Where Are All the Fat, Bald Guys on People’s ’50 Most Beautiful’ List?
This has been a rough stretch for me. First, I lost the Pulitzer Prize. Now, I find that by some horrible oversight, I was not included in People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World.” What’s left for me now, the Pillsbury Bake-Off?
If you haven’t yet seen People, I’m sure it will shock you to learn that there are no fat, bald, white, middle-aged men on its “50 Most Beautiful” list. Forget about me, what about Rob Reiner?
How many ravishing, young bimbos can you have before someone says, “Enough! Where the hell is the fat guy from ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’?”? There’s a very narrow range of occupations represented on the list. Forty-two of the 50 are either actors, actresses, models, TV heads or singers.
There wasn’t one kosher butcher. Not one!
Oh, like Sol, who slices salami at Katz’s, isn’t a hunk?
The other eight were a violinist, a baseball player, a tennis player, an ice skater, a financial analyst, a political commentator, a chef and a queen. Queen Rania of Jordan was an unexpected treat. You don’t usually think of queens as being beautiful. OK, Wesley Snipes in the movie “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.” But most queens are woofers. Let’s face it, Queen Elizabeth II is no prize at Happy Hour, even after the Vth or the VIth pint.
There were some shocking omissions. A couple of years ago, People named Harrison Ford as the World’s Sexiest Man. Now, he isn’t even Top 50. The last guy who fell so far so fast was D.B. Cooper. And they left out Joan Collins! What a disappointment after all that plastic surgery. Joan’s face is so tight now, Ringo could use it to play “Wipeout.”
It’s not like all 50 winners were irreplaceable. I’d never even heard of 17 of them!
Who are: Henry Simmons, Amanda Peet, Goran Visnjic, Ananda Lewis, Galen Gering, Cristian de la Fuente, Ashton Kutcher, Alison Deans and Nick Carter? I might have guessed: The touring company of “That 70s Show Visits the Security Council.”
They’re nobodies, and nowhere near as beautiful as any of the models posing on the facing pages for such high-end products as “Aveda Sap Moss Shampoo.”
My friend Nancy didn’t do any better. She also hadn’t heard of 17 of the 50. But when the name “Ming Tsai” came up, Nancy knew he was a chef. (I guessed: “vase.”) Neither of us had any idea who Goran Visnjic was. I said: “president of Bosnia.” She said: “hockey player.”
My friend Tom hadn’t heard of 31 of them! When we got to Queen Rania, he identified her as “the daughter of King Nanook of Saudi Arabia.” Amazingly, Tom claimed to know who Cristian de la Fuente was, but it became clear he thought I’d said “Daisy Fuentes,” whom he knew from his late-night Web site excursions.
I don’t want to suggest that these people aren’t beautiful. Denzel Washington is gorgeous. As is George Clooney. (Note to desk: Will people take this the wrong way? Make sure to add, “Brooke Shields is stunning.”)
Brooke Shields is stunning; I’ve got no idea what she saw in that fur ball-turned-skinhead, Andre Agassi. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Charlize Theron should be illegal. But others aren’t among the “50 Most Beautiful People in the I-Hop.” Matt LeBlanc? The guy from “Friends.” Are you kidding me? He’s not as good-looking as Mel Blanc.
And deliver me from them whining about their looks. Like model Kate Dillon complaining the kids on her school bus called her “Overweight Kate.” Is that supposed to make us slobs feel better? That some drop-dead beauty has a flaw? Do you think I need to know that Faith Hill “always wanted huge breasts”? You think that’s going to comfort me when I get a colonoscopy?
Now, I know what you’re thinking: How dare you be critical of what these people look like, Tony. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Indeed I have. I look like a rhesus monkey.
Just this week, I turned down a TV appearance because of how I look. A producer who liked last week’s column on Elian Gonzalez asked me to go on a morning TV show and repeat some of the lines.
I said no, explaining, “I’m too hard on the eyes at that hour of the morning.” I confessed that after seeing me on TV once, Howard Cosell said I was “unsightly.” Howard Cosell! A guy whose face looked like a bunion.
The producer said she had seen me. “You’re not that bad,” she said.
That made me feel a little better. But I still want huge breasts.
