Johnny Depp

Dances with pirates

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Dances with pirates
The real reason Johnny Depp still has those gold teeth

[Photo: Walt Disney Pictures]
Johnny Depp based his character in Pirates of the Caribbean on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.


Even my married friends admit they are looking for the same old thing: excitement, allure, romance. Not necessarily away from their husbands, you understand, but as a friend of mine said recently after a night of dancing with her long-time mate (whom she adores, I might add), “I’d rather dance with a stranger.” Ah, the tragedy of too many years of, er, marital bliss. Because while we women say, and maybe even think, we want security, comfort and predictability provided by a steady man (a message drilled into our heads by our mothers since we were girls), what we really want is something else entirely, isn’t it? Which probably explains my reaction to the versatile and delicious Johnny Depp in the latest Disney flick, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Depp’s character, Captain Jack Sparrow, is the quintessential rogue. Easy on the eyes, the black-eyed Depp, sporting all of the traditional pirate wear save the eye patch (though he does have a braided beard), is devastatingly handsome. Ok, the producers gave him an odd swagger and a big drinking problem, but that’s just so we women would find it believable that he doesn’t get the girl in the end. But even with his strange mannerisms, it’s virtually impossible to fathom the heroine doesn’t run passionately into Sparrow’s arms and finally succumb to his charms. Instead, she runs off with cobbler Will Turner, played by Orlando Bloom, whom I really liked in The Lord of the Rings, but in this flick he pales in comparison to the exotic Depp. Bloom just doesn’t have a chance. Let’s face it — in real life, he could never beat out Depp, at least not with the women I know. I mean really, it’s such a stretch that Depp’s character can’t get the girl (even for a night) that I quickly conclud this is a movie produced by men (I subsequently found out it was). No female could possibly be involved in this flick and let this happen. “Not plausible” she would say, ‘women won’t buy the ending.” No woman in her right mind, that is. OK, maybe not in her right mind, but what does being in your right mind have to do with it? No woman with a beating heart could resist this rogue.

By the way, Depp says he sees rock stars as today’s version of pirates, and admits he based his pirate character on none other than Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. I don’t see the comparison, but that’s because I can’t get past poor Keith’s well-travelled face. I’d rather my pirates look like Johnny Depp. And I’m not alone. Walking out after the movie, which I’ve already seen 2 1/2 times (I couldn’t persuade the kids to stay for the end of the third viewing), the remarks coming from younger and older women alike were remarkable. “Oh those eyes,” sighed one. “Johnny Depp is gorgeous,” swooned another. “So what, he’s wearing mascara,” rationalized a third, already finding excuses for the bad boy. “It suits him.” Not one woman was heard to say, “He’s so funny, he’s silly, he’s hilarious,” even though that’s what the producers were obviously trying to accomplish. Maybe he was all of those things — it’s just that most women won’t really notice. So solely because of his pirate performance, I’m proclaiming Johnny Depp Hollywood’s leading bad boy. After all, who can compete? Brad Pitt is too tame, Harrison Ford is too old and Pierce Brosnan? Well, he’s just too darn nice. Orlando Bloom? Not a chance. What women really want is a true-blue, living and breathing pirate, even Depp’s real life woman, French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis.

During a recent guest appearance on David Letterman, Depp, still sporting his gold teeth, claimed he didn’t have time to get them removed when he left Hollywood after the movie. Oh sure. Who’s he kidding? We know the truth. He loves being a pirate and his partner loves him being a pirate too.

by Sharon Dunn

Heidi Fleiss

… can’t come to Canada

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Fleiss of fancy
The former Hollywood madam has a book out, but can’t come to Canada to flog it

[Photo: The Associated Press]
“I’m a convicted felon, but I’m an honest convicted felon.
I don’t sugarcoat anything, I’m just Heidi, I tell it like it is,” the former Hollywood madam, purveyor of $10,000 tricks to Tinseltown’s A-list, is telling me over the phone. ‘Just Heidi’, of course, is Heidi Fleiss, and the reason we’re talking over the phone instead of chatting at the Sutton Place hotel in downtown Toronto, as we’d previously arranged, is that Fleiss has been denied entry into Canada for the second time in recent weeks. She even went through the proper channels and tried to get a temporary visitor’s visa at the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles this time. But the officials there turned her down.”Everyone knows what I did,” she says, sounding sweet and sincere. “I’m a convicted felon, but I’m an honest convicted felon. It’s so embarrassing for me. A lot of people worked hard and had a lot of things planned. I feel terrible.”The reason she was refused entry was the identical reason that she wanted to gain entry: her book, ‘Pandering’. The reason I couldn’t get into the state of Canada was because my book Pandering promotes prostitution,” she says. (I don’t tell that her Canada is a country, not a state.

Her book Pandering is a visual memoir — a “work of art,” Fleiss calls it. There’s a lot in it, though a lot of what, I’m not sure. It’s certainly colourful, and I wouldn’t mind looking at a similar pictorial history of, say, the Rolling Stones. But more than 100 pages of Heidi and her friends? I’m not so sure. The outsize book — it’s scrapbook size — includes photos (mostly of Fleiss), newspaper clippings (of Fleiss), Q&As by former associates and friends. There are even old school report cards (belonging to Fleiss). For the life of me, I can’t figure out who would sit and read this book, let alone pay $79.95, except perhaps Fleiss. And yet, the former Hollywood madam tells me the book is now in its second printing and has sold close to 50,000 in its first month. Fleiss says the tome, which obviously cost a great deal of money to produce, was paid for by “a distributor, who believed in me.” She stresses it wasn’t her money. “When the federal government gets finished with you, you have nothing. I don’t know how Leona Helmsley does it”, she says. Fleiss spent three years in prison, from 1996 to 1999, and is quite blunt about what life behind bars does to a woman. “When most people get out, they’re dying to get laid. I was looking for a pair of socks. I had nothing. “Not that she didn’t get offers. Fox TV, she says, offered her $300,000 to “celebrity wrestle” but she turned them down flat. “I’m against violence,” she says, “though I could have killed anyone they put me up against. I learned it in prison.” At first, she says, “I was scared to death. Some of the girls there were lifers,” but she eventually settled in. She even had a girlfriend — in fact, girlfriends.The first was a girl “who looked like a cute surfer guy. Best orgasm I’ve ever had in my life, but she was missing one thing ….” I don’t ask what that might be. Next, she met the woman she settled down with in jail. “She looked like J.Lo., beautiful inside and out. We bonded, even outside of sex.”

Fleiss, 37, says she is estranged from her mother, Elize (“She told stories about me when I was in prison”), but remains close to her father, Paul, a paediatrician. “He takes care of Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes, Tom Cruise’s and Lenny Kravitz’s children, and Leonardo DiCaprio.” When I point out that DiCaprio is hardly a child, she responds that: “Dad’s such a good doctor that patients like Leo, who saw him as children, still see him as adults.” Her parents, who are divorced, would have preferred that she had pursued an academic career but she wasn’t the scholarly type.” I did poorly in school. And that made me focus on other things, like going to the racetrack. I would like to have been an art curator.”

When I ask her what she would change about her life, her response startles me. She says she wishes she’d gone to prison three years earlier, in 1993 instead of 1996, because of the stress of those times. I am sympathetic, and wonder why her famous clients, who scattered to the winds when she was arrested, didn’t help her. “Why would they help me? They weren’t my friends. We had a business relationship.” It is a line of work she would not pursue again. “Once you do it the best, you don’t do it again. I understood deals and how people like to be treated.” Being a madam, she says, was never her plan. “It just evolved.” I ask her if this was just one of those situations where you start at the, er, bottom.”Yes, it’s like Phil Jackson, coach of the L.A. Lakers. He didn’t just learn how to manage. He had to learn offence, defence, he had to play the game too.”

Today, Fleiss lives in W.C. Fields’s old house, which is owned by a friend, in the Hollywood Hills. She moved there after she broke up with actor Tom Sizemore (who has been charged with assault involving an incident with Fleiss). “It’s so inappropriate to comment outside the courtroom,” she says, proceeding to comment. “He makes comments that are offensive, character assassination. Let him do that, I’m not going to.” At the end of our strange half-hour conversation, my head is reeling. She reverts to the sweet and sincere woman I encountered at the beginning of the talk, urging me to get in touch if I need anything more. “Call me back if you need to. Call me anytime of the day or night,” she encourages. “It doesn’t matter what time.”

I guess old habits are hard to break.

by Sharon Dunn
Edited Jan 26/25

Woody Harrelson: “I’m kind of bizarre.”

“I’m kind of bizarre.”

 From the

Sharon Dunn
“I’m kind of bizarre.”
Woody Harrelson talks about living like a friggin’ pauper

[Photo: Kevin Van Paassen, National Post]
“I try every day to do two things that scare the s–t out of me. I take jumps from great heights. I’m kind of bizarre.”

Woody Harrelson is a friendly guy, a really friendly guy. When he walks into the lovely Balzac’s CafĂ©, in the Distillery Historic District, you’d think he was a politician, the way he meets and greets everyone who comes his way. The only difference is that the actor is sincere. There’s a man in a wheelchair in one corner of the room, and I make a bet with myself that Harrelson will find his way to him. He doesn’t disappoint, and within a few minutes they’re shaking hands. You can’t help but like Harrelson, who rose to fame in the 1980s on the television series Cheers. He followed that up with a slew of successful movies, including Indecent Proposal, Natural Born Killers, The People vs Larry Flynt, White Men Can’t Jump and, more recently, Anger Management.

Harrelson is in town for two reasons — his new documentary film, Go Further (about organic living), is being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. And he’s making his Toronto directorial debut with a production of Kenneth Lonergan’s play This Is Our Youth, which premieres at the Berkeley Street Theatre on Sept. 18. As he approaches me, I have to laugh. His casual shirt is half-tucked into his shorts, giving him the endearing look of a lost boy. And he’s wearing a pair of bedroom slippers.”You have a great look,” I tell him.”That’s the first time I’ve been told that,” he says, grinning, but becomes mortified a minute later when I raise the obvious question about the slippers. Evidently (and I find myself believing him), he was completely unaware they were bedroom attire. “I knew they were kind of indoor shoes, but I didn’t know they were bedroom slippers,” he says, genuinely surprised. “Anyway, when I ride my bike, they work. I ride to work every day,” he continues, “15 minutes downhill to get here, and then uphill, going home, I get a cardio. “His Southern accent is pronounced and he knows it. “It’s tough to kick,” he says.

Harrelson has had a colourful life, to say the least, and much of it unwittingly. Born in Texas in 1961, he was just seven years old when his father, Charles, was arrested on a murder rap. Harrelson Senior is still in a federal prison, convicted of killing a Texas judge. We don’t get into that today, but it is an event in Harrelson’s life that is said to have had a profound effect. Now 42, Harrelson admits he had his own wild days, but has settled down in recent years. He lives in Hawaii with his former assistant, Laura, and his two daughters, all of whom are with him in Toronto. He’s drinking, from a jar, a mixture that strongly resembles mud. “Carrots, beets, celery, spinach, kale. I’m a real healthy guy,” he tells me, and is aghast when I mention a rumour I’ve heard that he smokes cigars. “Even just smoking, and pot is against everything I stand for,” he says, insisting that he’s not into any of that any more. He likens the body to the plight of the world. “The lungs are like the rainforests under siege,” he says. He can see that he’s losing me, so he tries a different tack. “

I’m kind of bizarre,” he admits.”Here’s another example,” he says, starting again. “I’ve got to look at fuel and what I eat. Simple organic living doesn’t have to be so complex. Ironically, most of this health consciousness came from being out of balance. The thing is, I go from extremes. I was very religious [he grew up a Presbyterian], and then I swung to a hedonistic lifestyle, dropping all of the beliefs that I had before. Then I started going towards the centre. I’m in the centre now. I want to stay balanced. I’ve lived on the edge.”Of course I can’t resist asking him about the edgiest thing he’s ever done.” Ask George Wendt and the other guys from Cheers, they’ll tell you,” he says, laughing and rolling his eyes. Life is simpler nowadays. “I try every day to do two things that scare the s–t out of me. I take jumps from great heights.”

WOODY HARRELSON IN A SCENE FROM GO FURTHER: “I’m kind of bizarre.”

As it turns out, he means this literally. “I jump 64 feet from a bridge where I live, and I’ve seen people with a lot of cojones stand on that bridge [afraid to jump into the bay below].””So your lifestyle in Hawaii is hedonistic?” I ask. “No, no, on the contrary, L.A. was my hedonistic lifestyle.” His place in Hawaii is a fruit farm. “It’s not fancy at all, two bedrooms. Our bedroom is smaller than this room,” he says, referring to the tiny alcove we’re huddled in. “However, there are other buildings on the property for staff. I live simply. My wife just created an outdoor kitchen. More space,” he boasts. Asked why he chooses to live this way, he shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just keep living like a pauper. And then I go to my friends’ houses and think, ‘Holy s–t, I could live like this, the lap of luxury, the pool, the big rooms. Why do I keep living like a friggin’ pauper?’ “I nod in understanding (though I don’t mention my rooms).

Just then my cellphone rings. It’s my son Luke and I’m late to pick him up. Harrelson looks concerned. “If I knew he’d have to wait, I wouldn’t have let rehearsals go on so long,” he says. I hand him the phone and he chats with Luke. for awhile. “What do you think of this as promotion for the movie?”, he asks me, as he hangs up. “Don’t write this down. I just want your opinion. We show the movie on a big outdoor screen by the water and we ask everyone to bike down for it. Wouldn’t that be a great image? All those bikes? “It sounds a lot like another promotion Harrelson is involved in — an outdoor yoga happening on Sunday morning on the U of T campus. “It’s going to be the biggest yoga gathering of young people anywhere,” he says excitedly. “We’re trying to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Wouldn’t that be great, even if it’s just for one year? “Harrelson’s enthusiasm for, well, just about everything, is contagious. As we say our goodbyes, it occurs to me that of all of the celebrities I’ve interviewed, Woody Harrelson will go down as one of my favourites. “You know, I’m really glad you made it big,” I tell him. He smiles warmly. “Tell Luke I hope to meet him someday,” he says. The bizarre thing is he means it.

by Sharon Dunn
last edited Jan 26/25