"THERE'S NOTHING as exciting as a comeback -- seeing someone with dreams, watching them fail, and then getting a second chance," says actress Rachel Griffiths.
CLIVE DAVIS continues to treat the rejuvenated Whitney Houston like a piece of fragile china.
Whitney is Clive's greatest discovery and he has been her faithful supporter through thick and thicker. Now that Whitney is in serious comeback mode with her "I Look to You" CD, Clive is even more solicitous and careful not to allow anything to break the spell of her recovery.
Clive went with Whitney to the UK for an appearance on the popular "X Factor" show. (That's where the strap of her gown snapped -- a wardrobe malfunction but not a big reveal. Whitney acted fast to recover. Re-cover?)
Now we hear that Clive is planning for Whitney to guest on the "Dancing With the Stars" finale. No, she won't dance. She'll sing something from her new album and hope to "move" several thousand more discs out of the stores.
I LIKE to think I was the first person ever to write about the movie "Precious." This info appeared here before director Lee Daniels even started filming. And I've been writing about this phenomenon ever since -- a "little" movie that will likely rock Academy Award voters back on their heels again this year.
Last weekend, there was "Precious" with its 16-year-old leading lady, Gabourey Sidibe, on the cover of the New York Times magazine, with an article by Lynn Hirschberg and excellent portraits by Robert Maxwell.
SEVERAL YEARS ago, after Halle Berry won the Oscar for "Monster's Ball," I was seated by that film's producer, Lee Daniels, at a party given by Vogue's Andre Leon Talley. During dinner, Lee told me all his hopes and dreams and we became friends.
What kind of guy is Lee Daniels? He has his association with the "Monster's Ball" Oscar under his belt, as well as another film called "Shadowboxer" made in 2005, starring the distinguished Helen Mirren. Now he is rolling with "Precious," which everybody seemed to love at the recent New York Film Festival.
Lee is gay and is raising two children. He seems to understand women. So Lee set out this time to film the story of a 300-pound adolescent pregnant by her father and horribly abused by her mother.
His onetime manager told Lee no one would want to see such a downbeat, sordid story. It is a tale that many African Americans feel should be left untold.
But Lee got up at both the Sundance and later the Toronto Film Festivals to accept the "audience award" for "Precious." In the bargain, he nabbed those two biggies, Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, as his executive producers.
You are going to hear more and more about this movie based on the book "Push" by Sapphire. It has the comedienne Mo'Nique as the abusive mother, a deglamorized Mariah Carey as a social worker, Paula Patton as a teacher who just happens to be a lesbian and Lenny Kravitz as a nurse.
(Oh, Lenny, do you remember that kiss on the lips you gave me one night in Orso's?)
BUT ENOUGH about me. Once he started dancing on the precipice of so much success, Lee Daniels is in the crosshairs of racial conflict and business envy. Many people say "Precious" is exploitive and negative to the image of black people.
I can't tell you how many insiders in show biz say to me these days that my pal Lee tells fibs, is an inflater of his role in producing movies, or directing them, a show-off, a fake, a fool. I just have to laugh.
It is ever thus as soon as someone does something unusual and seemingly hot in the movie biz. They attract criticism like heat lightning.
Lee fought to make "Precious." He raised the money himself. He talked Miss Carey into trying an unglamorous role. He searched the masses for a suitable teenager and talked Gabourey into playing her. He talked the idol Mo'Nique into jeopardizing her comedy career to portray a monster on film. He talked the talented Harvard graduate Geoffrey Fletcher into writing his screenplay. He talked Winfrey/Tyler into putting their magic names and money on and in his movie.
Plus all of this, Lee is a man who stopped using cocaine, adopted one of his own brother's offspring to raise, cut off his dreadlocks and started wearing a three-piece suit.
And Lee Daniels has some upstanding women in his corner, namely the women of "Precious"; then there's Oprah, Dame Helen Mirren, and, I guess -- me. He's going to do just fine!
WONDERING what the hoopla was yesterday up on Madison Ave at 74th? Italy's ace Valentino was in town signing precious DVD's of his farewell to fashion, the raved about film "Valentino: The Last Emperor." He had Gwyneth Paltrow right beside him at the VBH Store and it was pandemonium. Valentino has been saying goodbye to fashion for several years and he is more fashionable than ever.
(E-mail Liz Smith at MES3838@aol.com, or write to her c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.)
