“Edwin A. Salt” is about to undergo a gender change.
Once expected to star Tom Cruise, the Columbia Pictures espionage thriller will be redrafted by screenwriter Kurt Wimmer as a star vehicle for Angelina Jolie.
Philip Noyce remains attached as director and Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Sunil Perkash are producing.
Jolie is close to a deal to play the title character, a CIA officer who’s accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy and must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence.
Cruise had long flirted with the project, but that ended recently. The well-regarded script had several male movie stars circling.
Jolie took a liking to it, prompting the studio’s decision to rewrite it. Sources said the project won’t require that much of an overhaul to suit her.
After Universal beefed up Jolie’s role in “Wanted” and then marketed the action film squarely on Jolie’s shoulders and watched it gross $132 million domestically, Jolie reestablished in the wake of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” that she is the rare female who is viable in an action genre that has been almost the exclusive domain of men.
“Edwin A. Salt” will undergo a title change, and if everything falls into place, the film shapes up as a return vehicle for Jolie, who recently gave birth to twins. Another candidate for her return is the Lionsgate drama “Atlas Shrugged,” which has been adapted by Randall Wallace from the Ayn Rand novel.
Poor Tom — he’s quickly going by the “has been” wayside.
Tom Cruise is named in a $250 million federal lawsuit that is using the RICO statute against the Church of Scientology.
Ex-Scientologist Peter Letterese, a longtime critic of the church, filed suit in Southern District Court in Florida on July 15 alleging, among other things, that members of the church harassed him after he left.
In court papers provided to The News by investigator Paul Barresi, Letterese claims a member of the church phoned his lawyer at home, and when the lawyer’s wife answered, said he was her husband’s homosexual lover.
Barresi, who has done investigative work on behalf of Cruise, tells us: “[Letterese] is just including a celebrity name to get attention.”
Letterese calls the church a “crime syndicate” and wants it broken up under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization law, just as the feds have broken up Mafia families.
He singles out Cruise, who’s made no secret of his religion, saying that Scientology head David Miscavage is “aided and abetted by the actions of Tom Cruise, his right-hand man for foreign and domestic promotion, as well as for foreign and domestic lobbying. He has assisted the syndicate in acquiring funds and [made] his own donations of money believed to be in the multiple tens of millions of dollars.”
One of Letterese’s beefs is that the church allegedly uses a business book, “Effective Sales Closing Techniques,” as part of its teachings. He says this violates his intellectual property rights, since he bought the rights to the book from the widow of author Leslie Dane.
Cruise’s lawyer, Bert Fields, did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.
source: Lawsuit goes after Tom Cruise, church [ny daily news]
Katie Holmes has been wearing gloves and long sleeve shirts with the sleeves pulled down over her hands, in order to cover their freakish purple coloration.
It’s rumored that Katie may have taken part in a Scientology purification ritual that caused her hands to turn purple.
According to reports, the purification ritual is called the Purification Rundown or Purif, which is the process of taking ‘vitamin bombs’ to get ‘toxins’ out of their bodies.
It’s reported that in almost every single case, Scientology founder Hubbard recommends dosages in his teachings that are well above the safe limits, in some cases as much as 142 times more than the toxic level. The side effects of such huge overdoses range from liver damage, hair loss, brain swelling and nausea up to fatal heart and respiratory failure.
The cleanse also prescribes huge doses of niacin. Large doses of niacin can cause liver damage, peptic ulcers, and skin rashes. Even normal doses can be associated with skin flushing.
Are they trying to kill her?
More info on the Scientology Purification Rundown Program
The Scientologists themselves describe the Scientology Purification Rundown Procedure.
Scientologists are 100% drug-free and are very concerned about the devastation caused by drug use in their communities. The reason for this remarkable statistic is that Scientology churches and missions have a very effective program that handles the effects of past drug use. A key component of this program is the Scientology Purification Rundown. This rundown is the result of many years of research by the founder of the Scientology religion, L. Ron Hubbard.
[...]
L. Ron Hubbard found that there was a “drug personality,” an artificial personality created by drugs.
[...]
Mr. Hubbard noted that Scientology parishioners who had been exposed to environmental pollutants and radiation were manifesting similar emotional, mental and spiritual difficulties to those who were drug takers. This too would have to be solved, to accomplish the goals of the Scientology religion.
Oddly, the site is circular, taking readers through a loop of links that provide no information.
David Hogg, M.D. attempts to debunk Purim with his “CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PURIFICATION RUNDOWN.”
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More Tom Cruise Scientology Stories from Gone Hollywood:
It appears that Tom Cruise’s movie Valkyrie is in the midst of yet even more controversy.
Valkyrie, you’ll recall, is the Bryan Singer-directed thriller in which Cruise plays a German officer who tried to assassinate Hitler. That project has hit some bumps on its way to theaters.
Germany wants to know, who photoshopped the real photo of von Stauffenberg? In fact, they’re fighting mad over it.
Our (not definitive) search didn’t turn up any German press about this alleged photo tweaking. When we asked United Artists, the studio said that tweaking didn’t happen. We took a look at an AP photo and then at the image used by United Artists.
And we weren’t sure. So we submitted the pictures to our experts at Slate.
Jim Festante, a Slate designer, wrote: “Look @ the nose, mouth, and chin. Definite (but slight) altering. Also, the head’s width is squeezed slightly.” And then designer Holly Allen added this: “To me, the nose looks different and definitely the eyebrows. Cheekbones and angle of the chin, too.”
Looks like someone tweaked the photo. Finding out who may be mission: impossible.
Dr. Drew is preaching to the choir baby! In next month’s issue of Playboy the Celebrity Rehab Doc dives into the crazy of Tom Cruise. (I hope he has a battle axe and foil hat to protect him while he is in there.)
“A lot of people in the public eye who behave strangely have mental illness we can learn from, and much of it is based on childhood trauma, without a doubt. Take a guy like Tom Cruise. Why would somebody be drawn into a cultish kind of environment like Scientology? To me, that’s a function of a very deep emptiness and suggests serious neglect in childhood - maybe some abuse, but mostly neglect.”
Oooo, this is all very Robin Williams circa Good Will Hunting with his Matt Damon wall demolishing mantra of “It’s not your fault.” Unfortunatly Tom’s attorney doesn’t find it as amusing as I do. Bert Fields went to the media to air out his thoughts on Dr. Drew.
“This unqualified television performer who is obviously just looking for notoriety is so grotesquely unprofessional as to pretend to diagnose Tom and others without ever meeting them. He seems to be spewing the absurdity that all Scientologists are mentally ill. The last time we heard garbage like this was from Joseph Goebbels.”
This guy is pointing his money encrusted finger for “spewing absurdity” at DOCTOR Drew? WTF?
Bert doesn’t find anything absurd about and alien dictator paralyzing his minions with alcohol and glycol to capture their souls and take them to a volcano planet and dump them, then kill them in a simultaneous blast only to reharvest them and forced them to watch a “three-D, super colossal motion picture” for thirty-six days?
Seriously I couldn’t make this shiz up even after binging on LSD, Red Bull and peyote.
What Others Said:
Dlisted- “Tommy better not mess with Dr. Drew. He has Chyna on his side and that crazy giant could easily knock Tommy out with one swift punch from her mutant-clit.”
Hollywood Backwash- “Whatever dude! Have you seen Dr. Drew? He is waaay too hot to be a Nazi. Besides, Tom is the one that looks awful comfy in that German get up.”
Feds probing the alleged sale of cancer-stricken Farrah Fawcett’s medical records to The National Enquirer could find a long mole tunnel between the hospitals and the tabloids.
Former UCLA Medical Center staffer Lawanda Jackson was indicted on April 9 after allegedly leaking private info about Fawcett, Maria Shriver and 60 other patients. Now vets at the ‘bloids are wondering how long it will be before other health professionals and reporters are drawn into the investigation.
Staffers at L.A. hospitals favored by celebs have been on the payroll of the supermarket weeklies for years, based on transcripts we’ve obtained of taped conversations among dirt-diggers at Globe magazine.
The recordings, made by former Globe managing editor Jim Mitteager, capture him talking with his reporters and sources about stars who allegedly have undergone cosmetic surgery and abortions, as well as been treated for mental illness, bulimia and AIDS.
Among the celebs mentioned in the conversations are Tom Cruise, Jessica Lange, Liz Taylor, Billy Crystal, Kelsey Grammer, Magic Johnson, Roseanne Barr, Al Pacino, Paula Abdul, Frank Zappa and Vanna White.
Recorded between 1992 and 1993, the tapes suggest the impunity with which hospital workers trafficked in sensitive information.
One reporter is heard telling Mitteager that, “If Liz (Taylor) is in St. John’s Hospital,” his source there will know it. “She takes a special delight on getting s? on Liz,” says the reporter. “She has access to the computer and talks to orderlies.”
On another tape, Mitteager contends that a now-deceased TV actor “has got AIDS. The people who want to sell the story have physical proof. They want $4,000. ? They want to move fast because it’s Christmastime and they want to get paid.”
Equally impatient is the husband of a nurse, who asks if he can get “some good-faith money” for his tip. Mitteager says he’ll pay only “if we run the story.”
Mitteager bequeathed the tapes to private investigator Paul Barresi, who has offered to cooperate with prosecutors and hospital officials.
“I remember the gleeful reaction from a Globe senior editor to the news that Dinah Shore had been diagnosed with cancer,” Barresi tells us. “It made my skin crawl. Nothing has changed inside the tabs.”
A spokesman for American Media Inc., which bought The Globe in 2000, said the legality of the dealings before then “are not our responsibility.” The rep declined to comment on the current Enquirer case.
A lawyer for several celebs mentioned on the recordings told us he would ask his clients if they want to pursue legal action. “The question is whether you can sue on something that happened 15 years ago,” the attorney added. “Also, how reliable is the information the reporters are talking about.”
Publicist Stan Rosenfield, whose clients include Grammer, Robert De Niro and George Clooney, said: “It’s alarming that this criminal activity could go on so long without being detected.”
Man that’s horrible, a hospital selling private medical records — I would be so pissed off!
See the parts bolded above? How much do you want to bet, the mental patient was Tom Cruise?
Over the last few years, aides have winced at repeated tabloid reports about Clinton’s episodic friendship and occasional dinners out with Belinda Stronach, a twice-divorced billionaire auto-parts heiress and member of the Canadian Parliament 20 years his junior, or at more recent high-end Hollywood dinner-party gossip that Clinton has been seen visiting with the actress Gina Gershon in California.
Instead of standing beside Hilary as she battles the campaign trail — Bill is off cavorting around the country, bedding young females. Surprising? I think not.
Bumpshack says, “Last time I checked Gina is a lot more attractive than Monica Lewinsky or Gennifer Flowers. So I guess Bill’s taste has at least improved since leaving office.”
More on Gina Gerson:
Sultry, dark-eyed, brunette leading actress Gina Gershon mixes a muscular toughness with her seductive femininity. Born the youngest of five children, raised in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, Gershon gets her exotic looks from her French, Russian, and Dutch heritage. After high school, she decided she wanted a more sophisticated image than those usually attributed to Valley Girls like herself and so moved to the Big Apple, to earn a bachelor of arts degree at New York University. While in New York, she studied acting with such well-known teachers as Sandra Seacat, David Mamet, and Harold Guskin. She started out in theater and worked on both coasts.
[Click thumbnails for a larger view]
Since the mid-’80s, Gershon has carved out a living as a reliable character actress on both the big and the small screens. Her most notable role on the tube was that of Nancy Sinatra, the famous wife of Old Blue Eyes himself, in the CBS miniseries Sinatra (1994). Gershon made her feature film debut playing a small role opposite Molly Ringwald in 1986’s Pretty in Pink, and graduated to the jucier role of of Coral opposite Tom Cruise in Cocktail (1988). Through the 1990s, Gershon vascillated between high-brow and low-brow fare, the former exemplified by her memorable turns in John Sayles’s City of Hope (1991), Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), and Michael Mann’s The Insider (1999); the latter, by her gleeful, scenery-chewing work in Best of the Best 3 and the infamous Showgirls (both 1995). Gershon’s signature role, however, was a synthesis of B-movie pulp and indie smarts, courtesy of the Wachowski brothers’ twisty 1996 neo-noir Bound. Cast as a woman falling in love with an abusive gangster’s moll, Gershon was able to radiate an intelligence, sexuality, and power not afforded her by previous scripts, and the lead part would go a long way in establishing her screen persona into the new millenium
In court papers provided to The News by investigator Paul Barresi, Letterese claims a member of the church phoned his lawyer at home, and when the lawyer’s wife answered, said he was her husband’s homosexual lover.
Over the last few years, aides have winced at repeated tabloid reports about Clinton’s episodic friendship and occasional dinners out with Belinda Stronach, a twice-divorced billionaire auto-parts heiress and member of the Canadian Parliament 20 years his junior, or at more recent high-end Hollywood dinner-party gossip that Clinton has been seen visiting with the actress Gina Gershon in California.
