"You Know My Story. I'm Pretty."

I know everyone's buzzing about Katherine Heigl's allegedly ungracious comments regarding Knocked Up in the new Vanity Fair (January 2008), but puh-leez—all she says it was hard to love a movie where the women are shrews and the men are fun-loving oafs. And you know what? It was hard for me to love that movie, too. But like her, I came around to loving it. Overthinking things is impossible. Underthinking things is all too possible.

They have lips, they know how to use them.

But I was more drawn to this rockin' image of all the great ladies who've whored for MAC since its inception in 1994, primarily because it put Debbie Harry into Vanity Fair. She looks a bit Helen Reddy, but quite good. Jesus, did Lisa Marie Presley really get to plug MAC? MAC has raised "more than $100 million, making it the world's third-largest corporate donor to AIDS organizations." Without any facetiousness at all—I had no idea!

The other amazing piece in VF, which always has at least one, is "A Legend With Legs" by Sam Kashner, a loving look at the underappreciated Angie Dickinson's life and career. It's still shocking, her famous 1966 (!) portrait with nothing but a top and heels, despite Britney's low-rent take-off of several years ago, but more shocking is how good Angie looks in the opposing current-day pose by Norman Jean Roy.

Nothing beats a great pair.

Fun facts from the profile:

* Angie Dickinson was the subject of a This Is Your Life, but walked out! "I think they should have organized it the other way around, so I could have talked about their importance."

* "...she still gets scripts that ask her to do nude scenes. 'Don't they know I'm an old lady?' Dickinson still attracts admiring glances, though she apologizes for 'not having the Angie Look' anymore."

* Classic quote from her role in The Killers, in which Ronnie Reagan slaps her—hard—in his only role as a villain: "You know my story. I'm pretty."

* She had fabulous affairs with Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy, but her refusal to dish about the latter led her to return a six-figure book advance for an autobiography! She does state, of her presence on the campaign trail for JFK, "We went barnstorming to seven states, and we picked up athletes like [baseball stars] Stan Musial and Ernie Banks." Though none of the states voted for JFK, Dickinson felt they'd made the vote a lot closer.

* "She met President Clinton once, at a Democratic fund-raiser given by film mogul Lew Wasserman. 'I was standing next to [actress] Suzanne Pleshette on the receiving line,' she recalls about the encounter, 'and as he got closer, I said to her, "My God, I'm beginning to sweat!" And then he was in front of me, bigger than life, and so great-looking. He said when he met me, "At last!"' He must have known of her long-standing connection to the Kennedys and her support for Democrats. In fact, she once famously joked, 'I have never knowingly dated a Republican.'"

* Most fascinating is her adoration for Dressed To Kill. It's so nice to know she loves that brilliant film and accepts it as her finest silver-screen moment.

Loved reading about this great lady, whose story should be so much more than, "She's pretty."