Beck/Smith Hollywood

            The “X-Factor’s” Brian Friedman dances skillfully around queries about the dramas going on behind the scenes on the Fox competition show that’s now in semi-finals, gearing up for its Dec. 20 grand finale.  For example, gossip maven Perez Hilton’s report that Britney Spears has been shunning fellow judge Demi Lovato as well as cohost Khloe Kardashian.

“It’s definitely a high tension work environment, that’s for sure,” he says, laughing.  “There’s never a dull day, I can give you that much.”

On top of his on-camera presence, Creative Director and Supervising Producer Friedman directs and stages every “X-Factor” performance, and heads up its team of choreographers.

It’s not unusual, he says, for dress rehearsals to generate “tons of notes for wardrobe changes, lighting changes, things being moved around” – and he’s in the middle of all the artists’ camps.

“There is a lot to take in, for sure, and that doesn’t even include the personalities that are around a show like this.  Everyone wants to win, so you see their attack mode come into play.  You’re dealing with egos.  It’s definitely a people position having to navigate through all the different personalities who are on the show.  It’s not easy at all times, but it helps me learn how to have patience,” he says.

Now there’s an understatement.

Regardless which of the “X-Factor” semi-finalists (pop princess-in-waiting Carly Rose Sonenclar, country star-to-be Tate Stevens, and boy and girl groups Emblem3 and Fifth Harmony, respectively) winds up nabbing the $5 million recording contract prize, they’ll be ready to move seamlessly into their professional career.  At least, that’s certainly the sense one gets from Friedman.

“The rehearsals we have with the contestants are straightforward and to the point.  We get them the information they need and they’ve just got to learn to work at a pace that is required when they’ve got changes at the last minute.  Sometimes they go on stage and they’re being redirected as they’re singing their song, where to go on stage,” says Friedman.  “Excellence is highly, highly expected.”

Friedman’s list of credits includes Spears’ videos and tours – as well as work with such names as Prince, Mya, Rihanna, *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, Usher, Pink and Mariah Carey.  He says that “All the artists I worked with outside of the show gave me a bar for the contestants to have to achieve to.  I don’t expect anything less than the greatness that I’ve worked with.  Although they are amateurs and they’re brand new, they want to compete in the industry with the professionals, so we treat them as if they are at that caliber and at that level already.

“I know what it takes to put on awards show performances.  I know what it takes to build massive tours for the biggest artists.  So, that’s essentially what we’re doing for these contestants here every week – we’re giving them a taste of what the real world will be like and also giving them a challenge to see if they can work within it.”

On the other hand, Friedman points out that contestants are under pressures that are different from the pros.  “This is a competition, and every week there is so much more at stake, they are a little more stressed, I would say, than your average recording artist, who is in rehearsal for a long period of time, getting time to work their show out.  There is a high stress factor here.  Sometimes it’s difficult.  ”

Interestingly, Friedman — who has spent more time working on the British version of “X Factor” than the American one – finds at least one big difference between the two Simon Cowell shows.  “It feels like over-all, the U.K. in general, they seem to have more fun.”

As for himself, he says he handles the tension by going to the gym.  “I work my troubles away in the workout.”  And “I’ve been doing some fun stuff for me.  I’ve spent so much time working behind the scenes, I’ve been inspired to create more.”

That includes his just-launched clothing line, BSBF (for Brian Says Be Free). “My experience with casual wear has been that if you want really great, sporty casual wear that is moveable and danceable and something you could wear on an airplane and look great, you have to spend crazy amounts of money on designer stuff.  The average casual clothes don’t have the same style. And I want that style, I come from a fashion, style world.  So, if I can’t find them I’m going to make them and make them available for the public to buy because style should be available at any budget.”

Whatever the drama factor may be, he’s glad the show has brought him and Britney together again.  “It’s just a coincidence, but it’s great.  I started working with Britney in’99, and I was with her through many tours and choreographed her through many so many of her videos and awards shows and I’ve just been a friend of hers through the years.  This is sort of full circle to see her sitting up there at the judges’ table.  It’s really cool, it’s somewhere I don’t think either of us could have said 10 years ago, I bet we’re going to be sitting on a reality show, judging together.”

Britney Spears and Jason Alexander

           With the celebrity-watching world sputtering and tweeting over the abrupt ending of Kim Kardashian’s 72-day marital union with Kris Humphries, at least the pair can take heart in knowing they’re not alone when it comes to enduring a brief, humiliating celebrity marriage. 

            Charlie Sheen’s wedding to model Donna Peele in 1996 came as a surprise to many — with him having testified just a few weeks earlier to having spent $53,000 on trysts with Heidi Fleiss’ call girls. Cynics groused that the marriage was all about Sheen trying to clean up his image. He insisted that wasn’t true, but either way, six months later it was over, and he went on to…Well, we all know what he went on to.

            In 2008, Pamela Anderson requested that her Sept. 29-Dec. 13, 2007 marriage to third husband Salomon be annulled in court, citing fraud.  In 2006, she was married to Kid Rock from July 29 to her Nov. 27 divorce filing.  

            Of course there was Britney Spears, with her Jan. 3, 2004, 5:30 a.m. “joke” wedding inLas Vegasto childhood chum Jason Allen Alexander. She reportedly arranged to have it annulled within hours.  By Jan. 4, Alexander was back home inLouisiana, with his grandfather telling reporters he’d “been through a lot” and didn’t have much to say.”

            Then there’s Drew Barrymore. In 1994, she suddenly and surprisingly wedL.A.bar owner Jeremy Thomas. That marriage lasted less than two months.

            And who could forget this one? On Nov. 14, 1998, former “Baywatch” actress Carmen Electra wed rainbow-haired, cross-dressing then-Chicago Bulls basketball star Dennis Rodman at the Chapel of the Flowers in Vegas. The bride wore a black Mark Wong Nark shirt and capris, and black high-heel platform shoes, and the groom wore a t-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap. After the ceremony, they went to breakfast at the Hard Rock Hotel with friends, and later, Carmen headed back toL.A.to shoot her “HyperionBay” series.

            Two days after the event, Rodman’s agent issued a statement claiming the marriage was “not legal” and that his client had been too intoxicated to know what he was doing. On Nov. 23, Rodman filed for an annulment citing “fraud” and an “unsound mind.”

            Michelle Phillips and the late Dennis Hopper were show business royalty – he, the hot star and director of “Easy Rider” glory, and she the lovely Mamas and the Papas singer — when they married in a surprise Halloween quickie wedding in 1970. But the marriage lasted a mere eight days, with Hopper publicly confessing he was in a fog of drugs and alcohol much of the time. Both survived the embarrassing fiasco well, however, each racking up career and personal successes in following years.

            Producer/former studio chieftain/Hollywood legend Robert Evans hastily wed 32 years younger actress Catherine Oxenberg in 1998 — and the marriage was annulled in nine days.  He explained to Variety, “I forgot it had only been six weeks since I had been hit with a stroke.”

            In 2000, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton surprised the public (as well as Billy Bob’s fiancé, Laura Dern) with an impulsive wedding on theLas Vegasstrip. It lasted a comparatively long time — into 2002 — but there was plenty of embarrassment along the way. They shared intimate oddities about their relationship and gave lots’a public displays of affection, attesting to their wild passion. He said he liked to wear her lingerie under his clothes. They had his ‘n’ hers tattoos and wore vials of each other’s blood around their necks.

            Come to think of it, we were the ones who were embarrassed — not them. 

            From the looks of it, Kim Kardashian isn’t exactly red-faced either, heading off to Australia to promote her clothing line while gossips speculate on her feelings — or lack of feelings — for Humphries and the chances she might get back together with former beau, Reggie Bush.  At least for awhile.

Ryan Dunn MTV photo

It’s sad, but it could be that the late “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn’s greatest legacy might be as an anti-role model. The daredevil, whose Porsche is said to have been traveling between 132 and 140 miles per hour when it crashed, killing Dunn and passenger Zachary Hartwell last week, had a stunning blood alcohol content of .196, according to a preliminary toxicology report. With an estimated 11 drinks in him before he got behind the wheel, he automatically becomes the poster celebrity for what can happen to you when you drink and drive.

Indeed, Roger Ebert’s notorious tweet — “Friends don’t let Jackasses drink and drive” — over a photo of the horrific remains of that car could serve as an effective public service billboard.

Recent years have, unfortunately, brought us an phalanx of
anti-role model celebrities — who teach us by example what NOT to do.

Two years after Michael Jackson’s death of acute propofol intoxication, his doctor, Conrad Murray, is due to go to trial in September on involuntary manslaughter charges. But certainly, details of Jackson’s gargantuan prescription drug usage that set the stage for the overdose have given people pause.

The same is true of Heath Ledger, who seemed destined to become one of the greatest film actors of our time, until his life was cut short by what the New York City coroner’s office determined was an accidental overdose of  painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs: oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine.

Look out, because, as the late Jeff Conaway pointed out, getting addicted to pain pills can creep up on you.

Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen are just two among the current crop of celebrities who have all but destroyed their careers with wild and sometimes violent behavior — behavior that’s landed each of them behind bars more than once. Lohan and Sheen have each demonstrated how even the most prodigious talents can be thrown away. Let us hope not their lives.

Their poster would have to say something along the lines of “Here’s what excessive partying can do to you, kids.”

Anti-role model celebrities show us so many things — how NOT to divorce (e.g. Madonna and Guy Ritchie), how NOT to parent (Britney Spears), and how NOT to utilize cosmetic surgery (Joan Rivers). The idea of actually looking up to stars sometimes seems positively quaint.

Miley Cyrus at 2009 Teen Choice Awards

As Miley Cyrus contemplates her disappointing “Can’t Be Tamed” album sales and absorbs response to her latest stream of “Let Me Prove to You I’m a Grownup” antics – lap dancing with a director, vamping it up in tarty outfits on stage – we can’t help but compare her journey to those of so many Disney darlings before her.

What is it about crashing a sweet, virginal image to smithereens that makes it so inviting?

Of course, Britney Spears leaps to mind.  Miley has made it clear she’s a huge fan of  the 28-year-old superstar whose rollercoaster life has provided careers for tabloid writers and bloggers and paparazzi since 1999, when the former Mousketeer caused a stir with a Rolling Stone magazine cover in which she appeared lying on her bed clad in shorts, bra, and open top.  The American Family Association called for a boycott of stores selling her albums.  Shades of Miley’s Vanity Fair Lolita-esque photo brouhaha.

Christina Aguilera, Britney’s fellow former Mousketeer, traded in her girl-next-door wholesomeness for piercings, a neck tattoo, and a string of raunchy songs and videos.

Older audience members remember original Mousketeer Doreen Tracy, who posed for the men’s magazine Gallery wearing her Mousketeer ears and not much else, and who came out with a book, “Confessions of a Mouseketeer.”

Sadly, there is the train wreck that is once-promising Disney movie star Lindsay Lohan.

Somehow, “Princess Diaries” star Anne Hathaway managed to transition to adulthood in such a deft and sophisticated way, her audience accepted her doing nudity in movies and handling exceptionally gritty material – as in her Oscar-nominated turn in “Rachel Getting Married” – with little turmoil

Which is more than can be said for Hathaway’s onscreen grandma, the Queen of Genovia herself, the great Julie Andrews.  Globally adored after successes including “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music,” she was delighted when her husband, Blake Edwards, put her in his 1981 satire “S.O.B.” as a goody-goody actress who makes a musical that flops and is then re-shot as a pornographic film.

Julie Andrews in "S.O.B."

“Mary Poppins Goes Topless” screamed headlines.  It created a furor at the time, but was eventually granted grudging acceptance.  Sure, she did it – but we’d rather watch the movies that have our Julie practically perfect in every way.

By Stacy Jenel Smith and Emily-Fortune Feimster

Corey Haim at age 14

The headlines about Corey Haim continue after his death:  The city of Toronto pays for his funeral because his financially strapped mother cannot afford it.  Haim’s mother says she was informed he died of pulmonary congestion and had an enlarged heart, yet toxicology results have yet to be announced by the coroner’s office – and surely his long, torturous history with drug abuse has something to do with it.  Haim’s mother says he was there helping her as she undergoes chemotherapy treatment for her cancer.  “He was a good boy,” she says.

This is hardly the ending fans would have expected back when Haim and his best pal Corey Feldman hit a stratospheric level of fame as vampire-fighting teens in “The Lost Boys.”  But the years after his 80s fan frenzy heyday saw Haim addicted to crack, enduring bankruptcy, a drug-induced stroke, 15 stints in rehab and industry peers dropping him due to his drug use.  Even Feldman finally had to turn away after Haim’s mini-comeback with their “The Two Coreys” reality show crumbled under the weight of his addiction to prescription pills.

The passing of Haim has given other former juvenile performers pause.  His course, they know, could have been theirs.

One-time “Brady Bunch” sweetheart Maureen McCormick is among those who went to hell and back after becoming a star.  The actress beat addiction to Quaaludes and cocaine – addiction severe enough to have traded sex for drugs, she wrote in her autobiography – to find happiness as a wife, mother and author.

Drew Barrymore’s victory over the addictions she acquired as a child star whose life spun out of control is well known.

Jaimee Foxworth, Mackenzie Phillips, Todd Bridges and Jodie Sweetin are also among the many who have lived traumatic lives and fought drug problems.

Yet certainly, things don’t always go that way.

Fred Savage, who has a very busy behind-the-cameras career as a director in addition to his acting work, has said that he’s sick of being asked how he turned out so normal.

“That really upsets me,” added the Stanford grad, who also pointed out that of his former “Wonder Years” cast mates, Josh Saviano went on to Yale, Jason Hervey had his own production company and was a family man with three kids, and Danica McKellar is successful not only as an actress, but as a theoretical mathematician.  In fact, the actress remembered as Winnie Cooper was a math star at UCLA — and has authored three books geared toward enticing young people, especially girls, into viewing math her way (“Math Doesn’t Suck,” “Kiss My Math” and the upcoming “Hot X: Algebra Exposed”).  Proving that “smart is sexy” as she says, she’s done a photo layout in which she’s garbed in skimpy black lingerie and stiletto heels.  Not the usual idea of a brainiac.

Why are the child stars from one show so well-adjusted and successful – like “The Wonder Years” – while others crash, like “Different Strokes”?

The latter show’s Dana Plato had a wasted adult life that included soft core porn, arrests for armed robbery and forgery, and a drug overdose death at 34.  It had Todd Bridges, who was swamped in drug abuse and trouble with the law until managing to clean up and get his act together again.  (He went on to a recurring role on “Everyone Hates Chris” and serving as an anti-drug advocate.)  And it had Gary Coleman, whose troubles have included bankruptcy, suing his parents and former manager for misappropriation of his trust fund, and being cited for disorderly conduct while engaging in a heated argument with a woman.

“It all starts with family,” declares producer Todd J. Greenwald, whose show credits include “Saved by the Bell,” “Hannah Montana” and “The Wizards of Waverly Place.”

The sense of a juvenile performer having a stable and supportive family “is definitely a factor” for him in casting, says Greenwald, although it’s “not the final say.”

Grown-up child stars who’ve become successful as adults frequently point to having had the right mom and dad as the primary reason for their staying grounded.

For instance, recalled Ron Howard, “I had parents who acted like parents, who didn’t depend on baby sitters on the set, who saw to it that I never lost touch with my peers…There was always time for the kid things.”

And Ben Savage, the “Boy Meets World” star and younger brother of Fred, explained, “Our parents never wanted us to become lost in the limelight of Hollywood.  That’s why I think they emphasized the importance of school.”

On the other side of that coin, of course, there are such notoriously terrible parents as opportunistic ex-con Michael Lohan, the father of Lindsay, who’ll squeeze whatever personal benefit he can out of her fame at whatever the cost to his daughter, a gifted actress who has all but ruined her career with her self-destructive behavior.  The best thing that can be said of Lindsay’s mother, Dina, is that she’s better than the father.

Or the awful mother and father of faded pop star Aaron Carter, or nightmare stage father Kit Culkin – Macaulay’s dad – or arguably abusive Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson, or Jaid Barrymore, Drew’s where-was-she? mother…the list goes on and on.

But there’s more than just the juvenile actors’ home lives to blame – or applaud – for their adult outcomes.  Certainly they are influenced by what goes on in their work environments as well.

Corey Haim reportedly started drinking beer while on the set of “Lucas” at age 14 and tried marijuana while making “The Lost Boys” – he and Feldman got close during production, in fact, because they were excluded from the “adult” parties that were going on every night on the picture and found their own fun.  In his youth, Haim’s cast mates included the notoriously drug-bedeviled Robert Downey, Jr., Gary Busey, and Charlie Sheen.  Some role models.

Then there are the handlers who’ll say yes to anything a star client wants, if the client is successful enough – even when the client is minor.  And there are hangers-on that find their way into the lives of celebrities, partake of the spoils of their successes, party with them, and sometimes help them spend their money on drugs.  Sometimes the hangers-on are even worse than fair weather friends.

“A lot of people in these performers’ lives, they can’t do it so they want to kill it kind of thing,” notes actress Bijou Phillips.  “Of course, ultimately, everyone has to be responsible for themselves, but there are shady people out there who want to harm.  I’ve seen a lot of that with my family — the vultures, the users trying to look cool who are destructive,” adds Phillips, daughter of the late John Phillips and half-sister of Mackenzie.

Ricky Schroder, who is among the small group of former child actors who transitioned into a successful adult career, tells us he was fortunate to get through it all fairly unscathed.

“There’s not a lot of us who started that young and are still in it.  There’s a lot of luck involved,” notes Schroder, who rose to fame in Jon Voight’s remake of the big-screen tear-jerker, “The Champ,” and in the sitcom “Silver Spoons.”

“The number one thing I did that helped me get where I’m at today is that I truly love what I do.  I love acting, writing and directing, and being on set.  To put up with what you have to put up with in this business, the hills and valleys, you have to love it or else you’ll throw the towel in.  It’s one of the reasons I’m still here,” says the actor, who found success later on in life with “NYPD Blue.”

Though he’s certainly aware of the pitfalls that child actors face, Schroder says he would never discourage his own children from acting.  “I’m supportive of them and I want them to do what they want and hopefully make a living at it.  I’ll help them if they want help,” he adds.  “I have a couple of kids who think they want to do it, but I don’t know if they really, really want to do it.  In the first month when they can’t pay rent and they’re hungry, it’s not so fun then.”

Ultimately, whether a child performer grows into a healthy adulthood or plummets into a morass of disappointment is, of course, an individual matter.

Consider the paths of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.  On paper, it would appear that Britney had the advantage as a child from a stable two-parent home, an elementary school teacher and a building contractor.  Christina’s parents spilt when she was seven, and, as she has made clear, hers was a household of domestic violence at the hands of her father.  The two stars began their career lives the same way, as fresh-scrubbed cuties on Disney’s “Mickey Mouse Club.”  Each went on to pop stardom, each shattered her girl-next-door image with sexy videos and stage routines.  At one point, it appeared Christina would out-raunch Britney.

However, at 29 Christina seems fairly grounded.  She has a four-year-old marriage (to music marketing executive Jordan Bratman), a two-year-old son and a grown-up career.

Britney’s life has been a drama diva high wire act with no safety net — her 28 years blighted with drinking and drugging, awful romantic choices, a 55-hour marriage and a bad two-year one, and such self-destructive and bizarre behavior that she lost physical custody of her two young sons and for a time was forbidden visitation.  Between her lost periods, she has been, and is now, a superstar to the maximum.  Here’s hoping she finds happiness and a modicum of peace.

End it

Britney Spears ended on bad terms with Lance Bass’s “N’SYNC” band mate Justin Timberlake a number of years ago, but that hasn’t kept Bass from maintaining a close friendship with the pop star. In fact, he got up close and personal with Spears when she gave him a lap dance during the last show of her recent U.S. tour. 
 
“I’ve been trying to catch her show for the last six months and my schedule has been crazy. I promised I’d go see the last show so I flew out to Vegas and she didn’t even know I was coming to the show so we surprised her on stage. It was priceless when she realized it was me,” recalls Bass. “I grew up with her. I knew her when she was 13 years old. I’m always there for her. She’s always there for me. She’s someone I consider family and will always be family.” 

Coming back from her very public meltdown, Spears is feeling better than ever and is mainly focused on motherhood, according to Bass. “Yeah, she’s fine. She’s loving those babies and loving being a mom. Being back on the road is great for her. She’s definitely doing amazing right now. She’s got great people around her. I think her main goal is to just take care of those kids.” 

As for his own career, Bass is busy producing various film and television projects, and will also be hosting the red carpet show at the 2009 Fox Reality Channel Really Awards tomorrow night (10/17). “I’m a huge reality freak-fan so I’m going be having a lot of fun on that red carpet, meeting a lot of the people I’ve been watching this season,” says Bass. “I’m sure there will be some dramatic moments on the red carpet with people trying to get their 15 minutes. But that’s one of the exciting things about this show – you don’t know what’s going to happen. Sometimes class gets thrown out the window when it comes to certain reality stars, but that’s the reason we watch.” 

MAGICALLY DELICIOUS: Jamie Ray Newman of ABC’s sexy, witchy “Eastwick” is gratified to see such Twitter users as Jessica Alba and Paula Abdul “tweeting that ‘Eastwick’ is their new favorite show.” And she’s happy that “Eastwick” has garnered tens of thousands of Facebook fans. So why aren’t the ratings better? 

“Oh, God, we have such a really special show. We’ve all been a little frustrated,” she admits, referring to her cast mates and new best friends Rebecca Romijn and Lindsay Price. “We beg of the network to put more advertising behind us. 

“The scripts get better and better – they’re brilliant. We haven’t seen anything like it on TV. Women love our show. We have all these procedural shows, cop shows, manly shows – there need to be more female-centric shows,” opines the red-haired beauty, who’s familiar to fans of Syfy’s “Eureka” as Dr. Tess Fontana. 

(“Eureka” has a 22-episode pickup for its next season, by the way, but Newman’s future involvement will depend on “Eastwick.”) 

Newman is also familiar to L.A. club goers as a singer who performs with various local jazz bands, including as part of the ad hoc group School Boy Crush. The latter includes musicians the caliber of Jane’s Addiction pianist Kristopher Pooley, with whom she played the ESPN Awards after-party. “Eastwick” watchers will get to see her do her singing thing in an upcoming episode of the show in which “we’re doing a ‘Fabulous Baker Boys’ homage. Honestly, it was so much fun. I got to wear an amazing red dress and sing on top of a piano,” the Newman, whose “Eastwick” role corresponds to Michelle Pfeiffer’s in the 1987 movie. “We wrapped at four in the morning. What a dream.” 

FAMILY MAN: Father of five Chris O’Donnell tells us he’s happy to report that things have been running smoothly at home while he’s been busy working on “NCIS: Los Angeles.” 

“It’s been fine. The kids are busy all day with school. I have my time with them in the morning or at night. Because I don’t get to see them all day every day, they’re more excited at night and on the weekends,” says O’Donnell, who’s happy to be getting a resurgence in his career. “It just changes your focus. Your weekends become all about your family. I like to go to their football games or watch them ride or do whatever they do.” 

LETTING BABY GO: Retired pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan is known for being quite protective of his young pop star daughter, Brooke. Now that she’s become more independent as a singer/song-writer and star of her own VH1 reality show, she tells us her dad has been lightening up. “He really worries about me. It’s for good reasons, though. He wants to protect me,” says Brooke. “Even though it’s a little overbearing, it’s not bad. He’s definitely gotten better.” 
 
With reports by Emily-Fortune Feimster