“I’ve had a few marriage proposals from the crowd, but I think to myself, ‘Gosh, they must be living on Mars to think that I’m not married.’”—Catherine Zeta-Jones, the dream of countless photographers and tabloid editors, on the male admirers she’s charmingly shooed away while appearing on Broadway in the musical A Little Night Music, quoted in Tanner Stransky, “Checking in With…Catherine Zeta-Jones,” Entertainment Weekly, February 5, 2010
Well, Ms. Z-J, the short, flip answer to your concern might be put this way: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. (Or, at least, the individuals you’re evidently thinking of must see you as something like the ancient goddess of love and beauty.)
But we don’t do “short” and “flip” here (well, “short,” anyway). So, for those extraterrestrial males who, you conjecture, might not be aware of it, I’ll perform a public service and state now that you’re Mrs. Michael Douglas.
But I think something else is involved with these importuning swains besides a dearth of information.
A friend of mine (and he knows who he is!) is the self-appointed head of the Phi Zeta Beta Society. Until I read Ms. Z-J’s comment, however, I had no idea that this ad-hoc (no membership fees!) organization had a contingent of stage-door Johnnies lining up in such force to see her in Stephen Sondheim’s classic.
Based on that sample, it seems a safe wager that my friend’s group might outnumber the combined, unduplicated membership rolls of AAA, AARP, and god-knows-what-else alphabet-soup association. Heck, it might even be bigger than the Pentagon and CIA combined.
(I’m sure its members enjoy their principal activity—ogling Ms. Z-J—far more than America’s military and intelligence establishments do theirs.)
Several logical explanations exist for the cascade of decent and (depending on the paucity of the monetary inducement) indecent proposals that the actress has received:
* Temporary insanity. One possible side-effect of Ms. Z-J opening up her kimono to a fellow cast member onstage in character as Sondheim’s middle-aged actress Desiree, is acute myocardial infarction among male audience members. (Opinions differ as to whether, on at least one occasion, an unplanned wardrobe malfunction occurred or, as those associated with the show insist, the wish was father to the thought among men in attendance that performance.) A second side-effect is acute, though short-term, derangement resulting in the belief that they stand a chance with the Oscar-winning actress.
* Mr. Douglas is losing his life force. Michael Douglas has now joined father Kirk among the rolls of Social Security beneficiaries. Ms. Z-J’s father is younger than her husband. A good quarter-century younger than Michael, she is not that much older than his son Cameron from his first marriage. Her oblivious male suitors evidently have a vision in mind of the couple—either now or in the not-so-dim future—akin to that between superannuated general Sid Caesar and Ann-Margret, as the appropriately named Jezebel Desire, in Neil Simon’s Sam Spade parody, Cheap Detective (a spoof with the kind of obvious and—well, cheap—laughs that bloggers of low taste enjoy).
In other words, the second that Mr. Douglas kicks off—or even begins to slide off—these admirers want to be around his grieving—and suddenly richer--widow.
* Mr. Douglas isn’t losing his life force. In an AARP Magazine profile earlier this year, the actor-producer spoke of “some wonderful enhancements [that] have happened in the last few years—Viagra, Cialis—that make us all feel younger.” It was all he could do not to start roaming through Cupid’s grove right on the spot.
But Douglas has to be careful just how much of his old self these virility wonder drugs preserve. Let’s put it this way about Mr. Douglas in his prior marriage: If Tiger Woods needed good references for the best sex-addiction clinics around, he could have done far worse than consult with the star of Fatal Attraction.
Old dogs sometimes find it difficult not to bound off the porch and go for a good run. A Viagra- or Cialis-enhanced Mr. Douglas needs to resist that urge if his wife is off appearing in a movie or show.
Cat’s prenup, you see, supposedly awards her, in the event that their marriage goes kaput, $2.8 million for every year they’re married and an additional $5 million if he's caught tomcatting. (Not surprisingly, Ms. Z-J regards prenup agreements as “brilliant.”)
In about another year, in other words, if such a sad eventuality should come to pass, Ms. Z-J’s current admirers want to be around the vengeful—and about-to-be-much-richer, by-more-than-$30-million—ex of Mr. Douglas the second that she becomes a free woman.
Well, Ms. Z-J, the short, flip answer to your concern might be put this way: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. (Or, at least, the individuals you’re evidently thinking of must see you as something like the ancient goddess of love and beauty.)
But we don’t do “short” and “flip” here (well, “short,” anyway). So, for those extraterrestrial males who, you conjecture, might not be aware of it, I’ll perform a public service and state now that you’re Mrs. Michael Douglas.
But I think something else is involved with these importuning swains besides a dearth of information.
A friend of mine (and he knows who he is!) is the self-appointed head of the Phi Zeta Beta Society. Until I read Ms. Z-J’s comment, however, I had no idea that this ad-hoc (no membership fees!) organization had a contingent of stage-door Johnnies lining up in such force to see her in Stephen Sondheim’s classic.
Based on that sample, it seems a safe wager that my friend’s group might outnumber the combined, unduplicated membership rolls of AAA, AARP, and god-knows-what-else alphabet-soup association. Heck, it might even be bigger than the Pentagon and CIA combined.
(I’m sure its members enjoy their principal activity—ogling Ms. Z-J—far more than America’s military and intelligence establishments do theirs.)
Several logical explanations exist for the cascade of decent and (depending on the paucity of the monetary inducement) indecent proposals that the actress has received:
* Temporary insanity. One possible side-effect of Ms. Z-J opening up her kimono to a fellow cast member onstage in character as Sondheim’s middle-aged actress Desiree, is acute myocardial infarction among male audience members. (Opinions differ as to whether, on at least one occasion, an unplanned wardrobe malfunction occurred or, as those associated with the show insist, the wish was father to the thought among men in attendance that performance.) A second side-effect is acute, though short-term, derangement resulting in the belief that they stand a chance with the Oscar-winning actress.
* Mr. Douglas is losing his life force. Michael Douglas has now joined father Kirk among the rolls of Social Security beneficiaries. Ms. Z-J’s father is younger than her husband. A good quarter-century younger than Michael, she is not that much older than his son Cameron from his first marriage. Her oblivious male suitors evidently have a vision in mind of the couple—either now or in the not-so-dim future—akin to that between superannuated general Sid Caesar and Ann-Margret, as the appropriately named Jezebel Desire, in Neil Simon’s Sam Spade parody, Cheap Detective (a spoof with the kind of obvious and—well, cheap—laughs that bloggers of low taste enjoy).
In other words, the second that Mr. Douglas kicks off—or even begins to slide off—these admirers want to be around his grieving—and suddenly richer--widow.
* Mr. Douglas isn’t losing his life force. In an AARP Magazine profile earlier this year, the actor-producer spoke of “some wonderful enhancements [that] have happened in the last few years—Viagra, Cialis—that make us all feel younger.” It was all he could do not to start roaming through Cupid’s grove right on the spot.
But Douglas has to be careful just how much of his old self these virility wonder drugs preserve. Let’s put it this way about Mr. Douglas in his prior marriage: If Tiger Woods needed good references for the best sex-addiction clinics around, he could have done far worse than consult with the star of Fatal Attraction.
Old dogs sometimes find it difficult not to bound off the porch and go for a good run. A Viagra- or Cialis-enhanced Mr. Douglas needs to resist that urge if his wife is off appearing in a movie or show.
Cat’s prenup, you see, supposedly awards her, in the event that their marriage goes kaput, $2.8 million for every year they’re married and an additional $5 million if he's caught tomcatting. (Not surprisingly, Ms. Z-J regards prenup agreements as “brilliant.”)
In about another year, in other words, if such a sad eventuality should come to pass, Ms. Z-J’s current admirers want to be around the vengeful—and about-to-be-much-richer, by-more-than-$30-million—ex of Mr. Douglas the second that she becomes a free woman.
The second and third scenarios I've just outlined boil down, in a way, to the same principle: Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's the same one that governors and senators of little name recognition and/or experience have employed for years when they look in the mirror each mirror, see a potential President, and decide that obstacles be damned--they're throwing their hat into the ring.
And so, as she approaches her big moment in A Little Night Music and urges, “Quick, send in the clowns,” Ms. Z-J can imagine the gentlemen lining up outside her stage door and, very truthfully, warble: “Don’t bother, they’re here.”
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