High Anxiety Starring Mel Brooks... and millions of us!

When too many things in my life go awry I have the tendency to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. Why am I writing about this on a public relations and entertainment blog? Because there is one movie that helps me to laugh off my own anxiety and panic attacks, put them into some perspective and even make fun of myself. I love the movie High Anxiety, starring Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman.

The classic Mel Brooks comedy is about a famous psychiatrist who just happens to suffer from high anxiety, himself. Mel Brooks plays Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke, a revered east coast psychiatry professor who is offered a position at a prestigious psychiatric hospital in California. What he comes to find out is that the hospital staff are keeping people “crazy” to continue to make large sums of money from the patients’ families. Simultaneously, Brooks’s character is secretly being treated for his own anxiety by his old psychiatry professor and mentor, an ancient looking shrink meant to be a humorous take-off on Sigmund Freud, himself (accent and all!).

If you ever fall prey to anxiety or panic or any variation of it, or even if you just love Mel Brooks’s brilliance at poking fun at serious subject matter, High Anxiety is a must-watch!

You can catch this comedy classic on DVD or on Netflix.

Happy Birthday Betty

Golden Girl and comeback “kid” Betty White celebrates her 90th birthday today and we want to wish her a very happy birthday with many more to come. I am personally proud of Betty White’s achievements, her admirable attitude about aging and her remarkable comedic talents. As many of my friends know, I have been a Betty White fan since childhood, and I was faithfully watching reruns of The Golden Girls nightly, for years, before Betty White was considered officially “back” by the entertainment industry.

The Golden Girls has always been one of my standbys in my arsenal of things I pull out to cheer myself up when I need a good laugh. I absolutely adore that show, but I also adore each of its remarkable cast members: the late Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty as well as Betty White who we still get to have here on earth. I know that Betty White is now on to bigger and better projects, like TV Land’s smash hit, Hot In Cleveland, but what can I say? I am a Golden Girls superfan!

Here are one of my favorite Golden Girls clips below featuring great Rose moments:

Celebrity Fragrance Pioneer with Passion

It seems just about every female celebrity is now licensing a fragrance (or a line of fragrances) in their famous names, but the late screen goddess, Elizabeth Taylor, was the pioneer of the celebrity branded fragrance industry when she unveiled her flagship fragrance, Passion, in partnership with Elizabeth Arden. I remember watching the television commericals for Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion as a little girl, taking the bottle off of my mother’s perfume tray and dabbing some of the delicious scent on my wrists. I loved the aroma and delicate notes of Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion back then, and I still love the fragrance now.

Passion by Elizabeth Taylor is a smoldering, feminine, and enrapturing combination of scents blended so beautifully, and the fragrance is affordable, to boot! With her violet eyes, dramatic makeup that highlighted her violet eyes, and her bedazzling jewels, Liz Taylor represented all that women want to be when it comes to developing their own signature style. I think that is why Liz Taylor’s first signature fragrance, Passion, was so successful, followed up by one of my mom’s favorite staples, White Diamonds.

Elizabeth’s style was flawless, her essence intoxicating, and her public relations and marketing campaign for her fragrance lines were impeccable and drew an onslaught of sales volume and repeat business.

Somehow, with all of the celebrity signature fragrances to flood the market in recent years from the likes of JLo, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Faith Hill, Jennifer Aniston… and even Snooki, none of them seem to even come close to capturing the essence of the first glamour girl inspired fragrance, PASSION!

Take a look at this retro Liz Taylor commerical spot for Passion:

Frank Sinatra "Best of the Best"

Frank Sinatra’s only son. Frank Sinatra Jr. recently sat down with Spinner to discuss the holiday release of Frank Sinatra’s latest music compilation, Best of the Best. Sinatra Jr. also shared why he feels his legendary father lived to be 82, while most iconic legends meet their tragic ends prematurely.

Frank Sinatra, Jr. told Spinner, “[Frank] Sinatra always had both feet on the ground. He never believed, or allowed himself to believe, any of the fame that surrounded him. He never took the adulation seriously.”

Frank Sinatra’s son and namesake, Frank Sinatra Jr. went on to explain that it was his father’s down to earth outlook on fame and his close ties to his family that helped him to avoid the kind of early tragic end that had befallen other icons like Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

Frank Sinatra Jr. explained to Spinner, “They were tragic figures in the sense that they didn’t have their feet on the ground and they died that way. Isn’t that interesting, that all three of those people died alone?”

Praising his legendary father, for whom he composed music and musically directed until Sinatra’s death in 1998, Frank Sinatra Jr. says one thing he wants Frank Sinatra fans to know about his father is that “he never lost the concept of the reality of life. That is something I believe that people should know. And I believe that is the reason why he lived to be 82-and-a-half-years old.”

Not too long ago I had the opportunity to interview Frank Sinatra Jr’s older sister, Nancy Sinatra, for PR.com and Nancy and I discussed Frank Sinatra’s legacy from the point of view of his first born (Nancy).

Here are some clips from the Nancy Sinatra interview on PR.com:

PR.com: Your father was around to see the first inklings of the power of the Internet back in the late 90s, shortly before he passed. What did he think of it?

Nancy Sinatra: He was thrilled. He would read the questions that people would write in, and then he would tell me what to say in response to their questions, and he said, “This is great. Please keep in touch with my supporters.” And I said, “I promise.” I have ever since.

PR.com: For your Sirius XM radio show, Nancy for Frank, how do you go about scripting each show, and how do you determine what Frank Sinatra stories should remain private and what stories about your father you care to share with the public?

Nancy Sinatra: It’s all up to the music. We’re recording a show tomorrow and the album we’re playing is the Strangers In The Night album. I haven’t seen a script yet. I send the songs to my producer and he takes the songs and puts them into a script that includes the composer, lyricist, and if possible, when it was recorded originally. Whatever nerdy kind of technical information we can get, we put it into the script. If there are any stories, they come about as a result of a song.

PR.com: Your sister Tina does a great deal as far as managing, I guess what you would call the Sinatra brand. Is that an equal three-way partnership between you, Tina and Frank, Jr., or does Tina take the lead with business matters pertaining to your father’s work?

Nancy Sinatra: Tina’s a producer, so we rely on her for that sort of thing. We are all absolutely involved, of course. We all meet once a month, or once every two months if we’re traveling. We discuss the projects that are coming up and what we are going to do about them, and who’s going to do promotion. I liken it to a family farm. The products are usually recordings, sometimes films, and you take them to market and market them as best as you can. It’s not easy anymore. The music business is pretty much history. It’s generally via downloading, and mostly the younger people don’t want to pay anything for music. There are also so many expenses involved in putting out CDs, and you have to be very sure that everything you put out is of quality. If there is a mistake at the printers or there is someone along the way who misspells a composer’s name or puts in a wrong date, we get clobbered by the Frank Sinatra fans who know every detail. When that happens it’s embarrassing for us, but we can’t be there every second of every day with this stuff as it goes through. We can license and hope (laughs)… that they do a good job and not let us down.

CLICK TO READ MY ENTIRE NANCY SINATRA INTERVIEW ON PR.COM

This story is brought to you by Allison Dawn PR

The Weinstein Company is getting set to unveil its latest collaboration with multi-dimensional artist, Madonna, a feature film titled W.E., directed by the Material Girl, herself (we know this nickname is past its expiration date, but we just can’t help it!). Not only does Madonna direct this beautifully shot epic love story, but she also co-wrote the screenplay for W.E. along with Alek Keshishian. If that name rings a bell it’s because Alek Keshishian was Madonna’s co-hort in her infamous documentary Truth or Dare which followed the trailblazing performer around the world during her Blonde Ambition tour, circa 1990. We guess the two have remained tight all these years.

Madonna’s W.E. is a beautifully crafted, passionate tale about the search for true love in the modern world, viewed through the prism of one of history’s most fabled romances. The year is 1998, and Manhattan is abuzz with anticipation about the upcoming auction of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. But the auction is far more than a diversion for Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), a transplanted Southerner trapped in an unhappy and abusive marriage.

Transfixed by the exquisite artifacts of the Windsors’ lives, Wally becomes obsessed with the love story of Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), the chic, charismatic American who captured the heart of King Edward VIII (James D’Arcy). As she learns more about the sacrifices Wallis made in choosing to be with Edward, Wally finds the courage to follow her own heart and create her own happiness.

We all know that Heidi Klum is the queen of elaborate, sexy, and just plain crazy Halloween costumes. No one seems to embrace the spirit of Halloween quite as much as Heidi and her hubby Seal. Their annual Halloween Party is the hottest ticket in Hollywood each and every October 31st.

Have a look at Heidi Klum’s most outrageous Halloween costumes over the years:

The official coroner’s report is in, and Amy Winehouse was determined to have died from “consuming an extreme amount of alcohol,” according to the conclusive report, just released to the media.

The official ruling by coroner Suzanne Greenaway, as reported by AOL Spinner, is “death by misadventure.” Test results show that the 27-year-old “Rehab” singer died “with a blood alcohol level more than five times that of the drunk-driv[ing] limit.”

One can assume that Amy Winehouse, who was an end stage alcoholic, consumed alcohol so regularly, that her body could no longer determine and send the signals that she was severely intoxicated.

Surprisingly, there were no illegal drugs found in Amy Winehouse’s system, only extreme amounts of alcohol, and according to police detective Les Newman who was on the scene when Winehouse’s body was found on July 23, 2011, “there were numerous empty vodka bottles discovered in her room.”

Winehouse’s physician, Dr. Christina Romete, claims that Winehouse was indeed sober for a time and trying to stay clean. Dr. Romete states that Amy Winehouse had fallen off the wagon and resumed her extreme alcohol use in the days before her untimely death, obviously going on a binge that would intoxicate her body to the point of lethal alcohol poisoning.

Amy’s father, Mitch Winehouse, in the days following the singer’s death, had speculated that his daughter dad died from a combination of alcohol withdrawal, “and possibly overdosed on Librium, a drug used to treat her addiction,” explains AOL Spinner.

Mitch Winehouse may not have known that his famous daughter had actually resumed her use of alcohol.

Have a look at this 1995 audition tape of an 11 year old Scarlett Johansson auditioning for Jumanji:

Everyone has to start somewhere, even a glamorous A-List movie star like Scarlett Johansson. In this audition tape from early on in the actress’s career, an 11 year old Scarlett is giving a screen test audition for the 1995 film, Jumanji. The lead role of the little girl in the film ultimately went to Kirsten Dunst, but Scarlett Johansson looks inquisitive and shows early signs of screen talent in this old audition for the movie role.

Scarlett Johansson went on to build an acting career as a child star, with early film credits like: Home Alone 3 and The Horse Whisperer, which first brought her to the attention of the entertainment industry in 1998. In 2003 Johansson made a star turn in Lost In Translation, followed by critical acclaim for her role in Girl With A Pearl Earring, and Ms. Johansson was then catapulted into the screen goddess stratosphere.