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Burning Q's: Dish on Duds & Katie's Play Date

Tue., Sep. 2, 2008 4:09 PM PDT by Leslie Gornstein

AP Photo/Sang Tan

Why is it that celebrities are always wearing the big fashion styles before us little people? Do designers let them know beforehand what the new styles will be, or are they just first to buy the clothes once they hit the stores?
—Mary

The designers don't just "let them know" and then leave the actresses to forage in the wilderness, hoping to find the clothes—although that certainly would make for fine prime time entertainment. No, dear, the labels send the celebrities clothes ahead of season, usually through a stylist like Rachel Zoe, who has worked with Keira Knightley and LiLo. A good celebrity stylist would eviscerate a dolphin if it meant snagging next season's It bag before it hit stores. Same deal with dresses and all the rest.

Got more Burning Q's? Sure you do!

So Katie Holmes is now on Broadway, ostensibly to legitimize her career. How does a greenhorn stage actress really fare on Broadway? And among all the movie actors who venture into stage territory, how many are actually good when there are no cuts, no time-outs and no clever lighting? I'd imagine that most of our pop-culture icons are pretty bad in real-time action.
—Jen

Towers of European acting, like Liam Neeson, are very, very good both on stage and in film. So are legit American actresses like Laura Linney, who kicked all kinds of Puritan ass starring opposite Neeson in The Crucible on Broadway. Tabloid types, however, even Oscar-winning ones, can have a hard time. Take Julia Roberts, who may be America's Sweetheart but got no love from reviewers when she did Three Days of Rain a few years ago. "Your heart goes out to her when she makes her entrance in the first act and freezes with the unyielding stiffness of an industrial lamppost," a New York Times reviewer wrote, "as if to move too much might invite falling."

As for Holmes, we'll have to wait and see; the show debuts later this month.

Can Lindsay Lohan's career finally be declared officially DEAD?
—Jason, San Francisco

Sure, we could do that. Why not? She has only one more movie in the works—a comedy with the oh-so-fresh theme of pregnancy—and it's already in postproduction. After that, no projects officially announced.

Besides The Love Guru and Meet Dave, what were the other big flops this summer?
—Chloe, Alabama

Speed Racer, The X-Files: I Want to Believe and Lauren Conrad's fashion line.

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