It’s a Growth Industry for Today’s Actresses
Ever since Julia Roberts was photographed at the premiere of “Runaway Bride” with unshaven underarms, the subject has taken on a life of its own.
At the Trevor Foundation’s annual fund-raiser last month in Los Angeles, Gillian Anderson lifted her Prada wrap to reveal--surprise!--hairy underarms. Feeling a tad overdressed for her jeans-and-sweatshirt audience, the “X-Files” actress pointed to her unshaven underarms and said, “I guess this makes up for it.”
Former New York Daily News gossip columnist Baird Jones told me the subject also came up last week when he was talking to the actress Gaby Hoffmann at a premiere party in New York for “Down to You.” Hoffman, 17, said Julia Roberts is a role model and admitted that, like Roberts, she too lets it all grow out.
Some days I wish I could throw out my daily beauty routine: shaving, blow-drying my hair, slathering my face with makeup, etc. etc. But the truth is, I enjoy these rituals. They give structure to my mornings (and fun stuff to shop for).
The hairy debate rages on, but why? Now that we know Roberts doesn’t shave does it make her seem more liberated, or somehow less appealing? To shave or not to shave is a personal choice, nothing more.
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Despite my apparently cheerful demeanor (see photo at top of column) I’m a closet cynic, so this struck a chord with me: misfortune cookies.
The doomsday treats are made by a Hollywood gag gift company, Pull My Finger Productions.
They look like regular fortune cookies until you crack them open and read the not-so-nice messages inside: “You have the body of a god: Buddha”; “Cat, the other white meat”; “Repossession and bankruptcy are just around the corner”; and, “You are an accident waiting to happen. Oops, too late.”
Richard Halpern, 36, a film producer and the president of Pull My Finger, came up with the idea while eating Chinese food with friends.
“I was breaking a cookie open and I said, wouldn’t it be funny if the fortune said something like, ‘You will get into car accident?’ We had a great time with it.” (Thank you, Beavis and Butt-head.)
Unfortunate Fortune Cookies ($6 for eight) will be available Feb. 1, just in time for the Chinese New Year on Feb. 5. Information: https://www.pullmyfinger.com.
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AllHerb.com (https://www.allherb.com), a Web site devoted to herbs, recently conducted a survey about aphrodisiacs and found, gee what a surprise, that herbs can improve your love life.
The study asked 314 couples to document for a week how many times they made love, felt romantic and cuddled, and what they ate for dinner each night. Couples who reported having the most sex said they cooked with cayenne pepper, rosemary, garlic, onion and basil.
The survey also found artichokes (especially the hearts) and chocolate are powerful aphrodisiacs.
Hey! Quick! Someone call Pull My Finger Productions. I’m thinking a chocolate-covered artichoke heart in time for Valentine’s Day.
Booth Moore can be reached at booth.moore@latimes.com.
