Beck/Smith Hollywood

 Happy Thanksgiving to all, and a special thank-you to the readers who joined in with their votes and comments for our 34th Annual Tacky Taste Awards.  In a year when some of the biggest scandals in the news — from Penn State to politics — took place outside the Hollywood realm, there’s still a banquet of show business celebrity turkeys to chew on.  And heeeeere they are.

1.  Kim Kardashian & Family.  Riled up over Kim’s 72-day marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries, readers voted to bestow 1st Place, Tackiest Celebrities of the Year dishonors on the Kardashian clan.  Among the comments:

“KarTRA$Hian is KarKA$Hingin — the fake marriage down to the crappy clothes at Sears.” — Hannah L., New York, NY  

“She went from saying Kris was so nice and down to earth to saying he was only in it to climb the fame ladder practically overnight.  Of course people are suspicious. She made more than $17 million from the wedding.” — Pam R.,Canton, OH. 

“Kim Kardashian was made for your Tacky Taste Award.” — Nathan P., San Francisco, CA

Steve M. from Dallas, TX had a different take: “I think all the dimwits who watch the Kardashian family and then complain about them deserve a Tacky award.  Idiots, change the channel!”

2.  Chuck Lorre and Charlie Sheen  So many voters mentioned the “Two and a Half Men” creator and his former star together, it seemed appropriate to reunite them just this one last time in the annals of Tacky Taste.  For example: 

From Julia in AZ:  “Charlie Sheen’s year of tirades, drugs and hookers and Chuck Lorre’s repeated endcaps and on-air rebuttles have really done it for me.  I thought by now the banter would be over and bringing in Ashton would let the show stand on its own, but Chuck doesn’t seem to want to let go.  Week after week they have to rehash all of Charlie’s downfalls.  Come on, kill the show now if you are going to make it a year of Charlie-channeling.  Even Charlie seems to have learned to shut his mouth.” 

G.M. in Santa Monica, CA wrote, “Not that I’m buying Charlie Sheen’s good behavior act, but Chuck Lorre needs to get over being bitter and stop sniping at Charlie and try to improve the show, which sucks now.”  

In the opinion of witty Bernice R. of Naples, FL, “It has been a close race this year for the Tacky Taste Award.  Charlie Sheen was the star of the pack early on, but his admitting to his foolish rages took the edge off criticizing him.  Darn.  But then when all seemed lost, Kim Kardashian came along with her whirlwind romance, brain-free husband, check cashing acrobatics and surprise (not) divorce, and challenged Charlie for the lead.  I’ve got it!  How about a Tacky Couple Award? Theirs would be a match made in Hollywood heaven.  Oh, those two have got to meet, or what’s a Hollywood for?” 

3.  Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Grace H. of Burbank sums it up:  “Former governator Arnold Schwarzenneger makes Bill Clinton look like a cub scout.  First he let Maria find out the hard way that he sired a child by his housekeeper.  Then after they split up he went out in public sporting a T shirt that said, “I survived Maria 1977 – 2010.” 

And this comment from reader Linda D.:  “Arnold Schwarzenegger deserves the award for being unfaithful to his wife, family, and the state of California.  And then having the bad taste to wear an ‘I survived Maria’ t-shirt.” 

Agrees Paula G.: “It has to be the Arnold:  what he has done to Maria Shriver is so awful.  I used to like him, but now, I am not interested in seeing anything he does.  Thank goodness he’s no longer the Governor of California.” 

4.  Gerard Depardieu.  “Gerard Depardieu deserves your award, hands down, for urinating in the aisle of a plane after being told he had to wait until after takeoff to use the bathroom, causing a two-hour flight delay.  If one of us mere mortals did that, we’d be arrested.” — Ken, Tacoma, WA. 

Peggy S. of Los Angeles voted for Depardieu, adding, “I want to mention Anderson Cooper also.  It was one thing to get the giggles during his report about l’affaire Depardeiu — but then to have Depardieu on his talk show to discuss the incident, and hand out peepee bottles to everyone in the audience?  That was Tacky.  But I still love Anderson.”  

5.  Lindsay Lohan.  The troubled actress, who has been doing community service at the L.A. morgue as a result of violating her probation, drew tacky votes for “blowing chance after chance to straighten out,” as J.Y. of Bell, CA put it. 

“Lindsay Lohan gets my vote.  You know you’ve hit bottom when Heidi Fleiss gets on TV and congratulates you for posing for Playboy and says you’d make a great hooker.” — Tara K., Ohio

6.  Kate Gosselin.  “As always, the tackiest person in America is Kate Gosselin,” contends Dee W.  She explains: “From her trashy clothing to her constant bashing of the father of her children, she epitomizes the word tacky.  Her classifiying her ex as ‘mediocre’ because he prefers to work a regular job and live out of the spotlight was classic Kate.” 

“I would rather listen to nails on a chalkboard than that whiney b#@! any day.” — George F., Woodland Hills, CA

7.  Jesse James.  The reality show star got a late flurry of votes after his ex, Kat Von D, went public with her claim that he’d cheated on her with at least 19 women during their engagement.  “Wasn’t he supposed to have been treated for sex addiction after his cheating wrecked his marriage to Sandra Bullock?  Jesse, you tacky dog, you should demand your money back.” — L.Z.

8.  Courteney Cox and David Arquette.  “Their over-sharing about their sex life problems on Howard Stern’s show has tainted my feelings about them.   Really, Courteney, thought you had more class than to dispense such intimate details with gutter language.  Sad for Coco.” — Linda W., Peoria, IL

9.  Hank Williams, Jr., ESPN and “Fox and Friends.”  The singer’s remark, on “Fox and Friends,” making an analogy using President Obama and Hitler, got his iconic theme song cut from Monday Night Football after 20 years — and both sides chimed in: 

`”Hank totally got the shaft.  If you read the transcript, he never said Obama was like Hitler.  His conservative politics is what really got him ousted from MNF.  And he’s right that ‘Fox and Friends’ set him up.” — Dan H. 

On the other hand, S.B. of Long Island, NY, wrote, “Who gives a damn what Hank Williams Jr. thinks?  He’s a right-wing crackpot with no talent.  Glad to see him go.” 

10.  Brad Pitt.  “Some people continue to add insult to dumping their spouses overboard.  Brad Pitt told Dotson Rader of Parade Magazine that his life was boring when he was married to Jennifer Aniston.  Quote, “I wasn’t living an interesting life, myself.  I think that my marriage [to Jennifer Aniston] had something to do with it.”  – Grace H., Burbank, CA

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.

Charlie Sheen

Duh!  Of course Charlie Sheen had ulterior motives for acting like a stand-up kind of guy at the Emmys and elsewhere the last week or so. 

He’s in the process of getting his “Anger Management” series set up — something that wasn’t about to happen if he ran about naked in hotel lobbies, hitting women and lobbing nasty remarks about his former employers.  With Deadline Hollywood’s Nellie Andreeva now reporting that showrunner Bruce Helford (“The Drew Carey Show,” “George Lopez”) has signed on for Sheen’s planned series for Lionsgate, it’s all too obvious.  Next, if his “Two and a Half Men” legal action is indeed settled, the way will be clear for the new show.   (Anybody want to take bets on whether Helford will live to regret this?)

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.

Charlie Sheen

Do you think that Charlie Sheen’s condition as he rants against Warner Bros. TV and producer Chuck Lorre over radio, TV and internet makes the $100 million wrongful termination lawsuits his attorneys have filed into a lost cause?  Think again.

Leading entertainment litigator Mitchell Langberg notes that there is more to Sheen’s case than is apparent at first blush.  “In my experience, the studios in these employment things are at least mostly wrong.  You have artists who are artists, and studios that are businesses.  When something happens to make it personal on the business side, then it devolves into all kinds of issues.”

Langberg’s firm, Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck, has represented stars and companies through the years, so he’s well versed in both sides of cases involving high-profile entertainment firings.  The company represented Aaron Spelling back when Farrah Fawcett quit “Charlie’s Angels” — as well as Valerie Harper, back when she was fired from her own series.

” In this case, you have a studio that knew about it,” he says, referring to Sheen’s drug-fueled carousing.  “They even renegotiated with him after it was happening.   They can point to their morals clause or their felony clause, but it would appear that as long as the ratings were high and the money was rolling in, his behavior was acceptable to them.

Mitchell Langberg

“Now, it could be that it got so out of control it got to be a danger and was starting to effect the show,” continues Langberg.  “I’ve read the 11-page termination letter, where they talk about his missing his marks and leaning against things and such.  It could be that, or it could be that it got real personal.  The timing of when he was first suspended from the show was two days after Charlie made his first public comments against Chuck Lorre,” notes the attorney, referring to the “Two and a Half Men” creator/producer that Sheen termed “a clown” and “Chaim Levine.”

Langberg points out that reports of Sheen’s wild behavior are nothing new.  He’s “been on Howard Stern’s show and other shows making comments about prostitutes and drugs before now.  Did they weigh their morals clauses then?  What changed?  That is what the case is going to turn on  – whether or not they can prove that something different was effecting his peformance, or the safety of his performance happening.”

What happens if Charlie gets 5150′ed?  “If the family gets him committed, even temporarily, it will confirm what seems readily apparant to anybody who watches the internet or television.  And maybe it will make it more pursuasive for the studio,” Langberg observes.

“I remember sometime in the late ’90s, when Charlie first publicly had these  problems.  Martin made it ovious he would do whatever it took to save his son,” adds Langberg, referring to comments the elder Sheen made to  reporters as Charlie recovered from a 1998 drug overdose — “whatever he’s able to do.”

Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen

It would be an irony among ironies if Charlie Sheen’s manic media blitz wound up helping “The Way” — the film about a father retracing his dead son’s pilgrimage along Spain’s Camino de Santiago that stars his father, Martin Sheen, and was directed by his brother, Emilio Estevez.
 

This is the film that Estevez and the senior Sheen have been trying to promote in-between coping with questions about Charlie and his behavior.  And talk about juxtaposing the profane and the sacred — while Charlie’s been extolling the virtues of his porn star  “goddesses” all over TV, Emilio and Martin have been talking to college groups and religious press about encountering “small miracles on a daily basis” in making their labor of love film.  That’s how Martin put it when he spoke to the Independent Catholic News:

 “’People would walk in front of the screen, and spoil the scene and then we realised it was something beautiful. We were just led along the way to surrender to everything that occurred….. Swept along – it was as if a band of angels was dragging us along this journey.’”
 

Emilio calls the film “pro people, pro life not anti-anything.”

 Their Malta premiere was a fundraiser for Pope John XXIII Peace Lab. 

 Small wonder Catholic and Protestant groups are already poised to embrace the movie, though critics praise it for being not overtly religious.  Martin has made it clear that they wanted to honor the pilgrimage journey taken by people who may be curious, may be spirtual seekers, may be bereaved, may be confronted with major life decisions.   “It’s not something Americans do.  Few Americans  would meditate for six weeks on a long walk,” he said in Dublin.  “But frankly they should try it.”

 The film opens in the U.K. in time for Easter next month.  Estevez has said that in advance of the movie’s Sept. 30 U.S. opening, he and his fahter plan to take a 30-day, 30-city cross-country promotion bus trip from Los Angeles to New York.  Here’s hoping that Charlie is on a much better path well before that.

 GOING BAD:  Gilles Marini would like tp go from being a lover to, well, maybe even a fighter during his “Brothers & Sisters” hiatus.  “My dream would be to get an independent feature with a lot of texture, or a part in a blockbuster where people would say, ‘I know this guy from somewhere, but where?’  So different that they don’t recognize me.” 

The actor currently making hearts flutter as sexy, romantic Luc Laurent says playing a villain would definitely be a worthy idea.  “Why not?  I’m open to so many different things.  Someone who is a bad boy, or, to be bold, someone who is an atrocious monster.  If I break the image, it will make me more real as an actor.”  

 CASTING CORNER:  Bring your own, um, whatever.  How about this for a casting notice?  For a fetish party sequence in an upcoming “CSI” episodes, casting forces wanted 38-to-45-year-olds, “hot men and women….should have own fetish gear…Please specify in notes what kind of gear you have.”  They really have a taste for fetish stories on that show, have you noticed?

 NBC certainly has a taste for fantasy this pilot season.  Not only is there the police show set in a magical land that we mentioned the other day — “17th Precinct,” that takes place in a place called Excelsior, where everyone uses magic except for a threatening group called The Stoics, who aim to destroy magic with science.  There is also “Grimm,” about a young police officer (here in contemporary America) who thinks he is losing his mind because he keeps having visions of people turning into monsters.  But it turns out, he’s a special being with a special ability to see such goings-on.  Actually, that’s not so special.  We see people turning into monsters in Hollywood all the time.

 Meanwhile, over at ABC, casting is underway for “Grace,” a family drama-with-comedy set in the world of professional dance.  Producers have the innovative idea of using dance as subtext and background throughout the episodes, as “family patriarch Michael Grace communicates through dance.”  Worth a look, certainly.

Charlie Sheen

Why, Chuck Lorre, why? With Charlie Sheen’s series-ending public rant last week, Lorre has to have attained some sort of new Guinness world record for dealing with out-of-control, out-of-their-minds, self-destructive TV stars.

In case you missed it, Sheen referred to the “Two and a Half Men” creator as a “clown” whose “tin can” writing Sheen claimed to have been “effortlessly and magically converting…into pure gold” for nearly a decade.
Lorre’s used to unappreciative stars, to say the least. Consider: the esteemed writer/producer first whetted his sitcom chops working on “Roseanne” back in the early ’90s. Behind-the-scenes fights on that show became an everyday part of the job, as the star wrested more and more control out of creator Matt Williams’ hands and launched a frenzy of frequent firings. Before it was all over, tales of screaming tyrannical behavior emanated from the set regularly and Roseanne let it be known that she suffered from multiple personality disorder.

Roseanne

But that show was likely a better experience for Lorre than the first show he personally created – the 1993-1998 “Grace Under Fire,” starring Brett Butler. The comedian, once thought to be the female answer to Lenny Bruce, exhibited demonical diva ways including verbal abuse and sexual harassment, according to Lorre’s suit over profits from the sitcom. Her nastiness led staff, including writer Alan Ball, to talk about the show using terms such as “the gulag.” Lorre left.

Brett Butler

Butler confessed to painkiller addiction and the production became subject to her rehabs and relapses — but due to high ratings, the team carried on (sound familiar?) until at last ABC got fed up with Butler missing tapings and abruptly pulled the plug.

Then there was Cybill Shepherd, a decided improvement. Nevertheless, she was accused of megalomania during production of her “Cybill” show of 1995-1998. Whoever did what to whom, clearly, it wasn’t fun. Lorre was fired after five episodes despite creating the show. (A phalanx of other writers quit or were fired as well.)

First, though, Cybill had Lorre banned from the set, reportedly because she hated it when he and another producer, Jay Daniel, sat watching her performances on the monitor and critiquing them. Imagine producers doing such a thing!

Small wonder that in 2008, Lorre relished the assignment of cowriting a “CSI” episode entitled “Death of a Sitcom Diva.” As “CSI’s” Robert David Hall put it, “I think Chuck is working off his aggression in this script.”

By then, “Two and a Half Men” was already a long-standing hit, and it looked like taking a gamble on seemingly-reformed hellion Charlie Sheen was a good idea. Considering the show’s long running success, it still looks that way. But as every reader of pop psych tomes and women’s magazines knows, if you keep getting into the same kind of toxic relationships over and over again, you have to recognize that it’s your responsibility and make changes. Lorre’s apparently-harmonious “Big Bang Theory” and gratitude-infused “Mike and Molly” casts suggest he’s found the healthy truth: there are talented, funny, creative people out there who manage to do terrific work without all the pain and suffering.

Goodbye, Charlie Sheen. Ahh.

Snooki

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all, and a big serving of gratitude to the readers who contributed their votes — and wit — to this annual celebrity turkey shoot. Our cornucopia overflows with tackiness, so let’s get to it:

1. Snooki. Just in time for her 23rd birthday this week (Nov. 23), the petite “Jersey Shore” vixen becomes the top vote getter in the 33rd Annual Beck/Smith Hollywood Tacky Taste Awards. Yes, Snooki, nee Nicole Polizzi, won the hearts — or at least, the attention — of Tacky voters across the land.

“Cute little figure and dumb as a box of rocks. Snooki is my Tacky Princess for 2010,” writes R.M. of Anaheim, CA. “Snooki and ‘Tacky’ go together like Cheetohs and orange fingers. Ya gotta love her,” says Jamie L. of Canton, OH. Referring to her arrest this past summer for loudly stumbling around drunk on a beach, Teri99 points out: “When a judge calls you a ‘Lindsay Lohan wannabe’ it just doesn’t get tackier than that.” Carlos G. of New York brought up Snooki’s surprising “Happy Birthday” Twitter exchange with John McCain: “Look out. This is how it all began with Sarah Palin.”

2. Lady Gaga. “Lady Ga-ga’s dress con carne pushed her into the gag-o-sphere of tackiness” as reader Bernice R. of Naples, FL cleverly puts it. She adds, “I propose a last name for her: ‘Maggot.’ Then, she could be called, ‘Lady Gag-a-Maggot.’ Grace H. of Burbank, CA, concurs: “She seems to be the figment of a deranged mind. She really went too far when she was dressed in slabs of meat. Now that Mr. Blackwell is gone women will do anything.”

Kate Gosselin

3. Kate Gosselin. “She claims to ‘do it all for the kids’ but goes around dressed like a $2 whore and never misses an opportunity to denigrate and bash her ex-husband,” says reader Dee W.. Tell us how you really feel, Dee! She continues that Gosselin “treats other people as if they are less than human, including her own children. This not only is bad for the children, it’s now showing up in the kids’ behavior as well, with 2 of them being expelled from kindergarten (!!) for bullying and mistreating their fellow students.”

4. ‘DWTS’/Bristol Palin. “The politicizing of ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ their fawning over Sarah Palin, and all the Tea Partiers voting to keep the clearly

Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas ABC photo

inferior Bristol in the competition all these weeks, has ruined the show for me. I won’t be watching any more,” proclaims Joanne R. of West Haven, CT. Others, like brucekn write, “It’s ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ Since when is Bristol Palin a star?”

5. Mel Gibson/Oksana Grigorieva. “I certainly don’t condone Gibson’s terrible behavior, what with the racist rants, the verbal abuse and threats he’s heaped on Oksana, and the fact he left his wife for this nasty woman. However, I feel sorry for him because he is obviously mentally ill and she took advantage of

Mel Gibson

that to trap and extort him. The whole situation is beyond tacky,” writes TrulyJenC. Her sentiments are echoed by Rory from Atlanta: “All she cares about is $$. These tapes exploit his bipolar disease. Stop posting them!” But others are less sympathetic to the rage-spewing star. Tim G. of Northridge, CA, blasts, “Set up or not, Gibson is an abuser, pure and simple. His claim of being ‘broke’ is funny. I thought he had a $900 million fortune not so long ago. So, now he’s down to $300 million and feeling the pinch? I should be so broke.”

6. David Arquette, for “going on Howard Stern’s show after the announcement of his marital split from Courteney Cox and airing all their dirty laundry? Announcing his having sex with another woman? Ugh. I wonder how Courteney stayed with this idiot for so long,” wrote Rochelle T. of St. Louis.

7. Charlie Sheen. “I don’t know which is worse: Sheen or his Hollywood enablers. He tears up a NYC hotel room and clocks a hooker and they say it’s an allergic reaction?! As long as the checks are good, right folks?” — Rich M., Newark, NJ

8. The Kardashians. The celebutante/socialite sisters Kourtney, Kim, and Khloe seen on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” drew tacky votes for various reasons. “Kim flaunting her sexual relationship with Miles Austin in front of ex Reggie Bush shows again she’s a total skank” — Tenney, Brooklyn, NY. “Khloe’s ongoing comments about finding it hard to conceive with Lamar Odom are tacky T.M.I.” — Brenda K., San Diego, CA. “I still don’t get what these three sleazy man-eating @#!$es are famous for.” — Pat O., El Paso, TX

9. Joaquin Phoenix. Clearly, Casey Affleck’s “I’m Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix” hoax was a dud. Bernice R. skewers Joaquin thusly: “Wacky jokester but otherwise talented, Joaquin Phoenix’s nauseating hair and beard garnered him literally tens of fans worldwide this year, bringing the total attendance to his last movie to 72 virgins, but only if you count the enamored camels.” Ouch.

10. Laura Schlessinger. A past Tacky Taste winner returns, with complaints over her tackiness summed up by G.H.: “Laura Schlessinger used the ‘N’ word repeatedly as she was talking to a caller who was black.”

Dishonorable Mentions. They’re not celebrities, but many would agree with Michael B. of Rockford, Il, when he says “The brain trust at the Transportation Security Agency who came up with the virtual strip search and sexually invasive pat downs to which travelers are suddenly being subjected are tackiest of all this year.” Then there’s “Stephen Colbert’s appearance before the Senate hearings on migrant workers. [It] will stand forever in the annals of tackiness, otherwise known as the Congressional Record. Single-handedly, Colbert elevated a government committee up to the level of cheap entertainment. Kudos also go to Jon Stewart for calling the President of the United States, ‘Dude,’ to his face.” — B.R., FL

And that’s it for this year. Here’s hoping all your turkeys offer the very best of taste.

Charlie Sheen

Communications expert, professor and author Dr. Lillian Glass reports she’s simply staggered to find the archetypes in her new “Toxic Men” book making news these days all over the celebrity sphere.  And once she starts naming names, she makes a very good case for just that.

“It’s been amazing, what is happening in the headlines.  For instance, Charlie Sheen — a celebrity face and name — is absolutely a toxic type.  He’s in the category of  the gloom and doom self-destructive victim.  He’s had it all, had everything handed to him over and over, yet he has these self-destructive issues including being with the women he should not be with again and again, and being very hostile with them,” says Glass, who’ll be seen with Joy Behar and Dr. Phil this week tubthumping on behalf of the tome.

Mel Gibson

Next, there’s “Mel Gibson, the control freak type, the ultimate bully, so full of rage and hate, and even a little bit of the sadist, we see going on…”

And, “John Mayer, the emotional refrigerator.  We see him go through these major relationships and, as a body language expert, I see that his body language is the same over and over again.  Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Simpson — he walks ahead of these women.  You see no affection.”

Glass, whose book not only includes clues to look for in order to avoid toxic types (women too), but guidelines for dealing with them when one must, on the job or socially, points to Jesse James as another archtype.  “The silent but deadly erupting volcano.  He’s so quiet and sweet,

Jesse James

but then there’s all this cheating with several women, and the photo with him wearing a Nazi hat — this obnoxious passive-aggressive attitude about his alleged racism.”

She views Michael Lohan as the toxic type she deems “the sneaky two-faced meddling backstabber” and who could disagree?

John Edwards she titles The Wishy Washy Spineless Wimp.  We get that.

Kanye West, meanwhile, is “a narcissist.  It’s all about him.  For anybody to go onstage and take an award out of another person’s hands saying they don’t deserve it — that’s the ultimate act of narcissism.  He’s the Me Myself and I type of toxic man.”

The Jealous Competitor type is represented by Chris Brown, in her view.  “When a man hits a woman, it’s about envy and jealousy — competitiveness.  This is where you find cases of abuse — this type and the controllers.”

At the very worst end of the scale are emotionless psycho sociopaths capable of acting very charming.  “They’re blamers, nothing is their fault. And they’re liars.”  She places fraud perpetrator Bernie Madoff and murder suspect Joran Van Der Sloot in that category.

Last but not least, there’s the “manipulative cheating liar, which is Tiger Woods,” says Glass.  “We saw him.   He gave that mea culpa speech, but it was all for his golf game.”

Glass’s book, of course, has much more information and nuance.  “Of the 15 books I’ve written, this is the one I’m most excited about,” she says, “the one I believe can most positively change lives,”  Or at least, be entertaining as all get-out.

Indrani, Markus Klinko Bravo photo

The high stress, high art, high friction, high ego world of A-list celebrity photographers gets the docu-reality treatment in Bravo’s June 15-debuting “Double Exposure” – which follows the work of photographers (and former couple) Markus Klinko and Indrani.   The team has worked with such famous personalities as Beyonce, Kate Winslet, Lady Gaga, Will Smith and Lindsay Lohan.  As the show reveals, they have plenty of personality themselves.

Former model Indrani tells us no two shoots are alike.  “Some will come in with very strong visions.  David Bowie told us he’d been following our work from the very beginning and he loved what we did, which we found very exciting.  He asked us to do things we’d never done before, working in black and white with old school style photography solarization.  Others time people come in and they’re very open, ready for a total change of their image.  It really depends.  Sometimes the collaborative process is really fighting for ideas.”

“Double Exposure,” she says, “is our idea, because for many years, people have told us we should have a TV show.  We’re crazy and hysterical and there’s a lot of drama on our shoots,” she admist.  “It’s because our work is our lives and we’re very passionate about it.”  It’s also because “photo shoots are often where people feel the most vulnerable.”  The stars, she adds, “are just as insecure as you or me or anyone about having their photo taken.”

IT PAYS TO BE RICH AND FAMOUS:  News that Charlie Sheen is likely to wind up serving half of a 30-day sentence – sans probation – in his plea bargain deal in the Christmas day domestic violence case involving his wife, Brooke Mueller, would be unsettling enough on its own.  Has anyone taken a look at his prior record?  But to have it be in the pattycake Pitkin County Jail?  The notoriously cushy spot, where Claudine Longet served her 30-day sentence for misdemeanor negligent homicide in the shooting of skier Spider Sabich back in the ‘70s, is outfitted with homey comforts from plants and TVs to coed areas where inmates can mingle freely.  Not much tougher than the luxury rehab facility Sheen visited earlier this year as a “preventative” measure.

A NEW STAGE:  Fred Willard says he doesn’t know yet whether he’ll be called upon to return to his role as Ty Burrell’s dad on “Modern Family.”  He’s certainly not waiting around to find out.  Willard has his family on a European vacation. When they get back, “someone is talking to me about a stage show on Broadway.  I’m not sure about that.  I have to find out more,” he says.  “I’ve been wanting to do more theater.  We’ll see if this is the time.”