Weighing In on Stardom
A group of restaurant and tavern operators is putting a new spin on the popular pastime of scrutinizing celebrity physique. They say many celebrities revered for their bodies--Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt among them--may be hunks, but they’re obese hunks according to new federal weight guidelines.
In an effort to deflate the surgeon general’s December 2001 health warning, which suggests Americans eat less, the restaurant and tavern operators (a.k.a. Center for Consumer Freedom) launched a counteroffensive. On the Web site consumerfreedom.com they posted a body-mass-index calculator titled “Does the Government Think You’re Fat?”
Users can match their own physiques to those of sports and film celebrities by typing in different height and weight combinations.
For example, type in “6 foot 2 inches” and “230 pounds” and the scale reads: “You’re so fat, you look like Russell Crowe. Yes! According to the federal government the handsome hero is overweight. (As is Tom Cruise.)”
Likewise, a user who types in “6-foot, 200 pounds” is deemed overweight, a category shared by Michael Jordan (who is 6-foot-6, 216 pounds) and Cal Ripkin Jr. (who is 6-foot-4, 220 pounds). The site also features a list of 16 college basketball players who made it to the Final Four playoffs at weights it says the government considers too high.
“It causes us to question standards by which those things are measured,” said Mike Burita, spokesman for Center for Consumer Freedom. In compiling the body-index scale, Burita used several sources, including some figures tabulated by UCLA statistics lecturer Vivian Lew, who used information from Internet fan sites to create a table for one of her classes.
Lew learned later that some of the weight figures were suspect. (The true heights and weights of Cruise, Pitt and Crowe couldn’t be confirmed.) But Burita stands by the accuracy of his group’s body mass interpretations.
As proof, he cites interviews in which Crowe estimates his weight at 228 to 238 pounds. The actor’s height, Burita says, is reportedly between 5-foot-10 and 5-foot-11. Using any combination of those stats, Burita said, Crowe is still considered obese by the new standard, which, he says, ignores that muscle is heavier than fat.
Supporters of the government’s new standards dismiss the findings of Burita’s group as “exceptions to the rule.” “There are some people who are fit,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, “but appear [by the new standards] to be overweight.”
Dome Debuts
After its multimillion-dollar face lift, the Cinerama Dome at Sunset Boulevard and Ivar Avenue in Hollywood was home to its first premiere Monday night: the college movie “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder.”
The dome, which has been closed since the summer of 2000 for the renovation and the construction of ArcLight, a 14-screen cinema behind it, was lit blue, with a red carpet snaking around its base.
As actors streamed from their limos, Carmen Electra created some static among the crowd of photographers. “Carmen! Carmen!” they catcalled. A group of fans called out to Jillian Barberie. “Jillian! We love you! Every morning!”
In the film, Ryan Reynolds plays Van Wilder, the most popular student on campus, who, when his father finds out that he has been in school for seven years, must turn to professional party planning to pay his tuition. After the screening, cast and friends gathered at the Sunset Room, where Reynolds received a line of well-wishers.
“You were fantastic,” a woman gushed.
Reynolds shrugged and smiled.
The actor said he grew up with National Lampoon, calling it “sort of kitschy. Some jokes almost seem as if they had been patented,” he joked. “Certainly, it’s not ‘Sense and Sensibility,’” he added. “But it’s fun.”
Quote/Unquote
“You’d think that going out to dinner with John Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette would be glamorous and exciting,” writes former George magazine editor Richard Blow in an excerpt from his memoir, “American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy Jr.” (Henry Holt and Co., May 2002) published in Vanity Fair’s May issue. “But simply making conversation was stressful. We felt that everything we said had to be witty and scintillating. When the bill finally came I realized I was relieved.”
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City of Angles runs Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com
