch as her life goes by.

“I like to be involved in every time as it goes past,” said MARIANNE, interviewed over lunch at an Italian restaurant in lower Manhattan. “I want to write a new script for myself.”

The latest script is her new album EASY COME, EASY GO, on which she interprets songs spanning nearly a century of popular music from DUKE ELLINGTON to NEKO CASE to THE DECEMBERISTS. It has a contemporary feel thanks to collaborations with younger musicians such as CHAN MARSHALL (AKA CAT POWER) and two children of her musician friends, RUFUS WAINWRIGHT and SEAN LENNON.

“It’s not just an old person singing covers. No, thank God,” she commented, distinguishing it from albums by contemporaries like ROD STEWART.

It’s also stylistically eclectic – a mix of jazz, blues, country, folk and rock – because as she explained: “Nobody listens to one style of music. Nor do I.”

MARIANNE is proud of her role as muse to THE ROLLING STONES in the 60s, inspiring such songs as YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT, WILD HORSES and SISTER MORPHINE (for which she belatedly received credit for writing the lyrics).

The album closes poignantly with MARIANNE and KEITH joining voices on MERLE HAGGARD’S death row ballad SING ME BACK HOME, tackling lyrics like Make my old memories come alive.

“I think I’m ready to do that now. I wasn’t before,” commented MARIANNE, who made a successful recovery after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006.

“I’ve been very anti-nostalgia all my life, always thinking about what I’m going to do next rather than what I’ve done. I think maybe this is a good moment for me to just sit on my haunches and reflect.”

Today, she says little remains of the sex, drugs and rock & roll lifestyle of her youth that claimed so many of her friends.

“I’m very professional. I don’t use drugs and I don’t drink. I can’t help thinking that that’s one of the reasons that everything is so good in life. I’m a workaholic now,” she commented, sipping a glass of sparkling water.

“There’s always sex.”

MARIANNE teamed again on the album with HAL WILLNER, who produced her last covers CD in 1987 STRANGE WEATHER – her first album after undergoing rehab. It marked her resurrection as an avant garde cabaret artist and masterful song interpreter.

“She is our Lotte Lenya, our Marlene Dietrich, our Edith Piaf. You can’t learn to sing like that,” asserted her producer.

“None of them were trained really and their voice was what they’ve been in their life. MARIANNE comes from rock and roll and pop, so her roots are different than those classic singers. But I do believe she’s a treasure.”

They selected songs that she felt a personal connection to – many of which are like snapshots into different chapters of her life, like DUKE ELLINGTON’S SOLITUDE, performed by her favourite singer BILLIE HOLIDAY.

“Solitude is probably my natural condition,” MARIANNE confessed.

“I am very solitary. I was an only child. Although there’s a lot of pain in that song too. My long term relationship (with her manager Francois Ravard) broke up just after I made the album. So now when I sing SOLITUDE it has a particular passion.”

SMOKEY ROBINSON’S OOH OOH BABY BABY (performed with Antony Hegarty), which features the line Mistakes, I know I’ve made a few, also hits close to home.

“I wish I hadn’t done drugs. It was a waste of my time and a huge handicap. It didn’t help at all.”

MARIANNE said it’s taken a long time to get over the anger that found voice on her 1979 punk infused comeback album BROKEN ENGLISH – following a lost decade in which she succumbed to heroin addiction and spent time living on the streets of London’s Soho after her tabloid sensationalized breakup with MICK JAGGER. That’s when she established herself as a songwriter in her own right with such songs as the obscenity laden WHY’D YA DO IT?

She thinks EASY COME, EASY GO reflects how much better she feels about herself at this stage of her life.

“I’m proud of this record. It’s coming from a confident and knowing what I want to do kind of a place. I’m really healthy and enjoying my work a lot. I think this really is a very wonderful part of my life.”

ON THE NET:

THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF MARIANNE FAITHFULL

WINNERS AT THE 2009 GLAMOUR WOMEN OF THE YEAR AWARDS

FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

There was a huge pop star, a tennis phenomenon, a top fashion designer, a key U.S. diplomat and three Beatle wives.

But the biggest ovation at Monday’s GLAMOUR WOMEN OF THE YEAR AWARDS awards, a star studded affair at New York’s CARNEGIE HALL, went to poet Maya Angelou, whose soaring words on the glorious power of femininity brought many to tears and nearly everyone to their feet.

Women, Ms. Angelou told the crowd in her speech, “are rainbows in the clouds.”

“I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.”

As for the men: “You have to write your own poem,” Ms. Angelou said to laughter, including the man who presented her award, former President Bill Clinton.

GLAMOUR’S annual WOMEN OF THE YEAR AWARDS always honour an eclectic group of women and this year was no exception.

Pop star RIHANNA was feted and her presenter, the model IMAN, referred to the singer’s ordeal early this year when she was assaulted by boyfriend Chris Brown. RIHANNA initially returned to Brown but said last week that she regrets it because it sent the wrong message to her fans. Brown has pleaded guilty to felony assault.

“Now I am even more impressed with her dignity and courage,” IMAN commented, noting that RIHANNA would serve as a role model to victims of domestic violence.

Comic actor AMY POEHLER received her award from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE producer LORNE MICHAELS, who spoke admiringly of how Poehler performed her famous Sarah Palin rap skit.

AMY’S advice to the young women and girls in the crowd, which included a vociferous contingent of Girl Scouts: “Girls, if boys say something that’s not funny, you don’t have to laugh.”

Also honoured was fashion designer STELLA McCARTNEY, daughter of BEATLE PAUL. Her dad wasn’t there, but STELLA was shocked to see that three Beatle wives were presenting her award: BARBARA BACH, spouse of RINGO STARR and the widows of JOHN LENNON and GEORGE HARRISON respectively (YOKO ONO and OLIVIA HARRISON).

TYRA BANKS presented the award to tennis champion SERENA WILLIAMS, who also addressed the young women in the crowd: “You can do whatever you want to do. The most important belief is self belief.”

And actor Michael Douglas presented the award to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who was also lauded via video by President Barack Obama. At a dinner later, Ms. Rice said she was inspired by many of the other honorees.