View over 100 pictures of "The Beach"
Figmentfilms.com
1/31/00
THE BEACH STARRING LEONARDO DICAPRIO

The eagerly awaited feature film THE BEACH will open simultaneously in the US and the UK on Friday 11 February 2000. THE BEACH is a Figment Films production and will be released by Twentieth Century Fox worldwide. Starring "Titanic" star Leonardo DiCaprio as Richard THE BEACH is directed by "Trainspotting's" Danny Boyle. Produced by Andrew Macdonald, THE BEACH is based on the novel by Alex Garland adapted for the screen by John Hodge. THE BEACH marks the fourth collaboration between the Boyle, Macdonald and Hodge trio, whose previous credits together are "Shallow Grave," "Trainspotting" and "A Life Less Ordinary." Co-starring are Robert Carlyle ("Full Monty") as Daffy, Tilda Swinton ("Orlando") as Sal, Virginie Ledoyen ("A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries") as Francoise and Guillaume Canet ("En Cas De Malheur") as Etienne. The behind-the-camera talent includes director of photography Darius Khondji ("Seven"), production designer Andrew McAlpine ("The Piano"), editor Masahiro Hirakubo ("Trainspotting") and costume designer Rachael Fleming ("Trainspotting"). In THE BEACH, DiCaprio portrays an American who arrives in Thailand, a rucksack on his back and adventure on his mind. Travel, he asserts, is the search for experience, the quest for something different; but trying to find anything like that on a planet saturated by guide books - that's the challenge. He checks in to a cheap hotel in Bangkok and encounters Daffy, an older traveller, ravaged by years of sun and drugs. It is Daffy, rambling and paranoid, who tells Richard the improbable tale of a secret island, a paradise on earth on which can be found the perfect beach, unsullied by tourists. The next day, Richard finds a piece of paper pinned to his door. It is a hand drawn map of the island described by Daffy. This, Richard realises, may be the "something different" he has been looking for. Along with two French travellers, Francoise and Etienne, he sets off on a journey, following Daffy's map. A journey that sees them risking their lives: swimming across an open sea from one island to another, crawling past armed guards and jumping from the top of a forty meter waterfall. Reaching their destination, they find a small community of travellers like themselves, existing in secret and tranquil harmony with the island. They are welcomed into the group and soon find that this island paradise has become their home, sapping them of all will to return to the world they knew before. Yet beneath the surface, this heaven on earth is less than perfect. While personal conflict and petty jealousy ferment to create a violent rivalry, a series of tragic events fragments the community. Increasingly isolated and disturbed, Richard finds himself witness to an incident of murderous bloodshed. The dream has become a nightmare; paradise has turned to hell. Now his only goal is to leave, but escape will not be easy for the beach is a secret place, a secret that some will defend to the death. THE BEACH was filmed entirely on location in Thailand. Shooting began on 18th January 1999 for 14 weeks shooting in and around Phuket City, Khao Yai National Park, and on Phi Phi Le. The town of Krabe was used for the Bangkok scenes.
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Complete Newsweek story
Newsweek:
1/31/00
On the Beach

Dark and violent, 'The Beach' is Leonardo DiCaprio's much-anticipated new movie. It's given the pouting party boy titanic PR problems—and may leave 'Leomaniacs' high and dry. For someone who hates reporters, Leonardo DiCaprio has certainly made their lives easy. There's always another bar fight, a public make-out session or a night out prowling with his gang, the tastefully named "pussy posse." The gossip machine followed the 25-year-old superstar all the way to Thailand last year, where he filmed "The Beach," which hits theaters Feb. 11. During production, local environmentalists accused the filmmakers of trashing the island where they were shooting, and protested by putting on Leo masks and bloody fangs. (The filmmakers said they left the beach better than they found it.) At the same time, rumors started flying about Leo and his costar Virginie Ledoyen—the most sensational was that he had gotten her pregnant. Both stars have denied having a relationship. But all the publicity has helped make "The Beach" one of the most highly anticipated movies of the season—so anticipated that Fox executives are getting nervous. Even though they shelled out $20 million for Leo (out of the movie's $50 million budget), they don't want anyone expecting "Titanic."
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Hello! and Total Film:
1/28/00
Pictures from Hello! and Total film

I want to thank Stelingo for scanning in these pictures from 2 UK publications. The first one is from a publication called Hello! the other 3 are from a publication called Total film: the best films first.

Hello!

Total film 1

Total film 2

Total film 3
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Complete NY Times story
NY Times:
1/28/00
The Big Book Is the Second

Cindy Spiegel, editorial co-director of Riverhead, said: "I think there should be awards for second novels. If a second novel succeeds, you know you have the real thing. What we are looking for in a first novel is talent, as much as a story. You can't just keep inventing novelists. As a publisher you need writers you are going to have a long time. You can't tell from a first novel usually." Riverhead is also publishing Alex Garland's second novel, "The Tesseract," totally different from his first, "The Beach," a mystery adventure that has been made into a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.
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Complete SG chronicle story
San Francisco Chronicle:
1/28/00
A Moment to Shine Sundance

If Nicole Kidman stared naked into the mirror in the embrace of her husband in ``Eyes Wide Shut,'' in ``American Psycho'' the naked Bale stares into the mirror with two prostitutes. That's the scene that got the film its NC-17 rating. The restrictive rating is usually a hindrance to a film's box-office potential, but the notoriety surround ing Ellis' novel and the subsequent to-do about the film version (Leonardo DiCaprio was once interested in the lead role) may have generated enough publicity to make the film a hit. Bale's considerable cult appeal will probably help as well when the film is released this spring.
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Salon.com:
1/28/00
Forbidden sex in the dark satire

Christian Bale and director Mary Harron talk about yuppie killers, Brett Easton Ellis' novel and forbidden sex in the dark satire "American Psycho." After the Sundance premiere, Harron ("I Shot Andy Warhol") and Bale ("Velvet Goldmine") fielded questions from a roomful of reporters. What kind of a film would it have been if you had worked with DiCaprio? Harron: You know, I can't say, and it's not because he's not a good actor. It would have been a very, very huge budget film [DiCaprio was reportedly offered $20 million to star], and that would have been a mistake. You know, money matters, and if you go up in the stratosphere on your budget then you have no control over it.
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Link to Movieplace video interview of Leo talking about the Beach
MoviePlace.com:
1/27/00
Leo talk's about Beach role

Checkout the above site for a one-on-one interview with Leonardo DiCaprio talking about his new film the Beach opening on February 11, 2000
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Complete MTV story
MTV:
1/27/00
DiCaprio on the Beach

After a long exile in a place somewhat akin to paradise, Leonardo DiCaprio has finally resurfaced. Well, it's not as if he's been free from public scrutiny completely. After selecting the big-screen adaptation of Alex Garland's heavyweight novel "The Beach" as the project to follow his hormone-stirring roles in "Titanic" and "The Man In The Iron Mask," the lanky, slink-eyed man we all call Leo found himself as hounded by the press on the set in Thailand as he had been while earning a party-boy rep on the streets of New York and L.A. Quick to dismiss the notion that he's less intent on making spot-on career choices than he is on goofing off with his fin de siecle Rat Pack, DiCaprio is set to step into a role that would have belonged to a young Robert De Niro a quarter century ago; that of a young man caught in the turf wars between native New Yorkers and Italian immigrants in the Five Points section of Manhattan near the time of the Civil War in "Gangs Of New York." Directed by Martin Scorsese, of course. In the words of his "Beach" director Danny Boyle (the man who helmed "Trainspotting"), DiCaprio is a far cry from the "unfeeling guy shagging his way around Manhattan," as he's perceived to be by the press and, perhaps, those fans who swooned for Jack Dawson, his impossibly treacle-stained hero in "Titanic." Fortunately for Leo, he's put ol' Jack far behind him and is moving on. MTV News' Chris Connelly met up with DiCaprio in the sunny climes of Hawaii for an exclusive sit-down about his new movie "The Beach," his Icon Status, and why he keeps buying the same CDs over and over again. Let's get reacquainted, shall we?
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Complete Hollywood.com story
Hollywood.com:
1/27/00
Who Is Spider-Man?

For the record, the following names have been linked to "Spider-Man" since 1993: James Cameron, Ron Howard, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Chris Columbus, Jan De Bont, Stephen Sommers, Ivan Reitman, Barry Sonnenfeld, Sam Raimi, the Wachowski brothers, Terry Gilliam and Robert Rodriguez, in no particular order, have been rumored to direct. Charlie Sheen, Corin Nemec ("Parker Lewis Can't Lose"), Michael Biehn ("Aliens," "Terminator"), Bruce Campbell ("Army of Darkness"), Jason Patric, Leonardo DiCaprio, Owen Wilson, Jim Carrey and Australian actor Heath Ledger ("10 Things I Hate About You") have all been rumored to star as Peter Parker/Spidey.
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Complete LA Weekly story
LA Weekly:
1/27/00
There She is, Miss Macabre

Far from being a somber event, COVEN 13's GOTHIC BEAUTY PAGEANT 2000 held at EL REY was more like the Transylvanian party scene in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.... ESCAPE FROM ANGELYNE When the co-hosts included JEFFREY BEST and BRYAN RABIN, a killer combination, it was time to brush teeth, change that filthy old shirt and head over to Raleigh Studios, where TANQUERAY was dishing out free drinks. Thanks to Bryan, we flew over the milelong queue of beautiful under-25s, who looked like they'd wait all night to get into the opening of a door if there were a free Singapore Sling for them inside. We didn't have the patience to battle through to the fashion show in the A-list compound, thus blowing our big chance to ogle LEONARDO DiCAPRIO (pictured), JENNY McCARTHY, ROSE McGOWAN, STEPHEN DORFF, TORI SPELLING, SEAL, RACHEL HUNTER, THE BACKSTREET BOYS, CHINA CHOW, DMX, BILLY ZANE, BAI LING, members of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, GREEN DAY and everyone's fave mom, PAT LOUD.
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Complete MSNBC story
MSNBC:
1/27/00
Women with vision

Women with vision They’re taking this year’s Sundance by storm with entries that have wit and brutality In the early years of the Sundance Film Festival —before Hollywood agents and the media discovered the place — the typical independent film directed by a woman was a tender coming-of-age story set on a farm. Sensitive with a capital S. And often more than a little sleep inducing. THOSE DAYS are long gone. Sundance 2000 was touted in advance as ‘The Year of the Woman,’ and it may not have been hype. As the festival nears the end of its first half, what’s striking is how female directors have muscled their way into genres that used to be the exclusive property of the guys. The most notorious case in point: “American Psycho” (a.k.a. the movie that Leo was going to make and didn’t). From the very funny opening scene in an ’80s uptown New York restaurant, in which the waiter’s recitation of the chef’s specials perfectly recalls the Yuppie excess of Reagan-era Wall Street, it’s clear that director Mary Harron has sharpened her satirical skewers to a fine point. It’s hard to imagine the waifish DiCaprio fitting into this vision; a pumped up Christian Bale, his gleaming skin as perfect as a Calvin Klein ad, plays Bret Easton Ellis’s soulless white collar serial killer with exactly the cartoon broadness Harron requires. The movie came into Sundance with bad buzz. But in fact, it’s a stylish and accomplished film — a period piece black comedy with a nastily effective sense of humor. The trouble is, after an hour of dissecting the ’80s culture of narcissism, materialism and greed, the movie has nowhere to go and nothing more to say. It becomes more grisly, but not more interesting. The difficulty of making cartoon satires is that cartoons rarely have more than one level.
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Complete Variety story
Variety:
1/27/00
"Ocean's Eleven,"

"Ocean's Eleven" is on course to be the second Rat Pack-related WB project with star potential. "Dino," the Dean Martin biopic scripted by Nick Pileggi and director Martin Scorsese has Tom Hanks likely for the starring role, and a swarm of A-listers looming for showy small roles. Though there's interest from a bunch of $20 million-a-pic actors, the film's cast will be predicated on scheduling, and whether Scorsese goes forward with the Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer "Gangs of New York," which still seems tenuous as a Disney-Miramax co-production.
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Complete Time story
Time Magazine:
1/26/00
Boys Don't Cry

Boys Don't Cry has catapulted Hilary Swank into the major leagues. Will she be able to stay there? She's already begun taking meetings. So far she's talked to practically every studio, as well as Robert De Niro and director Michael Bay. Last week she met Ridley Scott, who's scouting a female lead for Hannibal now that Jodie Foster has declined to reprise her Silence of the Lambs role. "I haven't sat with [Martin] Scorsese yet," says Swank, who's angling for a part in his Gangs of New York opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, though she hears Cameron Diaz has an inside track. "That will be my truly impressive meeting."
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Complete E! story
E! Online:
1/26/00
Bale Talks "Psycho"

PARK CITY, UTAH--Christian Bale has had his share of killer roles, but this time it's literal. The very British actor is a convincing American Psycho--the superrich '70s stockbroker and serial killer in the controversial adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' much reviled novel. (Recap: Leo DiCaprio was in, director Mary Harron was out; Leo bowed out, Harron's back in with Bale, and now the NC-17 brouhaha.)
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Excite News:
1/26/00
DiCaprio Discusses Latest Role

Leonardo DiCaprio says his role as a rootless backpacker in Thailand in "The Beach" reflects his own life search. "It was the only thing that I really connected with and really thought meant something," he said in Wednesday's USA Today. "Not to say that I only want to do projects that have some sort of message to society, but I really identified with this character's search for getting out of a robotic existence and trying to find some sort of real sensation of emotion." "The Beach" opens Feb. 11. It follows "Titanic," which made DiCaprio a superstar. DiCaprio, 25, takes his profession seriously and says he's grateful for the fame. "It's a series of much more highs and lows since `Titanic,' but I think I'm a very fortunate person," he said. "I don't have a negative attitude about fame at all. I'm not tortured or constrained by it. ... It's given me the opportunity to do the one thing in my life that I know is a true passion of mine, which is acting."
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Complete NY Daily News story
NY Daily News:
1/25/00
Every 'Eye' on Ewan

All told, 10 books chronicling the life of McGregor — mega-star from last year's mega-hit "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" — were released last year alone. Still another is scheduled for July. You would think the guy was Leonardo DiCaprio or something. McGregor says he just doesn't get it.
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LA Times:
1/25/00
Glamour magazine's new West Coast beauty

Glamour magazine's new West Coast beauty and fitness editor, Jennifer Meyer, was feted recently by editor in chief Bonnie Fuller at Le Colonial in West Hollywood. The Glamourpuss' papa is Universal Studios President Ron Meyer, so there were some guests one wouldn't normally expect to be at such an affair, including Leonardo why-do-we-care-where-you-always-are-but-we-do DiCaprio, and rappers Nas and Heavy D. Glamour ought to get some serious mileage out of this relationship. In fact, Fuller and her Glamour crew are hosting the premiere party for Leo's upcoming movie "The Beach" in the middle of next month's fashion week in New York. As Tony Soprano can tell you, it's all about family.
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USA Today:
1/25/00
British reports a flap involving Hurley

INSIDERS: British reports of a flap involving Elizabeth Hurley and a drunken guest who supposedly pawed her shoulder after Talk magazine's pre-Globes party Saturday seem to be highly exaggerated. A guest apparently bumped into her as she and Hugh Grant waited for a car at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood; security took them out via the underground garage, according to a hotel spokeswoman. A Talk spokeswoman said they were very satisfied with the security. Leonardo DiCaprio had said he might go and had turned down special security arrangements, but he didn't show. But the party was a great mix, from Robert De Niro and his daughter to the entire cast of Sex and the City, plus The Green Mile's Michael Clarke Duncan. Duncan left midparty to go outside and sign autographs for fans; when he came out again after the party, he got an ovation.
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NY Post:
1/25/00
JERRY: too much fun.

WORK hard, play hard, appears to be Jerry Springer's motto. The raunchy talkmeister had too much fun at the Sunset Club in Hollywood the other night with his buxom blonde date. According to an eyewitness, the bespectacled party animal hopped from room to room drinking with Leonardo DiCaprio and Vince Vaughn until "he ended up puking his guts out in the toilet while [his date] waited outside. She was very p---ed off," said our spy. Springer's rep denied all: "Jerry doesn't drink."
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San Jose Mercury News:
1/25/00
Leo talks with Lucas about Anakin role

Leonardo DiCaprio, in Hawaii on Sunday pushing ``The Beach,'' opening Feb. 11, said he's been in talks with George Lucas about playing Anakin Skywalker in the next ``Star Wars'' movie set for shooting this summer in Australia.
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New Musical Express:
1/25/00
ORBITAL TEAM UP WITH 'TITANIC' STAR Orbital: Where's the beach? ORBITAL have teamed up with Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio on a new track called 'Beached' - and it's set to be released as a single on February 28 through London. Leo provides spoken vocals on the song which makes up the soundtrack to his new film 'The Beach'. The track is Orbital's own interpretation of Angelo Badalamenti's score for the new movie, due out on February 11. Badalamenti's previously worked on the films of David Lynch, including writing the music for 'Twin Peaks', and with James lead singer Tim Booth. However, the released Orbital single doesn't actually appear in the film. The single features a radio edit of 'Beached', plus a full version of the track, which is different again from that featured on the original 'The Beach' soundtrack, which is an edit by Pete Tong. The third track is another brand new Orbital song called 'Doctor, Lookout!'. Orbital are now working on their sixth album, the follow-up to 1998's 'The Middle of Nowhere'. As yet untitled, it's slated for a summer release and is rumoured to show yet another "shift in sound" for Orbital. Meanwhile, 'The Beach' soundtrack is released through London Records on February 14. It features a host of specially recorded tracks including Leftfield's 'Snakeblood', 'Brutal' by New Order, 'Eightball' by Underworld, 'Return Of Django' by Asian Dub Foundation, 'It's Business As Usual' by Barry Adamson and All Saint's new track 'Pure Shores', the first single from the film, which is released on February 7, also through London.
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National Enquirer:
1/25/00
DiCAPRIO CHEATS ON GIRLFRIEND AT THEIR OWN PARTY

LUSTY LEONARDO DiCaprio had his girlfriend seeing double when she caught him cheating right under her nose -- with two hot babes. Gorgeous Kidada Jones got her nasty surprise at the $300,000 Y2K bash she co-hosted with the "Titanic" hunk. "Leo and Kidada shared a warm stroke-of-midnight kiss, but then she couldn't find him anywhere," a close friend revealed. "When she checked the mansion's downstairs discotheque, there was Leo, playing kissy-face with two women! "She was visibly upset, but she simply gave him the evil eye, then turned and walked out of the room." Kidada, the stunning 25-year-old daughter of former "Mod Squad" star Peggy Lipton and producer Quincy Jones, recently rekindled her iffy 11 2-year romance with philandering Leo. "She's nuts about him, and she's hoping against hope he'll change his ways," disclosed an insider. "But the reality is she knows Leo just can't be true to one gal. "In the end, when Kidada confronted him, he told her he was sorry for causing her pain. But in the meantime, he's chasing everything in skirts, and it's eating Kidada's heart out."
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Chicago Suntimes:
1/25/00
Tales float like icebergs but DiCaprio sails on

He's still king of the whirl. Two years after ``Titanic'' mania, Leonardo DiCaprio just wants to keep his head above water. ``Every day it's a new rumor,'' he told me last weekend with a sigh. Looking like a young James Dean with his hair slicked back and wearing a tight black T-shirt, DiCaprio sat down over a breakfast where no topic was off limits. ``No, I'm not dating Carmen Electra. No, I didn't get my co-star pregnant on my new movie.'' With a heavy sigh, he said, ``I used to take things personally. I would often think, `This is going to eat me alive!' I would want to give a press conference every five minutes. Now I just don't care anymore. It's all so ridiculous.'' Now the truth: Yes, he wants to star in the next ``Star Wars'' as a slightly older Anakin Skywalker. Sort of. ``I've talked with George Lucas about it,'' he said. ``But I haven't seen a script. We've just had one conversation.'' Did he insist on a script because ``The Phantom Menace'' left so many disappointed? ``I need to see a script of anything I'm a part of. Period,'' DiCaprio demurred. Can he knock off Jar-Jar Binks for us? ``Hey, hey now! Low blow! I'm not commenting!'' a good-natured Leo retorted. Like that famed Celine Dion song, he would go on and on about other topics: * Yes, girls, he's single. ``I don't say that sadly,'' he said, insisting, ``I know you read that I party, but most nights I'm sitting at home. Maybe I get on my Web site. Talk to people.'' Recent reports of him smooching with Electra strike him as ``unbelievable. I'm shocked about how easily people will lie about what I do.'' * No, he doesn't hate ``Titanic'' director James Cameron. ``I didn't dis him at all in Talk magazine!'' said DiCaprio, 25, of a recent article that reported he dumped ice water on Cameron during the last day of shooting. ``It was like Gatorade poured on the coach's head.'' He added, ``I've said many times before that, yes, Cameron does have a certain personality. The truth is it takes a commanding, general-like man to do a movie like `Titanic.' '' Would he work with him again? ``Depends on the project.'' * Yes, he's excited to work with Martin Scorsese on ``Gangs of New York,'' an upcoming movie revolving around New York gang culture in the 1850s. ``It is going to happen, which is a dream come true for me. I play this young character named Amsterdam who comes back to avenge his father's death.'' Filming begins in Rome this spring. * No, Leo did not destroy a beach for his romantic action thriller ``The Beach,'' due out Feb. 11. There were environmental protests in Thailand after ``The Beach'' was shot on the island of Phi Phi Lee. To make paradise even better, three tons of garbage were removed from the real beach. With permission of local authorities, the film crews also planted 100 coconut trees and lowered two sand dunes. ``We were targeted as this big Hollywood machine that came in and disrespected this island. A total lie,'' DiCaprio said. ``We helped the place.'' * Finally, he can't understand people who have seen ``Titanic'' 100 times. ``I've only seen it five times myself,'' he said. To the fanatics, he said, ``Go outside. Have some fun.''
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Official DiCaprio Web site:
1/24/00
All that Junk

Maui, Hawaii — Reaction to the screening was strong and sustained. Enthusiasm was brimming for Leonardo’s new film THE BEACH during its first official International Press Junket. Arriving late and exhausted after my six hour flight from LA Friday (1/14/00), I missed most of Leo’s only day off — he was out scuba diving with pal Tobey Macguire — but there was more than enough to keep me occupied. The hotel lobby was teeming with press from all over the world. Most, having just seen the film, chatted ravenously about there favorite scenes, while others stooped in their respective corners, ruminating over the most pertinent questions to be asked as they scribbled furiously in their reporter’s notebooks. Although it was exhaustive, (to say nothing of exhausting) Leonardo pulled through with flying colors, participating in endless press conferences, round table discussions and TV & Radio interviews along with Director Danny Boyle and producer Andrew MacDonald. The questions never stopped, only the voices delivering them. Even Fergie, the Duchess of York, got in on the action before the morning was over, interviewing Leonardo one-on-one, for THE TODAY SHOW. Everybody was there; from MTV to The L.A. Times to a Taiwanese game show — it was All Beach, All the Time, this particular weekend, with the press lined up to question its accommodating young star. Although at times the junket seemed more like a "pressure" conference, I felt that Leonardo handled it pretty well. When asked "So, what’s your idea of the perfect woman?" Leonardo smiled but did not falter and when the more hard hitting questions came up, he answered them with a calm fluidity. Not having much time to survey the island, Leonardo and company decided to extend their stay for one more day in Paradise, enjoying a helicopter tour and ending up in Hana, an old fishing village on Maui’s most remote side. They hovered over cliffs lined with water-falls, side by side, plunged into a voluminous bamboo forest so dense, it created a mid-day twilight. And, if that wasn’t enough adventure, the brief tropical safari concluded with some spelunking (repelling) down an ancient lava shaft. Being in a movie about Paradise, foraging through a lushly tropical land the day after a junket devoted to THE BEACH, these days it sure seems that Leonardo is just your regular Beach-head.
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NY Daily News:
1/24/00
Fergie's Got the Scoop

One interviewer stood out when Leonardo DiCaprio did his recent Hawaiian press junket for "The Beach." The redhead with the notepad was Sarah Ferguson. Fergie posed questions for NBC's "Today" show. "She did a first-rate job," says one witness to the celeb dialectic, due to air on Feb. 9. "They seemed to get along. She'd clearly thought about the movie." A tabloid target herself, Ferguson stayed away from the actor's personal life. But DiCaprio's "Beach" co-star, Virginie Ledoyen, says he didn't give anyone much to gossip about during their shoot. "For four months, his day began at 6 o'clock in the morning," Ledoyen tells Details, where she poses in a crochet bikini. "He's very professional." Thank goodness for us he's back partying in L.A. Friday night, Leo and his crew were the last to leave the party Tanqueray Gin threw — maybe because the waitresses wore only T-shirts, knee boots and Union Jack knickers. The night before, Leo stopped by a Glamour bash at Le Colonial, where his buddy Tobey Maguire canoodled with Quincy Jones' daughter, Rashida.
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Complete LA Times story
LA Times:
1/24/00
In Pursuit of Paradise

KAPALUA, Hawaii--"We're coming down the hallway now," a serious voice squawks from the speaker end of a walkie-talkie. "We're rounding the corner." The scratchy sound of movement, footsteps. "We can see the door," the voice continues. Static. Suspense builds. The woman from 20th Century Fox and I wait in silence. Then, suddenly, "OK, we're here." It's like a scene from one of those movies about the president in peril, with Secret Service agents tracking the chief executive's every move inside the White House. Only it's not the president being tracked here, it's Leonardo DiCaprio. The door swings open, the walkie-talkies meet, and in comes Leo, as the world has come to know him in the two years since "Titanic" became a titanic success and his tender countenance an international emblem of undying love. At his side is a gray-haired political consultant named Ken Sunshine, who used to advise former New York Mayor David Dinkins. He's working on Leo's campaign now. "Nice to meet you." "Nice to meet you." "Where do you want to sit?" I ask. The negotiations to get an interview with Leo have been so arduous and politically charged, it's surprising we haven't yet talked about the shape of the table and the size of the chairs. Not that, it would appear, Leo could care in the least. He's just the fresh-faced star whose talent and good fortune to have been on director James Cameron's short list of young leading men when the big ship went down again have turned him into a $20-million, name-above-the-title player and media phenomenon--a 25-year-old who needs bodyguards and Ken Sunshine.
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Sydney Morning Herald:
1/24/00
The Beach reflects his own life search

Leonardo DiCaprio says his role as a rootless backpacker in Thailand in The Beach reflects his own life search. "It was the only thing that I really connected with and really thought meant something," he said in USA Today. "Not to say that I only want to do projects that have some sort of message to society, but I really identified with this character's search for getting out of a robotic existence and trying to find some sort of real sensation of emotion." The Beach opens in the US on February 11. It follows Titanic, which made DiCaprio a superstar. DiCaprio, 25, takes his profession seriously and says he's grateful for the fame. "It's a series of much more highs and lows since Titanic, but I think I'm a very fortunate person," he said. "I don't have a negative attitude about fame at all. I'm not tortured or constrained by it ... It's given me the opportunity to do the one thing in my life that I know is a true passion of mine, which is acting."
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Official Beach Web Site
Thai Students Site:
1/21/00
Beach Web Site's go on-line

The full and final versions of the official Beach web sites have just gone on-line. They have many pictures, lots of information and competitions for tickets to the premiere, special screenings and also Beach goodies. The three main web sites are listed below. It is worth checking them all out as they are not the same and also have different competition prizes You will need to cut and paste the following links

USA:http://www.thebeachmovie.com/
UK:http://www.thebeachmovie.co.uk/
Asia: http://www.foxasia.com/thebeachmovie/html/main.html

This information provided from the web site produced by the Teachers and students at Sriwittayapaknam School in Thailand. checkout their Beach site at http://thaistudents.com/thebeach/
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Full Yahoo story
Yahoo News:
1/21/00
Motorola Joins Sundance Film Festival as an Official Sponsor

Motorola's participation at the Sundance Film Festival is yet another example of the company's ongoing effort to build its presence and profile in Hollywood. Recently, Motorola kicked off the opening of its new Hollywood office with a star-studded celebration at Hollywood hot-spot Blue. The party drew the support of Hollywood heavy-hitters such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Courteney Cox-Arquette, Lucy Liu, Michael Bolton, Matt LeBlanc and Kate Moss, to name a few.
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Full story
Excite News:
1/20/00
Quiet Season Offers Some Star Turns

Movie-goers will get "shafted" in 2000 and see Tom Cruise accomplish another impossible mission. But first, a little quiet time. Before the summer spectacles hit, including "Mission: Impossible 2" and an update of the 1970s detective franchise "Shaft," Hollywood enters its traditional winter hibernation. For the next few months, new movies will roll out in a trickle compared with the mad Oscar dash of late last year. Though it's the industry's slowest period, there is some star power sprinkled in the mix, with films featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts, Madonna, Meg Ryan, Bruce Willis - and Tigger, Pooh and Eeyore. THE BEACH: Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a backpacker in Thailand on a quest for paradise after he inherits a map to an idyllic, unspoiled beach. Feb. 11.
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Variety:
1/20/00
Caesar subject of epic pic from Mann, Hanks

Tom Hanks and Michael Mann will team up on an untitled pitch for an epic film about Julius Caesar and his battle with Pompey the Great to become the undisputed master of the world. Hanks and Mann are in talks to locate the project at Disney, where Mann will direct it. At present, Hanks is aboard solely as producer. The script is being written by John Orloff, who wrote an episode of the Hanks-Steven Spielberg-produced HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers” that Spielberg is expected to direct. The pitch is an ambitious story about Julius Caesar’s rise to power in ancient Rome. Caesar has become too successful a general for his own good, and he risks execution by a jealous Roman Senate unless he begins a brutal civil war against his closest friend and mentor, Pompey. He presses the campaign, knowing that only one of them can survive and that the victor becomes the most powerful figure in the world. The film will be a co-production between Mann’s Forward Pass and Playtone, the shingle Hanks runs with Gary Goetzman. Mann, whose “The Insider” has created Oscar buzz, particularly for star Russell Crowe, is circling several projects, including a biopic of Howard Hughes at Disney — which he plans to do with Leonardo DiCaprio from a script by John Logan (“Any Given Sunday”). After months of negotiations, Mann recently agreed to develop a screen version of the Steven Pressfield novel “Gates of Fire,” about the 300 battle-hardened Spartans who held off 50,000 Persians in the battle of Thermopylae in Greece. Universal has long held the option on the book and had David Self (“13 Days”) write the script. Self will rewrite the film under Mann’s supervision. CAA repped Mann, Hanks and Orloff.
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Full story
Excite News:
1/20/00
iwin.com Take Web Surfers to 'The Beach'

iwin.com, the incentive-based games and interactive entertainment site, is giving users the chance to experience the glamour of Hollywood and the lush beauty of Thailand first hand with two fantasy give-aways. One lucky iwin.com visitor will receive a trip for two to Los Angeles to attend the February 2nd world premiere of Leonardo DiCaprio's highly anticipated new film "The Beach," while two other winners will each receive a trip for two to Thailand to visit some of the exotic locations featured in the film. In addition, 30 winners will receive "The Beach" prize packages, which include the film's poster, t-shirt and soundtrack, as well as the book that inspired the film....
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Full story
Excite News:
1/20/00
Court TV Premieres New Series, Hollywood

Hollywood & Crime, Court TV's new legal magazine show on celebrities and the justice system, will be hosted by international celebrity expert Alison Holloway. Premiering on Friday, January 21 at 7:00 PM/ET, the series offers a glimpse into the private lives of some of Hollywood's hottest superstars and their public dealings with the justice system. Hollywood & Crime will air back-to-back episodes each week on Friday evenings from 7:00-8:00 PM/ET, and features such celebrities as Leonardo DiCaprio, Tim Allen, and Dennis Rodman..... Upcoming episodes in February include American Beauties, Innocence Lost, and Jailhouse to Penthouse. American Beauties will focus on the courtroom trials of sex-symbols Farrah Fawcett and Anna Nicole Smith, while Innocence Lost will focus on the brushes with the law that young stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, 'N SYNC and Willie Ames (Eight is Enough) have faced. Jailhouse to Penthouse will showcase celebrities such as Don King and Charles Dutton, who have spent time in prison for violent crimes....
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Excite News:
1/20/00
DiCaprio Discusses Latest Role

Leonardo DiCaprio says his role as a rootless backpacker in Thailand in "The Beach" reflects his own life search. "It was the only thing that I really connected with and really thought meant something," he said in Wednesday's USA Today. "Not to say that I only want to do projects that have some sort of message to society, but I really identified with this character's search for getting out of a robotic existence and trying to find some sort of real sensation of emotion." "The Beach" opens Feb. 11. It follows "Titanic," which made DiCaprio a superstar. DiCaprio, 25, takes his profession seriously and says he's grateful for the fame. "It's a series of much more highs and lows since `Titanic,' but I think I'm a very fortunate person," he said. "I don't have a negative attitude about fame at all. I'm not tortured or constrained by it. ... It's given me the opportunity to do the one thing in my life that I know is a true passion of mine, which is acting."
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NY Daily News:
1/19/00
Indie Movies Ready For Their Closeup

Hundreds of film entrepreneurs with medium-size wallets will be panning for gold at Sundance 2000, which opens tomorrow for a 10-day blitz of independent movies and deal-making. Among the entries, here are some that can be categorized in a way most fitting for the festival that changed the nature of the indie scene back in 1989 with Stephen Soderbergh's breakout "sex, lies, & videotape": SEX "American Psycho": The movie Leo DiCaprio almost made arrives draped in deep scarlet (see accompanying story). Christian Bale stars as the emotionally disconnected serial killer of Bret Easton Ellis' novel, with "I Shot Andy Warhol's" Mary Harron directing.
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Complete USA Today story
USA Today:
1/19/00
All that glitters is Golden Globes gift

On Saturday, Talk magazine, launched in the fall, hosts its first Globes party, an informal buffet dinner at Ian Schrager's Mondrian hotel. Cover boy Leonardo DiCaprio hasn't RSVPed yet, but editor Tina Brown expects to host her usual mix, including Kevin Spacey, Lara Flynn Boyle with Jack Nicholson, Oliver Stone, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin, Tobey Maguire, Chloe Sevigny, LL Cool J. Talk is a Miramax enterprise. Company chief Harvey Weinstein won't be there, but his brother, Bob, tells me the good news is that Harvey's bacterial infection is over. He's recuperating nicely in the hospital and should be back to work in the next several weeks.
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Complete E! story
E! Online:
1/19/00
"American Psycho" Slapped with NC-17"

Lions Gate plans to appeal the rating, which is the latest hurdle for a movie that has been dogged by controversy. Prior to shooting, Bale was pulled from the project and Leonardo DiCaprio brought in--for about $20 million. After the National Organization for Women condemned his choice, the Titanic star bailed, citing scheduling conflicts. When shooting finally began in Toronto, there were several local protests objecting to the film's subject matter.
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Complete Excite News story
Excite News:
1/19/00
Writer Carroll fills U. Michigan audience with words, music

Carroll developed tremendous basketball skills, and he used them to land a scholarship at posh Trinity High School. His days as an athlete were short-lived, however. Carroll fed his growing heroin addiction by stealing and hustling gay men, and he recorded all this in his journal between the ages of 12 and 16, (1962-1966). These tales later bore fruit when he published "The Basketball Diaries" in 1978, his most famous book to date. Most of Jim Carroll's fans know of him through this work, since it was adapted into a film in 1995, with star-studded Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of Carroll.
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NY Daily News:
1/18/00
Playing Jedi knight Anakin Skywalker

Leonardo DiCaprio confirms he's been talking with George Lucas about playing Jedi knight Anakin Skywalker. "I don't know where I stand for that project, because I haven't heard from George since our initial discussion," DiCaprio tells the Calgary Sun. Lucas begins shooting the new "Star Wars" prequel in Sydney, Australia, this summer. But DiCaprio could have trouble getting there. Starting in March, he's due to spend several months shooting Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York"
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Complete LA Times story
LA Times:
1/18/00
Kip Kinkel on "Frontline"

Kip Kinkel, 15, shot dead his mother and father and then murdered two students and wounded 25 others at his high school in Springfield, Ore., for which he was sentenced to 111 years in prison with no possibility of parole.... ...Was it his earlier expulsion from school for having a loaded gun in his locker? His taking notice of school shootings in Pearl City, Miss., Paducah, Ky., and Jonesboro, Ark.? Or was it the 1996 movie version of "Romeo & Juliet" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes that he saw in his freshman English class? We hear that Kip loved the story, that students who watch it inevitably blame the dead young lovers' parents for its tragic conclusion, and that a CD from the film was on continuous play inside the Kinkel home when the bodies of his mother and father were discovered there. The violence of an earlier DiCaprio film, "The Basketball Diaries," was cited by some as motivating the trench-coated pair of young gunmen in the Columbine High School shootings. Shakespeare, too, launching a killer? If so, it may be impossible to predict what movie or experience might set off a troubled mind. The "Frontline" program raises questions without drawing conclusions, except as Boyer notes ominously, "Some of us are raising killers in our homes."
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Picture with story
Mr Showbiz:
1/18/00
Leo Feeds Star Wars Rumors

It's Take 24 on the rumor that Leonardo DiCaprio, the star of the biggest film of all time, will join up with the biggest franchise of all time, Star Wars. Spies who spotted DiCaprio at the Skywalker ranch last year began buzzing that the 25-year-old actor was first in line to play the teenage Anakin in Star Wars: Episode II. The Titanic star was there for a private screening of The Phantom Menace, he later revealed. So, there's no more to this Leo-Anakin rumor than there is to the one that he'd star in a fourth Godfather, right? Not so fast. While promoting his new film, The Beach, last week, Leo addressed those Star Wars rumors with Entertainment Tonight. The word from Leo: Yes, he and Lucas talked about his playing Anakin and, yes, he'd like to do it — but there's no official word one way or the other. While we here at Mr. Showbiz like to remain calm and level-headed in the face of these oft-changing casting rumors, we'd like to point out a similar conversation with future Obi Wan Kenobi, Ewan McGregor, before his casting in The Phantom Menace was made official. Besides not having lined up its new Anakin, Episode II, which is slated to start production in five months or so, still doesn't have a completed script. Commenting last week to CNN about his award from the American Jewish Committee, Lucas revealed that he was still working on the script. Said Lucas, "We start shooting in June, and … hopefully, it will be finished by October."
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NY Post:
1/18/00
Timing squeeze for ‘Beach' bash

GLAMOUR magazine -- hoping to land French actress Virginie Ledoyen for its March cover -- is hosting the New York premiere of "The Beach" on Feb. 6. Ledoyen has the coveted role of Leonardo DiCaprio's bikini-clad love interest in the movie about utopia gone bad. The timing was tricky here because the date falls smack in the middle of Fashion Week, which will have so many celebs tied down at the shows. While dates for the movie's Los Angeles, London and even Berlin openings were confirmed last year, brains were wracked at 20th Century Fox before a slot was found on that Sunday after the 5 p.m. Diane Von Furstenburg show, and during the less important Victor Alfaro show at Bryant Park. The beach-themed post-premiere party will be hosted by Glamour's editor-in-chief, Bonnie Fuller, who couldn't be reached for comment yesterday. She was en route Los Angeles to host another bash in honor of Jennifer Meyer, Glamour's new West Coast beauty editor.
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NY Daily News:
1/17/00
playing Don Ho?

Is Leonardo DiCaprio thinking about playing Don Ho? He and pal Tobey Maguire listened raptly to a ukulele performer in the lobby of Maui's Ritz-Carlton hotel last week, where Leo is promoting his movie "The Beach."
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Mr. Showbiz:
1/17/00
Casting Call: Norton, Cruise, Travolta, More

A new star-director team has emerged in the great Howard Hughes film-off. In this corner, newcomer Edward Norton as the movie-mogul billionaire, coached by two-time Oscar winner Milos Forman. They'd be up against heavyweight contenders Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Mann, whose project has long been set up at Disney (Mr. Showbiz's parent company) — not to mention that Warren Beatty has, as Variety's Dish puts it, "long pined to do a biopic" of the late, eccentric Hughes. A version with Johnny Depp as the onetime head of RKO has apparently been sidelined. The project being considered by the Norton team is based at New Regency with Charles Evans Jr. producing and is contingent on whether the producer formally aligns with Disney on the Mann-DiCaprio project. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who penned the biopics Man on the Moon and The People vs. Larry Flynt for Forman and are currently working on one about the Marx Brothers, confirm they've been approached about the Hughes project. "Ten years ago we would have said, 'How can you go up against Warren Beatty?' and now it's, 'How can you go up against Michael Mann and Leonardo?'" Alexander tells Variety. "As writers, the problem is we'd have to spend the year working hard before finding out the project across the street has gotten a greenlight and we've wasted our time. With both Andy Kaufman and Larry Flynt, we knew we were the only ones," adds Karaszewski. Well, in his youth, Hughes was a more dashing figure than either of those oddballs. The creator of the Spruce Goose romanced Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner and discovered va-va-voom potential in Jane Russell. The oddball aspect came much later in life, as he sequestered himself in virtual seclusion.
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The Express
1/17/00
I've packed up being a brat, says Leonardo

HOLLYWOOD star Leon-ardo DiCaprio is uncomfortable with fame but says he realises he can no longer be a "normal person". At 25, the Titanic actor's heart-throb image of his teenage years is set to change radically with the release of his next movie, an adaptation of best-selling novel The Beach. DiCaprio pocketed a £12million salary for the film, putting him in the same league as Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarz-enegger and Tom Hanks. Now a superstar, DiCaprio has happily played along with the media image of him as a hellraiser. "But fame was all so unreal to me when it happened," he says in his first major interview since Titanic. "It was almost like a joke." DiCaprio says that when he became famous he was "determined to be who I was and I was going to lead my normal life and do what I was going to do no matter what people say". Now he says he has grown up enough to realise he can never go back. DiCaprio agrees he has "had to compromise". He explains: "I take more responsibility for what I do." He describes the moment he realised he could not pretend his fame had not happened. "I was at an airport somewhere," he recalls. "This girl grabbed my leg. It was like one of those things I had seen in a Beatles or Elvis documentary. There was this lost, vacant look in her eyes. "She was a fanatical fan. I wanted to say to her 'Look, it's just me. I'm really, truly, a regular guy. You don't need to do this.' But there was nothing I could say. She wouldn't have listened." The Beach is set among western travellers on a Thai island. Filming it with British Trainspotting director Danny Boyle was not a smooth process. It was interrupted by environmental protests, tropical storms and stinging jellyfish, which took a particular shine to the young star. But DiCaprio says the film was "a breeze" compared with the gruelling process of shooting Titanic. "The hardest thing I've had to do was make that movie," he says. "Everything was hard. Every day." He also reveals that he and Kate Winslet had constant rows with director James Cameron as they tried to get him to change dialogue they regarded as "corn". The actor tells in the interview with US magazine Talk, how much he owes to his parents - his mother Irmelin, a German refugee who spent her life as a legal secretary, and his father George, whose grandfather was an immigrant from Italy, sailing to America in a wooden boat. His father was a Bohemian figure closely involved with the world of alternative and underground comics which began proliferating in California in the late Sixties. He was also a friend of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and LSD guru Timothy Leary. "My parents knew ever since I was a young man that I always wanted to be an actor," says bachelor boy DiCaprio. "They drove me to auditions. Helped me with my lines. Ever since I was 13. "My mother meant everything to me. The stability and honesty she gave me. "She was born in Germany right when World War II was hitting and came to America right after. She had a really messed-up life." His parents split up soon after his birth. "I saw both my parents all the time," he recalls. "But I lived with my mother." She and his grandmother both make cameo appearances in The Beach. "My dad is a Buddha-like figure to me," says DiCaprio. "He's like what I would like to be someday. I would like to be together like that." But if DiCaprio says he has calmed down - bratpack parties with drugs and girls are lower down the agenda these days - he also admits to being fairly obnoxious when he got his first break, aged 17, in This Boy's Life with Robert De Niro. "I had the big meeting with De Niro," recalls DiCaprio. "I read a scene with him. To make an impression I yelled some of the lines in his face."I was a smart-ass in a lot of ways. Very over-confident."
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Chicago Tribune:
1/14/00
SIGH-OGRAPHY WRITERS OF `UNAUTHORIZED' BIOGS OF PRE-TEEN HEARTTHROBS CRANK OUT THE PUFF, RAKE IN THE CASH

Harry Pottermania may have captured media headlines last year; but another publishing phenomenon arguably put more young noses in books than Harry did: unauthorized biographies. "Unauthorized" may be a little misleading. These fan-targeted books are shamelessly flattering to their subjects, and no one would call them great works of literature. But they are great sellers. The boy band 'N Sync has inspired two giant sellers. According to its publisher, Random House, there are 750,000 copies of "'N Sync: The Official Book" in print, whereas Scholastic Paperbacks reports 450,000 copies in print of "'N Sync-Backstage Pass: Your Kickin' Keepsake Scrapbook!" Meanwhile, New American Library (an imprint of Penguin Putnam) has produced 275,000 copies of "The Heart and Soul of Nick Carter" to keep up with demand and Elina Furman's "Ricky Martin" (which hit No. 35 on the New York Times best-seller list) was even excerpted last summer in another Chicago newspaper. The sales figures for the 'N Sync books would be impressive for any title, but what makes the two paperbacks more astonishing still is that they were competing in a field of 16 other 'N Sync fan books published last year. If that sounds like a lot, consider this: Under the combined subject headings of Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and Ricky Martin, the publishing industry churned out 64 separate titles in 1999. "In the mid-'80s and early '90s we did New Kids on the Block and Brad Pitt and those all did fine, but (the demand has) never been near this," says Judith Haut of Random House Children's Books, referring to the company's huge successes with an official 'N Sync book and an unofficial Leonardo DiCaprio paperback. Although a handful of these fan books have been approved by the subject, the vast majority fall into the "unauthorized" category, which, on the surface, seems to promise dirt. But that paradigm doesn't apply to this fan-friendly genre. Any journalist who has written a critical word about a boy band knows that their slavishly loyal and Internet-savvy followers are well-organized and easily offended. Between this concern, the fear of lawsuits and the need for speed -- getting star approval is time-consuming -- the uncritical and unauthorized road often presents writers the easiest path. Still, there are times when an authorized version is worth pursuing. One such was when Backstreet Boy Nick Carter authorized his mother Jane to write "The Heart and Soul of Nick Carter." The book promised "secrets only a mother would know," like "Virtually from the beginning of his life, Nick gravitated -- and gyrated even in his diapers -- to music." In addition to writing an introduction to the book called "My Mother/Myself," Nick did a live appearance to promote it. "A week after Nick attended a signing of the book, it hit the best-seller list," Burke says. "So in my opinion it can do a lot better when the celebrity signs on because they help with promotion. If there are 10 books out there and the star signs on for one, that's the one (people) want." Although plenty of teenagers buy these books, Craig Walker of Scholastic Paperbacks says his company's biggest fan book buyers are generally between 9 and 12. "Our girls are tweeners," says Walker about Scholastic Paperbacks, which last year published 11 fan biographies in a series called Backstage Pass. "We find that after 6th grade they kind of drop out. They've got better things to do. . . ." Many see this book boom as an extension of the public's cable TV-fed obsession with celebiographical shows, such as MTV's "BIOrhythms," VH-1's "Behind the Music," A&E's "Biography," E! Entertainment Television's "Celebrity Profiles," and most recently MSNBC's "Headliners & Legends." But probably one of the biggest factors in their popularity is the late-'90s teen pop culture boom that has extended from boy bands and movies to TV and publishing and found teenagers (not to mention hordes of tweeners) spending a chunk of their estimated $153 billion in disposable income on pop entertainment last year. "It all has to do with our culture right now," says Louise Burke, who runs a Penguin Putnam division that put out eight unapproved biographies in 1999. "You'll notice that all of these unauthorized biographies are about hipper, younger stars and I think there's a belief that young people can't get enough of this culture. These kids have so much money to spend, good or bad, and they choose to spend a lot of it on the stars they like." And with few exceptions, the stars of these biographies are wet-behind-the-ears singers and actors whose careers may not even be a year old before they are chronicled in several volumes. While it may seem absurd to write a biography -- much less several competing ones -- about celebrities in their teens and 20s, recent biographies of Ronald Reagan ("Dutch") and Hillary Clinton ("Hillary's Choice"), trashed, respectively, by critics for using fictional characters and stressing the First Lady's wardrobe, have shown that absurdity often extends to biographies aimed at adults. Still, perhaps the word "biography" is a little heavy for these publications, that are printed in oversized type, often run to 50,000 words and take as little as three weeks to write. Branded with goofy titles like "Give It To You: The Jordan Knight Story," "Ricky Martin: Rockin' The House," "Britney Spears: Stylin'!" but usually "Name Here: The Unauthorized Biography," these are often less probing analyses of lives than fan-targeted extensions of Tiger Beat articles. "Yeah, it's like Tiger Beat but just a little bit longer," Burke admits. "They get a little more information than they would get in a magazine article and the pictures. Some kids would buy it for the photos alone." And, for some, these photos are not just for looking at. "When we did our Leonardo DiCaprio book, I had an editor who knows teen culture very well but was taking a long time to choose the cover photo," remembers Walker. "I said, `We've got a lot of great pictures here, just pick one.' And she said `No, it has to be just right, because we have to make it big enough for the girls to practice kissing on.' " For unauthorized biographies, especially, great pictures can be essential. That's because editorial content is often little more than a rehash of previously published articles, injected with conjecture and melodrama to patch up narrative holes. In journalism circles, they're called "clip jobs." But unauthorized biography author Marc Shapiro disputes that reading. "(A clipping service) is one of the tools you use when you do these books, but I always try to get other people in there," says Shapiro, 51, a Los Angeles-based former newspaperman who supports his family with quickie biographies and articles for fantasy magazines like Fangoria. "It's easy to just cut and paste quotes, but I try to do actual interviews. Like with Freddie Prinze Jr., I managed to track down his high school principal and his first drama teacher." Elina Furman who, with her sister Leah, has written some 17 unauthorized biographies in the last two years, echoes those thoughts. "These books seem easier than they are," says the Chicago-raised author. "Not everyone can do a book like that in a month and put out 12 a year. The publishers want to work with quality writers because they have had some writers who thought they could whip out these books in no time and then realized that it takes a lot of work and research and fact checking." Still, Shapiro acknowledges that the books are often more about money than art. "I know that some of these books are done for a very mercenary reason: These people are hot and publishers want to make some money on them," he says. "But a book is a book and their sales make up for a lot of prestige books (put out by the same publisher) that drop dead." And unlike prestigious authors of fiction, quickie bio writers are rarely given the luxury of waiting for the muse to strike. Their books must be produced on demand under tight deadlines and while the audience is still interested. "These are instant books," Burke explains. "You crash them through, meaning you don't even give your sales department time to sell it. But the beauty of instant books is that the awareness factor is already there, so you can literally place a phone call to the (buyers) and they know who you're talking about. But that also means, that by the time you call they have already gotten calls from other publishers about the same personalities. So it becomes a race to see who can get out first." But the race isn't just with other publishers. Says Walker: "We race not so much to beat other publishers but because we're afraid the star might be gone by the time the book comes out." Furman admits that the books would also be impossible to crank out so quickly without the Internet. "I don't know anyone in the industry who would be able to do anything without the Internet," she says. "It's a great way to contact fans because they have so much information and energy and ability to help you out." Fans are much more likely to help out upbeat writers like Furman than they are journalists interested in digging up dirt. And, in return, Furman is happy to give them what they want. "These are really for the fans and so we try to put forth information that is congruent with the image (the artists) want to project to the public," Furman says, explaining that her reputation for positive books helps her score interviews with peripheral sources. One of the most important parts of these books is the opening chapter in which the author distills the star's story, often leaning on an extended a metaphor, as Shapiro did with Freddie Prinze Jr.: "If they gave Purple Hearts in Hollywood," he wrote, "Freddie Prinze Jr. would definitely be among the walking wounded stepping up, bloodied but unbowed to receive his medal.. . . Because this hot young hunk at the ripe old age of twenty-three has definitely been through the wars." Although Burke has heard her stable of quickie biography writers called hacks, she disagrees. "In paperback, we think they are part of our team," she says. "I think they are necessary to this kind of business. A lot of the snobbery I think is more about the subject matter than their writing, like `These are pop stars. Who cares?' My whole thing is that if you can get young people to come to any kind of book, that's a good thing." Plus, Burke says, the readers who come to these books are not exactly looking for Dostoevsky. "Look, this is a certain kind of book with a certain amount of information," she says. "If the star is willing to talk and contribute that is a whole other thing, but I think people get what they expect for $5.99."
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Full story from Excite
Excite News:
1/13/00
Grammy Winning Producer William Orbit

Orbit's co-production of Madonna's 1997 album Ray Of Light earned him two 1998 Grammy Awards for Best Dance Recording and Best Pop Album. Last year, the duo teamed up to write and produce "Beautiful Stranger" for the "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" soundtrack. The song recently earned Orbit a Golden Globe nomination (Best Original Song for a Motion Picture) and a Grammy nomination (Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media). Orbit also co-produced "Cuidado Con Mi Corazon" (Be Careful With My Heart), Madonna's duet with Ricky Martin on the pop superstar's Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum self-titled album, and won the U.K.'s prestigious "Q" Award as Producer of the Year for Blur's 13. In addition, he wrote and produced the track "Pure Shores" from the upcoming Leonardo DiCaprio film "The Beach."
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Variety:
1/13/00
HUGHES INTRIGUE CONTINUES

In the continuing effort to turn Howard Hughes into a Hollywood biopic, a tantalizing possible teamup has emerged: Edward Norton as the billionaire aviator-turned recluse, directed by two-time Oscar winner Milos Forman, scripted by “People Vs. Larry Flynt” and “Man on the Moon” scribes Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. While those players have barely met on the project, they’re all intrigued, Dish hears. For those keeping score at home, Michael Mann and Leonardo DiCaprio are aligned with a Disney project scripted by John Logan; Warren Beatty has long pined to do a biopic, and Allen and Albert Hughes set one up with Johnny Depp, though the latter project is a late scratch. The project being considered by the Norton team is based at Arnon Milchan’s New Regency with Charles Evans Jr. producing and is contingent on whether the producer formally aligns with Disney on the Mann-DiCaprio project. Norton and Forman couldn’t be reached, but Alexander and Karaszewski acknowledged they’ve been approached. Aside from just starting work on a Marx Brothers biopic for Universal and Jersey, which they will direct, the duo is understandably wary of entering a competition. “Ten years ago we would have said how can you go up against Warren Beatty, and now it’s, how can you go up against Michael Mann and Leonardo,” said Alexander. “As writers, the problem is we’d have to spend the year working hard before finding out the project across the street has gotten a greenlight and we’ve wasted our time. With both Andy Kaufman and Larry Flynt, we knew we were the only ones,” added Karaszewski.
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Yahoo news:
1/12/00
Something to Talk about

``It's an evolution, not a revolution,'' said newly installed Talk magazine editorial director Robert Wallace of the redesigned magazine's February issue, which hits newsstands this week. Gone are the three-picture cover, the crowded, text-heavy page design, and an unfocused layout strategy that paired short profiles with long features. Now, there's one large cover photo of Leonardo DiCaprio (thank you, Harvey Weinstein), an easier-on-the-eye page design balancing photos and text, and a better organized book. Call that evolution. But wait, the changes on the masthead are even more dramatic. Roughly a third of the staff that put together the glossy magazine's premiere issue last August is gone, citing creative differences with editor in chief Tina Brown and mental fatigue from closing nights that one current staffer calls ``slightly more stressful then your average air raid.'' Brown calls the magazine's launch ``wonderfully disconcerting'' in her February editor's letter. ``Fallout from that experience is perfectly natural,'' she adds. ``It is all part of the process. We are very indebted to all those who took the ride.'' Now Brown hopes Wallace, the former top editor of St. Martin's Press, will stem the exodus. ``Tina hired me to make the production process run more smoothly,'' said Wallace, who took the Talk job less then 24 hours after resigning from St. Martin's to protest publication of J.H. Hatfield's unauthorized biography of George W. Bush (news - web sites), ``Fortunate Son,'' after Hatfield turned out to have a past conviction. ``The deadlines here had been truly chaotic, and while I did not find that morale was low, I did find that people here really wanted more leadership,'' Wallace said. For Wallace, who spent his 15 years at Rolling Stone publisher Wenner Media before moving to St. Martin's, the first goal was staffing up again. Last week, he and Brown poached longtime Vogue editor Charles Grandee to serve as features editor and unofficial architectural adviser for their new Chelsea office space. And they brought in Vibe's Sarah Min as managing editor. Overseeing the redesign is a new creative director, Oliviero Toscani, the brains behind the Colors From Benetton inset that comes packaged with the February Talk. Toscani effectively replaces art director Leslie Vinson, the architect of Talk's much-maligned European tabloid look, who resigned two weeks ago. The word is good so far on Toscani's redesigned Talk. ``At least I can read it now,'' a Conde Nast editor said. ``Layoutwise, the first issues were about as dense as a car owner's manual.'' Now comes a renewed focus on content. After catching lightning in a bottle with Linda Frank's profile on Hillary Rodham Clinton in the maiden issue, Talk's subsequent cover stories on Elizabeth Taylor, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robin Williams generated little buzz, and industry players are looking elsewhere. ``Right now everyone is excited about Hearst's Oprah Winfrey startup, which will launch in the spring,'' said McCann Erickson media consultant Roberta Garfinkle. ``There hasn't been a lot of talk about Talk.'' Wallace hopes that in the February issue Franks will work her magic again with an expose of sex among 12-year-olds. Aaron Latham's DiCaprio profile focuses on the star's relationship with his father, while politics is covered in Hanna Rosin's profile of Al Gore (news - web sites)'s daughter Karenna -- and in a photo of Donald Trump's girlfriend lying half naked on the floor of the Oval Office. (Trump has already broken it off with the 25-year-old Slovenian model.) ``Putting out a good magazine is a balancing act,'' Wallace said. ``I found when I got here that the balance was uneven, but getting better. It is always easier to do short, photo-driven pieces. But now we are concentrating on building a well of long-reported pieces, pieces that people will really talk about.'' Will all of the changes be enough to silence Talk's critics? Probably not. As with previous issues, February features a number of Miramax-related articles -- including an Erica Jong interview with ``Holy Smoke'' helmer Jane Campion and a travel piece based around ``The Talented Mr. Ripley'' -- which will continue to raise questions about whether the mini-major has undue influence on the magazine that it is financing. (Weinstein has said he kept his hands off Talk and that the numerous editorial changes there were as much a surprise to him as to anyone else.) For now, Wallace isn't too concerned. As anyone who remembers the relaunch of Vanity Fair knows, magazine startups often take months to find their look. Moreover, they take years to turn a profit. ``I have been around too long to be concerned with the media writing our obituary,'' Wallace said. ``Our financial outlook is excellent, and we have a solid plan editorially, which is to provide real estate for quality writing.''
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E!:
1/12/00
Newfound respect for Leonardo DiCaprio!

Leonardo DiCaprio gets mouthy in Talk; Angelina Jolie gets scary in Jane; more And Let's Be Honest, Switch Was Her Finest Work... Well, looky here! Look what we found! No, next to Linda Tripp's old chin. No, next to Britney Spears' old boobs. Why, it's newfound respect for Leonardo DiCaprio! Not saying we haven't always had a soft spot for the rakish lad, but, hell, if the story in the February Talk is true, not only does the boy have talent and bucks, he's got good ol'-fashioned moxie, too. According to Michael Caton-Jones, who directed Leo in This Boy's Life (L.D.'s first big flick), DiCaprio was "a smart-mouthed little fuck." Eloquent. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Caton-Jones loved the guy. And after this little anecdote, you will, too: One day, during rehearsal on Life, Leo was bothering costars Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin. Barkin took it upon herself to chastise the unseasoned 17-year-old. "You've got to learn to behave," she told him, "to be more like the two of us," she said, unknowingly painting a bull's-eye on her forehead. "Like the two of you," the uppity DiCaprio retorted. "Let's see, on the one hand, he did Raging Bull. On the other hand, you did Switch. And you're the one who's telling me what to do?" Note to Ellen Barkin: Ouch.
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USA Today:
1/12/00
Kate Winslet was fully clothed at the premiere

OPENINGS: Kate Winslet was fully clothed at the premiere of Holy Smoke on Monday, in black leather pants and long white Nicole Fahri coat. But she does full frontal nudity in Jane Campion's tale of an Aussie girl facing off with a cult deprogrammer (Harvey Keitel). The Titanic star said both she and hubby Jim Threapleton were "pretty shell-shocked" when they saw it, although he'd seen the script. "It was a real shocker, more sort of in your face than I ever thought it would be." At 24, she doesn't have to worry much about her figure, but in her next, Quills, she avoids sex (including S&M), although she plays a confidante of the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush). Yes, she has seen Leonardo DiCaprio, "about four months ago and he was very well." I sat in a theater seat marked for Harvey Weinstein, Miramax Films chief. But no way was Harvey going to be there; he's still recovering, his staff said, from a bacterial infection. They would not say whether he's still in the hospital. In L.A., DiCaprio spent time Monday night at the exclusive upstairs of Dublin's, a Sunset Boulevard spot. He mingled with younger kids at Rod Stewart's little gathering with his son at a back table for the singer's 55th birthday. DiCaprio attracted little attention, in glasses with his blue baseball cap pulled low. Stewart seemed dateless, with only some male friends.
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San Francisco Examiner:
1/12/00
Some stars just wanna have fun!

-- Some stars just wanna have fun! Kate Winslet was all hot and bothered at a recent London wrap party for her Marquis de Sade story, ``Quills.'' She was asking the gatekeepers to eject a bothersome, uninvited guest from the Atlantic Bar and Grill when the pest, disguised as Dennis the Menace, took off his mask and revealed that he was Leonardo DiCaprio, her co-star from ``Titanic.''
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Honolulu Star:
1/12/00
Son of "The Beach"

CREATORS of the new Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, "The Beach," traveled to the Far East for filming the feature, but now that they're in the process of promoting it have come closer to home. DiCaprio is on Maui doing press interviews with many large magazines and national publications to promote the film. And where better than on a beach in Maui, home of some of the nicest? Plus, it's remote enough in some areas to keep screaming, teeny-bopping fans from being a nuisance
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Yahoo News:
1/11/00
All Eyes on Leo

Leonardo DiCaprio, according to Aaron Latham in the February issue of Talk, is growing up. In his first interview since the megasuccess of Titanic, DiCaprio shares his thoughts on fame, art, growing up, and what it was like to work on the highest-grossing film in history. Latham met DiCaprio in London, where the star was doing additional dialogue recording for his new movie, The Beach. The film marks a new beginning for Leo. ``It was the first film where I really wanted to take more responsibility for what I was doing as far as steering the story in the right direction,'' he told Latham. Leo tried to make his voice heard on the set of Titanic, as well. However, according to Leo's father, George, who has been very supportive of his son's career, ``getting a change out of (director) James Cameron was like pulling a tooth from a mastodon.'' After he finished shooting the last scene of the film, Leo dumped a bucket of ice water over Cameron's head, ending what Latham calls ``a decidedly chilly relationship.'' Besides changing his approach to acting, Leo is branching out, starting ``to create a small world he can control,'' as Latham says. LeoFest, his own film festival, is open to anyone with a movie 15 minutes or shorter-and the $35 entrance fee. He also controls his own official website, leonardodicaprio.com. Could the bad boy of Hollywood be cleaning up his act? According to Latham, Leo is ``currently trying to change his image.'' For example, he has distanced himself from the movie Don's Plum, an experimental art movie that Leo and a group of friends -- among them Tobey Maguire and Kevin Connolly -- made in 1995. In it, Latham writes, Leo plays ``an out-of- control jerk who isn't very nice to women.'' But John Hodge, screenwriter for The Beach, theorizes that Leo plays the bad boy for the press. He told Latham, ``I can't speak for [Leo], but I got the sense it's like ... 'If you want bad behavior, then, okay, I can do that for you.' It's just like another role, isn't it?'' Latham thinks, ``Leo is never one thing, always two.'' Lasse Hallstrom, who directed Leo in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, says even his two eyes are different: ``The left eye is very soft and empathetic, the right eye is more analyzing. One eye oozes warmth, while the other is more penetrating. One eye is psyche, the other is intellect.'' Perhaps this dichotomy explains Leo's ``eccentric and daring'' film choices, as Latham calls them, as well as the coexistence of the hard-working actor and the fun-loving party boy. Latham traces Leo's two-sidedness back to his parents-the hardworking German mother and the spirited Italian father who wrote and distributed underground comics. According to Leo, his father played an instrumental role in developing his son's eclectic taste: ``I collect artists like Robert Williams, Eric White, Mark Ryden. Deranged art.'' ``My dad is a Buddha-like figure to me ... I would like to have it so together like that,'' he told Latham. Leo grew up around the likes of Robert Crumb and Allan Ginsberg, who always fawned over the child. ``It must be strange to have such a beautiful son,'' Leo's father recalls Ginsberg saying. Interacting with his father's friends while growing up gave Leo, ``a different take on reality,'' he told Latham. Latham gained additional insight on Leo from the notebook the actor kept while filming The Beach, excerpts of which are printed in Latham's article: ``We've had no war. We've had nothing to fight for. We've had nothing to believe in. It's an exploring time for us. We can truly go find what we want to believe in.'' Has Leo found what he wants to believe in? Perhaps, to a degree. But as he tells Latham, ``I would not want to become an adult in every sense of the word. Who the hell does?'' The February issue of Talk will be on sale at newsstands January 10th.
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Fox News:
1/11/00
Talk magazine DiCaprio is on the cover.

Talk has cleaned up its act for its fifth issue — the first under new creative director Oliviero Toscani. The mag tries to pump up an old story with Sex Lives of Your Children, written by Lucinda Franks, who generated buzz with her Hillary Clinton piece. Leo DiCaprio is on the cover. Another plus: Hanna Rosin's piece on the younger, wilder years of Al Gore's daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff. The whiff that Tina is influenced in her movie coverage by Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, a Talk joint-venture backer, is not dispelled by this issue's coverage of The Talented Mr. Ripley. "Yes we have Mr. Ripley, but we were about the last people to do it," Tina told The Post. "And we didn't do The Cider House Rules. Next issue we're going to do a big thing about a New Line release, which is Miramax's big enemy," Tina vows. On the design front, there are fewer typefaces and better photography, which seemed like an afterthought before. The single shot on the cover is a good idea — why did that take five issues to figure out?
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Montreal Gazette:
1/11/00
Brace yourself for the publicity barrage

Brace yourself for the publicity barrage around The Beach, the long-delayed Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle. The studio is holding the premiere next week in Maui, Variety reports, with a four-day freebie tour for selected U.S. and Asian journalists. (Sadly, some publications do accept free junkets of this kind, though, of course, the reviewers involved will still be as tough-minded and critical in the public interest as if they'd bought their tickets at the local multiplex.) Anyway, the mainland opening is Feb. 2 in L.A., with wide opening that month.
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NY Post:
1/11/00
Leo's back

Leo's back!..........................................."Titanic" star Leonardo DiCaprio ends his two-year absence from the big screen with "The Beach," perhaps the most eagerly awaited movie of the spring season, which opens Wednesday and runs until Hollywood's summer blockbusters start flooding the multiplexes in early May. Following a season of heavy dramas, biographies and expensive period pictures, the 60-odd major releases headed our way are lighter overall - with two Freddie Prinze Jr. vehicles, a comeback for Chevy Chase, numerous comedies, a couple of animated flicks, several science-fiction films and at least two movies that, in an effort to qualify for the Oscars, opened (and bombed) in Los Angeles last month. Here are 15 of the most promising spring releases, based on trailers, advance buzz and publicity. As always, release dates are subject to change, and there may be some unannounced surprises.
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Yahoo News:
1/10/00
Berlin Festival Walks on 'Beach'

A strong lineup of U.S. pictures is falling into place for the 50th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb. 9-20), suggesting a dazzling star presence for the event's first outing at new digs on Potsdamer Platz. Danny Boyle's ``The Beach'' is slated for a spot in the official lineup (likely out of competition), with star Leonardo DiCaprio coming to Berlin, according to sources. The film is based on the cult novel by Alex Garland, ``The Beach,'' which is about a young backpacker in Southeast Asia with a passion for Vietnam war movies and popular culture.
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NY Daily News- Full story
NY Daily News:
1/10/00
Hollywood checks out a few books

Hollywood is on a heavy reading jag. More than one-third of the films released during the recent Christmas season were literary adaptations, and more than 20 other book-to-movie projects hit the multiplexes in 1999 — five of them in November alone. Whether they were films based on classic novels ("Mansfield Park," "The End of the Affair") or hot best sellers ("The Green Mile," "Snow Falling on Cedars"), Tinseltown has been raiding the publishing houses for good story lines. And the trend shows no signs of abating: 2000 is shaping up as another big year for bookish projects.... The Beach By Alex Garland What It's About: Hippies find a communal paradise on a remote Thai island. But tensions within the group soon lead to a murderous showdown. Who's in the Film Version: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen, Robert Carlyle. Opens Feb. 11. Why It Attracted Hollywood: Sex, drugs, gorgeous locations and a "Lord of the Flies"-like ending.
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MSNBC- Full story
MSNBC: The Scoop
1/10/00

Did editor Tina Brown’s efforts to get the one of the hottest stories in Hollywood backfire? Magazines have been scrambling to get an insider account of the death of Jay Moloney, the once-powerful Hollywood agent whose clients included Leonardo DiCaprio, Uma Thurman and Steven Spielberg before he succumbed to drugs and hung himself at the age of 35 last fall. Tina Brown was so eager for the story, that she made the somewhat indelicate move of faxing Moloney’s mother, Carole Johnson, on the day of his funeral
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St. Paul/Minneapolis Pioneer Planet
1/10/00
TRAILER PARK

More than two years after ``The Titanic,'' is Leonardo DiCaprio still the bee's knees for 13-year-olds? Or is he as tired as the expression, ``the bee's knees''? Twentieth Century Fox is obviously banking on the appeal of his golden, smooth flesh in the trailer for ``The Beach.'' Luckily for them, the movie is set in the tropics, so there are plenty of scenes of shirtless Leo basking in the sun. And he's looking worried some of the time, so we can tell it's a thriller. What we can't tell from the trailer is that, if it's anything like the book it's based on, ``The Beach'' is an extremely violent morality play. Violent morality plays tend not to sell many tickets, and we'll have to wait until next month to see if ``The Beach'' can.
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Link to picture from article
NY Daily News:
1/7/00
DiCaprio vs. Barkin

Even before he was Hollywood's hottest actor, Leonardo DiCaprio knew how to defend himself against his co-stars. When he was making "This Boy's Life" with Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin, he apparently upset the two stars by playing around too much. Barkin reportedly lectured DiCaprio, telling him to behave like her and De Niro. "Like the two of you," DiCaprio shot back at Barkin, according to Talk magazine. "Let's see, on the one hand, he did 'Raging Bull.' On the other hand, you did 'Switch.' And you're the one who's telling me what to do." Then there's DiCaprio's time filming "Titanic." He reportedly fought with director James Cameron over several scenes. DiCaprio waited until he finished the last scene in "Titanic" and dumped a bucket of ice water over Cameron's head, reports writer Aaron Latham. Meanwhile, DiCaprio has nothing but nice things to say about Danny Boyle, who directed him in the much-anticipated "The Beach." "There's an inherent kindness within him, and a genuine sensitivity," DiCaprio says about Boyle in the new Premiere. "It's refreshing to not work with somebody who's an arrogant [bleep]." Hmm, wonder whom he's referring to? One person who noticed DiCaprio's star quality early was the late beat poet Allen Ginsberg, a friend of DiCaprio's father, George. "It must be strange to have such a beautiful son," Ginsberg, an outspoken supporter of man-boy love, would say, according to George DiCaprio. The elder DiCaprio tells Talk he'd brush off the fawning, saying, "It was a conversation I would rather not get into."
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Variety:
1/7/00
PREEMS, BIG AND SMALL SCREEN: “The Beach

PREEMS, BIG AND SMALL SCREEN: “The Beach,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s first biggie since “Titanic,” gets a mammoth launching in Maui next week, with a four-day press junket by 20th Fox for reps from the U.S. and the Orient. (The pic filmed in Thailand.) 20th follows with a giant Feb. 2 preem at Mann’s Chinese and party at a huge Hollywood site which will boast a giant reclining Buddha … And HBO, which launched the new season of “The Sopranos” Wednesday night in N.Y., follows with screenings of segments one and three in L.A. at the DGA Tuesday. The second season starts airing Jan. 16. HBO chairman-CEO Jeff Bewkes congratted the cast and filmmakers before the N.Y. screening at the Ziegfeld. Exec producer David Chase thanked ’em and filled in plot points to prep the audience for the new season’s episodes. Also there were producers Brad Grey, Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green. All cast members then took a bow in the SRO crowd, which included Christopher Walken with wife Georgianne, who casts the series; newlywed Jessica Seinfeld, Aidan Quinn, Rosie Perez, Robert Klein, Darren Star, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, Cynthia Nixon, Spike Lee, Janeane Garofalo, Peter Bogdanovich (new in the cast) and Jon Bon Jovi. The party followed at Roseland which was Italy-decorated, including full-size gondolas with singing gondoliers. Taking turns singing with the La Bamba band were Southside Johnny and cast members Jamie-Lynn Sigler (who plays Meadow Soprano), Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior) and E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt (Silvio Dante) … The New Yorker’s “Fiction Live” holiday fiction double issue comes to life Jan. 12-13 at L.A.’s the Mint, with readings by Swoosie Kurtz, Camryn Manheim, Dana Delany, Harry Shearer, Tony Danza and others … Hal Kanter hosts/m.c’s “So Far, So Funny” an evening of standup comedy featuring Karen Benjamin and Alan Chapman, Jackie Kahane, Mark Schiff and Bruce Smirnoff Feb. 5, 6 and 8 at the Gindi Auditorium of the U. of Judaism. “So Far, So Funny” is the title of Kanter’s hysterically funny autobio — and he’s writing a followup, which, anyone who knows Kanter will agree, has to be equally as funny, if not funnier.
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NY Post:
1/7/00
Leo cover boy

Talk magazine for February now features a dramatic one-photo VIP on its cover. It is Leonardo DiCaprio in an amazing Aaron Latham article about Leo's relationship with his father! Inside is chockablock with famous bylines and attractive new features.
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Boston Phoenix:
1/7/00
Post-millennium business as usual

So much for the millennium. It's time to get back to basics, beginning with a return to the Bard, and to the old reliable themes -- revenge, hubris, thwarted love, corruption in high places -- that made him famous. After a year off following the Oscar-gilded success of Shakespeare in Love, the old Elizabethan wordsmith is back in at least four new screen adaptations. Other familiar faces also return to old haunts -- Leonardo DiCaprio hits The Beach, the Farrelly brothers welcome back Jim Carrey, and Tom Cruise hangs out in Mission: Impossible 2. But before you get too comfortable with the status quo, ask yourself what clearer signs of the Apocalypse there could be than a Julia Roberts movie directed by ur-indie Steven Soderbergh? Or -- shades of the Antichrist himself -- the return of Yahoo Serious?
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Foxnews.com:
Fox 411 by Roger Friedman
1/6/00

"Cider House Star to Join Leo in Gangs?"

Here’s some casting news that’s going to make waves: Tobey Maguire, who’s starring in the Oscar-worthy The Cider House Rules and the ill-fated Ride with the Devil is about to join a hot cast. Maguire will be hooking up with best buddy Leonardo DiCaprio for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. This Disney/Miramax feature has been the talk of the town for some weeks now and for many reasons. Reason No. 1 was that Robert De Niro dropped out of the cast when he heard filming would take place in Italy. De Niro has some legal issues in Europe and reportedly said he didn’t want to leave the U.S. for the time being. Then there’s been talk of a lawsuit over who has the rights to the book Gangs is based on, but that should get resolved shortly."
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Mr. Showbiz:
1/5/00

New Year's Party Report: Madonna, Gwyneth, Leo, More

How did the stars ring in the New Year? Well, you know where top-dollar singing celebs Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, and Will Smith were: Las Vegas; Las Vegas; and Washington, D.C., respectively. But Miami was the place to be for Ricky Martin, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, and — still recovering from her brush with the law — Jennifer Lopez, reportedly sans boyfriend Puff Daddy. The red-hot Miami party where these glamorous folk spent their last minutes of 1999? Fashionista Donatella Versace's place was where you would have spotted these stars partying down, except for a newly blond Ricky, who was out and about in places unknown in the Florida hot spot. Trust the New York Daily News to get the scoop on who was where, and who they came with. Madonna and her new best friend Gwyneth Paltrow both came with their guys — literally. Madonna brought British director, and subject of those marriage rumors, Guy Ritchie, while Paltrow made music exec Guy Oseary her New Year's date. However, nothing's that simple when it comes to Gwynnie's love life. The Daily News dishes that The Talented Mr. Ripley star broke up with her Guy that night, and spent "the entire night" on the phone with on-and-off beau Ben Affleck, who was back in Boston. It was only last year at New Year's that Paltrow reportedly broke up with Affleck. Looks like New Year's Eve was the night to break up with beaux, not to find new ones. Besides the reported end of Paltrow's latest affair comes word from the BBC that Scary Spice (Mel G.) split from her husband, and All Saints singer Natalie Appleton split with her actor boyfriend Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting), all on New Year's. Nothing like starting the new millennium with a clean slate, eh? Back to the Miami doings; Madonna's entourage included Rupert Everett, Ingrid Caseres, and, reportedly, a police escort to see the superstar safely to the Versace party. Now how envious would be you be if we told you that Versace had naked men serving drinks all night? The celebs then repaired to Casares' Bar Room club, where a post-show Gloria Estefan also danced the night away. In New York, Leonardo DiCaprio hosted his own New Year's Eve bash rather than brave the crowds. He and 25-year-old actress Kidada Jones rented an estate in Silver Lake and set up their own millennium dome in the backyard, which had a 54-inch screen so guests could watch other time zones ring in 2000. In attendance were Leo's best friend, Tobey Maguire; Lukas Haas; Rachel Hunter; Shannen Doherty; Milla Jovovich; and an apparently Matt Damon-less Winona Ryder. And where did ultra-private couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman spend their millennial changeover? Down Under, according to Britain's Sunday Telegraph, where the two hosted a bash for about 350 people on their yacht. Hanging with Tom and Nic was a kilt-clad Ewan McGregor and director Baz Luhrman, with whom Kidman is filming Moulin Rouge.
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Complete story
Sydney Morning Herald:

Glitterati busy having an absolutely fabulous time
1/05/00

The biggest Y2K headache for the eastern suburbs party people last night was not what to wear, or how to get home, but how to travel between the various extravaganzas they had been invited to and how to rank them according to fabulousness. But there was really never any competition for the number one spot - which went to the event hosted jointly by film director Baz Luhrmann, Lachlan Murdoch and fashion designer Collette Dinnigan, because - contrary to the rumour that they were throwing a celebration of their own at Cafe Sydney - Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, were part of this push. Arrangements for it were so secret squirrel that set decorators had to sign secrecy agreements and didn't know where the party was being held until last night. In rave style, guests had to ring a special number yesterday afternoon to find out where they would be picked up for transport to the hush hush venue. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, international glamour icons the Miller sisters and Mr and Mrs James Packer were expected to attend this party, as well as spending time on family boats, and at the rave up for 550 glamorous types at Carrara Road, Vaucluse, organised by gallery owner Ali Yeldham and investment banker Matthew Csidei's with three friends. The Vaucluse crew certainly enjoyed one of the best fireworks views in town, with vistas right up the harbour to the Opera House and bridge from each of the house's four storeys, the swimming pool and the private beach.

For the complete story see link above.
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Picture Link
NY Daily News:
1/4/00
Meanwhile, over on the Left Coast, Leonardo DiCaprio proved that his titanic appetite for partying remains intact. The actor hosted a New Year's Eve bash with actress Kidada Jones, where they rented out the Paramour estate in Silver Lake. In the backyard, they'd set up a giant dome, under which guests danced, and a 54-inch screen displaying all the different New Year's festivities from around the world. Watching the Egyptian belly dancers performing around the swimming pool and keeping in touch on their silver Motorola TalkAbout radios were Winona Ryder, Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas, Rachel Hunter, Shannen Doherty and Milla Jovovich.
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USA Today:
1/4/00

Beach boy Leonardo DiCaprio hosted a very private L.A. party, and Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman celebrated with 350 friends on their yacht in the Sydney harbor. Guests reportedly included Ewan McGregor in a kilt, Claire Danes and tennis star Patrick Rafter.
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SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
1/3/00
Life's a ``Beach'' For Leo

Three days into the 2000s, and we can already report one change in the world of cinema. From now on, every veteran who makes a movie is officially a turn-of-the-century actor. Other than that, 2000 looks, in its broad outlines, pretty much like 1999, with the usual mix of drama, comedy, thrillers and action. But there are a few tantalizing particulars. To name one -- guaranteed to set the pulses of high school girls racing -- we have the return of Leo in a high-flown romance. That is, Leonardo DiCaprio, the talented, smooth-faced actor who freezer-burned his way into the romantic imaginations of millions by dying of hypothermia in ``Titanic.'' In ``The Beach,'' which opens in February, young Mr. DiCaprio will beat a path to warmer climes. But there will be danger -- there is always love and always danger. ``The Beach,'' directed by Danny Boyle (``Trainspotting''), casts DiCaprio as a romantic who goes to Asia looking for paradise. He finds it on a secret, secluded island, until paradise gets overrun by poachers and drug traffickers. Then it becomes like ``Lord of the Flies.'' Something else to note about ``The Beach.'' It co-stars Virginie Ledoyen, the French actress who ap peared in ``Late August, Early September'' and ``Jeanne and the Perfect Guy,'' which played art houses last year. This dark-haired beauty is going to be huge. She is going to be the next Deneueve. When it happens, just remember who said it first. Yet another cinematic legend will be making a high-profile return to the screen. Though the naive among us expected Madonna to go away in the '80s, and the hopeful among us expected that she would go away in the '90s, it's time to face it: We are going to get two centuries' worth of Madonna, and there's no way to avoid it. The best we can do is turn off VH-1 when they show her life story again on ``Behind the Music.'' At least her new movie looks like good casting. In ``The Next Best Thing,'' she and Rupert Everett play best friends who would be lovers if he were not gay. Then one night they get drunk, and he becomes straight for as long as it takes to get her pregnant. From there, they decide to make a family. ``The Next Best Thing'' will be Madonna's first movie since ``Evita.'' It will also be the first to capitalize on the newfound sensitivity, proportion and spiritual growth that Madonna has experienced since giving birth to a baby and dumping its father. ``The Next Best Thing'' might turn out to be a good movie, a sickening one or both. But it's one I want to see. The big literary star of the last millennium was William Shakespeare. In the past 72 hours, no one has emerged to fill his shoes, and so the Shakespeare trend continues, but with a difference: The new year offers at least three updatings of Shakespeare, with more rumored to be on the way. There is ``Titus,'' based on ``Titus Andronicus,'' the Shakespearean equivalent of an action movie: A girl is raped and dismembered, and her father takes revenge by cutting off the heads of her assailants, baking them in a pie and feeding them to their mother. Jessica Lange stars as the evil matriarch, Tamara, and Anthony Hopkins plays Titus, whose penchant for high-calorie meat pies would alarm even Julia Child. The other two Shakespeare films borrow the Bard's stories but replace his dialogue. ``Hamlet,'' which already has snagged a distribution deal with Miramax and will be at the Sundance Film Festival later this month, stars Ethan Hawke as the melancholy Dane and is set in modern-day Manhattan. Julia Stiles plays Ophelia, and we can only speculate where the modern Hamlet tells her to go instead of ``a nunnery.'' A convent? A girl's dorm? A Leo DiCaprio retrospective? ``Romeo and Juliet'' also has been updated as ``Romeo Must Die,'' now a romance between a Chinese American man and a black woman, set against a background of competing gangs in Oakland. Abel Ferrara did something similar 10 years ago in ``China Girl,'' about an Italian American boy and an Asian girl in New York. Seems this is an inexhaustible formula. This time the hero will be played by Jet Li, so we know Romeo will be able to take care of himself, and Juliet will be played by the recording artist Aaliyah. Li ended the 20th century as the biggest thing in Asia. The first year of the new century will give him his best chance yet to break through in America.
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NEW YORK POST:
1/3/00
WANTED: YOUNG BLOND ACTOR FOR ‘STAR WARS
With casting expected to begin this month on George Lucas' second "Star Wars" prequel, rumors are buzzing as to which young actor Lucas will tap as the new Anakin. "Star Wars: Episode II," the next installment in the series and a follow-up to this summer's "Phantom Menace" blockbuster, will feature a prominent role for the Anakin character, who later becomes Darth Vader but here is supposed to be a young man, roughly 10 years older than Jake Lloyd's boy version. Speculation on who will land the part has raged through Hollywood in recent days, ranging from Leonardo DiCaprio to young Australian actor Jesse Spencer. Lucas is reportedly looking for a "self-determined, extremely intelligent and forthright" actor who resembles Jake Lloyd at 19 years old. Natalie Portman will play Anakin's bride-to-be Princess Amidala in all three films. The latest whisperings focus on teen actor Jonathan Jackson, a long-running regular on the soap "General Hospital." Jackson joined the mix after turning in a strong performance as Michelle Pfeiffer's son in "The Deep End of the Ocean." Along with Jackson, another blond actor is rumored to be in the running: Brit Jonathan Brandis, who played a character named Lucas in the short-lived TV series "Seaquest DSV." He also had a small role in Ang Lee's Civil War drama "Ride With the Devil." In an interview on one Internet movie site, Brandis claimed that he already had read for the Anakin character, adding he thought "it'd be great to be a part of that."
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"LeoFest" Announces Online Film Fest;

Leonardo DiCaprio Establishes First International Film Festival on Official Internet WebSite

LOS ANGELES--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Nov. 9, 1999--Birken Interactive Studios, Inc. (BIS) announced today the establishment of the 1st Annual Leonardo DiCaprio International Online Short Film Festival (LeoFest). BIS -- the production company established by actor Leonardo DiCaprio -- will produce the festival, to be conducted exclusively on the internet at http://www.leofest.com/, beginning next month.

LeoFest is being produced with the technical support of Apple Computer, Inc., making LeoFest one of Apple's showcase sites for all future upgrades to their QuickTime software.

According to BIS director of production, Chuck Smith, "LeoFest has entered into a number of significant and mutually beneficial relationships with other festivals and film organizations for cross-promotional and resource-sharing purposes, including: The American Film Institute and The Independent Feature Project/West."

All net proceeds will be funneled to various ecologically-motivated groups and programs dedicated to saving the environment and endangered species around the planet, through the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

Said Mr. DiCaprio about the fest, "Breaking through - especially when you're just starting out - can seem impossible. This festival seeks to change that; to offer a forum - a place to show your talent - a place for your work to be seen and for you to see the work of others just like yourself."

But the festival's goals go beyond the discovery and nurturing of talent. "This will be a festival devoted to the marriage of film and computer technologies," LeoFest executive director Jonathan Cutler elaborates, "as well as the development of the Internet as a viable - even convenient - distribution alternative for filmmakers working in or outside of the Hollywood system."

Hoping to attract as many hopeful filmmakers on the Web as possible, DiCaprio stated, "We all know how fast things grow and change in the world of computers. We see this as the perfect opportunity to try something new, something positive -- something that takes advantage of the best the net can do."

A copy of the rules and regulations, as well as an official entry form for submissions, are available for downloading beginning today at http://www.leofest.com/.

Entry Details:

Because of the anticipated volume of submissions, LeoFest is limiting films to 15 minutes (and under).

LeoFest will accept submissions on VHS, SVHS, PAL, DV, 3/4", SPBETA, DIGIBETA and QuickTime format only.

Films will be judged in the following four (4) categories: Narrative (any filmed fiction story, comedy or drama), Documentary, Animation and Alternative (anything experimental).

Filmmakers and their films will be divided into two age groups: Youth (17 years old and under) and Adult (18 years old and over).

Soon after LeoFest launches, eight (8) Weekly Festival Choice winners will be announced and the chosen films screened for one week at LeoFest's Weekly Choice Theater, until the festival ends. Weekly Choice, Award Nominees and LeoFest Award Winning films will always be available for streaming video in the LeoFest Archives.

All submitted films must be accompanied by a completed and signed copy of The Official LeoFest Entry Form, available for download at http://www.leofest.com/ as well as at http://www.leonardodicaprio.com/

All entries originating from the United States must be accompanied by a Cashiers' Check or Money Order to cover the entry/processing fee of US$35.00. If originating from outside the United States, only Postal Money Orders in the amount of US$35.00 will be accepted. Do not send cash.

Awards will be announced -- and the winners screened -- at http://www.leofest.com, sometime in the early Summer of 2000.

CONTACT:

Sunshine Consultants

Ken Sunshine

212/754-6750 Visit the web site for the Leofest at www.leofest.com .

New Order records new song

Manchester legends New Order have recorded a track for the new Leonardo DiCaprio film and are also working on a new record, according to the New Musical Express.

The track is entitled "Brutal" and will be included on the soundtrack to "The Beach," alongside another new song teaming All Saints with legendary dance producer Nellee (Soul II Soul) Hooper.

"The Beach," directed by "Trainspotting's" Danny Boyle, is based on Alex Garland's best-selling novel about a traveller who receives a map to paradise. The film is expected in theatres early in the new year.

A spokesman for the band told NME that the collaboration has inspired them to begin work on their first new full album since 1993's "Republic."

"The band are all getting on brilliantly and things are going really well," the spokesman said. "They just want to start as soon as popssible as they're all really excited about doing new stuff."

"Beach" release date announced!

The Beach will be released on February 11, 2000 across the U.S.

DiCaprio Dodges Plum Rap

Don't go tugging on Superman's cape. And don't sic your lawyer on him either.

James Cameron was the King of the World, Titanic was well on its way to becoming the top-grossing film of all time, and Leonardo DiCaprio was living large and taking his time choosing among $20 million film offers. That was the scene in April 1998 when producer David Stutman nailed the freshest young superstar in the 'biz with a $10 million breach-of-promise suit connected to his participation in the making of the tiny independent film Don's Plum.

Now after 18 months of legal wrangling, DiCaprio and co-defendant Tobey Maguire have reportedly agreed with the team of filmmakers led by Stutman on an out-of-court settlement — one that certainly doesn't seem to favor Stutman's cause.

No financial terms of the agreement have been disclosed, but one condition of it reportedly specifies that Don's Plum will not be distributed in the United States, Canada, or any of either nation's protectorates and trust territories.

By our lights, that's DiCaprio and Maguire 1, Stutman and friends 0.

Wondering what's going on? A brief refresher: Over six days in 1995 and '96, a pre-Titanic Leo and pre-Pleasantville Tobey acted in then-buddy R.D. Robb's directorial debut, a tidy little slice-of-young-life drama called Don's Plum. Robb showed his pals the finished film at a private screening in June 1996.

Maguire, who had the bigger role, was apparently less-than-pleased with Plum from the get-go; by contrast, DiCaprio was reportedly extremely enthusiastic in his response at the 1996 screening, jumping out of his seat to applaud several times.

Thereafter, things got ugly.

According to Stutman, at Maguire's insistence the two young stars began contacting distributors in 1996 and letting it be known that there would be "serious and adverse consequences" for any studio that picked up Plum for theatrical release. The anti-Plum campaign reportedly continued on into 1998, at which point Stutman decided the only way to recoup his investment in the film was to head for court.

Since the story broke, DiCaprio has maintained that he participated in Plum as a favor to Robb with the understanding that the finished film would never be shown in theaters. The star's flacks say he thought he was appearing in a black-and-white short, and wasn't told the finished film would be a feature-length affair.

Stutman's contention is that DiCaprio and Maguire approached him in 1995 about the possibility of arranging financing for a film starring them and some of their friends. The maligned producer has not yet indicated whether he intends to release Don's Plum overseas.

Leo, Jack, Brad Turn out for Boxing Match

Sure, Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad were duking it out Saturday night in the "Fight of the Millennium," but for many, the real show was outside the ring.

Boxing's one of those sports that draws more celebs than a Prada shoe sale, and the Vegas showdown was no exception.

The crowd at ringside barely glanced at the preliminaries, reports the New York Post's Richard Johnson; they were so busy checking out the stars, such as Fight Club's Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, who obviously have developed a taste for real-life pugilism.

Also on hand, new love match Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. Gentleman Agassi lent Graf his leather jacket when she got chilly. Awwww.

May-December couples Jack Nicholson and Lara Flynn Boyle and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones were also on hand. The Entrapment star told the Post that that she learned to love boxing from her brothers while growing up in Wales.

Nicholson and his much younger squeeze flew in from L.A. with Billy Crystal and Michael Keaton on Time Warner's new Gulfstream V jet. While we're at it, we should mention that The Practice actress has been seeing Nicholson for some time: She was reportedly with Nicholson when he had his wee fender-bender back in July, although the two only went public at this year's Emmys.

Late night hangers-on might have seen Leonardo DiCaprio, who was spotted (much like his Celebrity character) gambling away at a blackjack table at 4:30 a.m. at the Hard Rock Casino. The "King of the World" was trying to hide his famous features under a baseball cap, but that pretty brunette at his side and a stack of $100 chips might have given him away.

Also spotted at the millennial match: Chris Rock, Sly Stallone, Kevin Costner, Bridget Fonda, Ben Affleck, The Sopranos' Lorraine Bracco, Shaquille O'Neal, Omar Epps, and salsa singer Marc Anthony.

The Post reports that Mike Tyson was the last to arrive, and that the ex-boxer was there courtesy of HBO. His old promoter and manager Don King had refused to put the former champ on his guest list.

Leo's "Plum" Deal

He's not just King of the World. He's also King of the Courtroom.

Leonardo DiCaprio has settled a $10 million lawsuit with the indie filmmaker who was suing DiCaprio and his actor buddy Tobey Maguire (The Ice Storm) over a low-budget flick they worked on years ago and allegedly never wanted released.

And it's looking like the publicity-shy star and his pal are coming out on top.

Although the financial terms of the agreement were undisclosed, and both parties claim to be "pleased" with the settlement, Leo looks like the real winner. The film in question, Don's Plum, won't be screened anywhere in the "United States, Canada or any of their territories." (Translation: No one's ever gonna see it.)

The 87-minute, black-and-white, pre-Titanic film was made in 1995 by one R.D. Robb, and purportedly features improvisational performances by DiCaprio and Maguire as members of a group that meets every Saturday night at a coffee shop for wild banter.

In April 1998, producer David Stutman filed a 14-page complaint claiming the now-famous acting twosome didn't like their performances, and they conspired to block the film's release. He also claimed Maguire set up a meeting in which he purportedly called Robb a "whore, prostitute and success-monger" trying to take advantage of his friends' celebrity.

DiCaprio, called "egomaniacal" in court papers, was also ticked. His publicist released a statement saying, "Mr. Stutman and R.D. Robb secured Leonardo's participation with the express agreement it would never be exhibited as a feature-length motion picture...It is incredibly disappointing to find Mr. Stutman attempting to exploit Leonardo and Tobey by converting Leonardo's 12-hour favor to a friend into a multimillion-dollar studio feature film release."

The club-hopping DiCaprio has become quite the lawsuit magnet in the wake of Titanic. In March 1998, he sued Playgirl magazine for publishing nude photos of him. That same year, a photographer friend sued the maker of a DiCaprio video for allegedly using her photos of an infant Leo sans her permission.

And earlier this year, DiCaprio was involved in a $45 million lawsuit from a man who claimed he was roughed up by the actor's posse outside a New York City nightclub.