the queen

We’d Like To Thank The Little People Who Pick Up Our Poop

5:45AM Defamer Hollywood | Poppy, Anna, Alice, Oliver and Megan were the big winners at the Fido Awards, for their impressive performances as Queen Elizabeth’s beloved Corgies in The Queen, eliciting these good wishes from their award-winning co-star, Dame Helen Mirren: “I know one should avoid acting with animals and children, but these little chaps were a pleasure to work with and deserve all the plaudits for their fine performances.” [AP] More »

Trade Roundup: CAA Assimilates The Yankees

4:00AM Defamer Hollywood | Agenting’s Evil Empire joins forces with its baseball equivalent, luring the New York Yankees into their nefarious embrace with the promise of brokering lucrative new corporate sponsorships and keeping the clubhouse buffet stocked with the most delicious babies the Bronx has to offer. [*Full disclosure: As a lifelong Yankees fan, this one really hurts.] [Variety] Now using fifth-grade English reading lists to fill out his development slate, NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman has ordered 13 episodes of a drama series based on Robin Crusoe. [THR] More »

BBC Sentenced To Identifying And Correcting Every Lie In History By Decree Of An Angry Queen

5:10AM Defamer Hollywood | The fallout continues from last week’s royal debacle, in which the BBC was forced to publicly apologise to The Scariest Lady on the Planet, aka Queen Elizabeth II, for having rearranged footage to make it seem as though she had stormed out of a photo session with Annie Leibovitz. A Year with the Queen producers RDF Media e-mailed the director-general of the BBC, accepting full responsibility for what they refer to as “a serious error of judgement.” Somehow, not even the divvying of blame among sub-production entities has done much to lessen the Queen’s wrath, as The WOW Report’s Fenton Bailey reprints an e-mail he received from a BBC contact: Dear Fenton As a result of the BBC/RDF Queen misrepresentation, myself and a number of other Execs are having to contact all our suppliers over the past 3 years to review our output. To sum up, this is to see if they may have in any way misled the viewer with anything that has been broadcast by the BBC. More »

BBC Producers Apologise To Queen For Editing Her To Look Like A Nightmare Bitch From Hell

5:45AM Defamer Hollywood | A promo clip released yesterday of BBC documentary A Year with the Queen showed Annie Leibovitz requesting that Queen Elizabeth II remove her crown for a picture. The Queen’s response was to incapacitate her with a royal shoe pressed against her neck, threatening, “Ask that of me again and I shall crush your trachea like a bug,” before storming out of the session in a huff. Not all was what it seemed, however, and producers have issued apologies to both parties for having creatively rearranged their footage for maximum diva-rampage potential. From BBC News: The BBC has apologised to the Queen for wrongly implying she walked out of a portrait session with photographer Annie Leibovitz during a documentary. More »

Annie Leibovitz Learns ‘Let’s Try One Without The Crown’ Doesn’t Fly With An Actual Queen

4:55AM Defamer Hollywood | What happened when leading celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz – a bold artist known to throw fits when the “preternaturally” prop baby DHL’d to her Vanity Fair cover shoot doesn’t meet her exacting specifications – was assigned to shoot a legendarily frigid monarch? Things got tense, especially when the portraitist suggested to the Queen of England that she remove her crown, and BBC cameras were there to capture the entire exchange. From The Times Online: The Queen arrived in white fur stole, gold-embroidered evening dress, Order of the Garter robes and diamond tiara, as requested. But Leibovitz, a perfectionist who once persuaded Whoopi Goldberg to pose in a bath of milk, had a change of heart. More »

Helen Mirren: ‘Why I Blew Off The Queen For Nicolas Cage’

7:10AM Defamer Hollywood | Queen Elizabeth II, fresh off her triumphant trip to her semi-retarded former colony, has invited her Academy-Award-winning portraitist (and occasional Defamer forbidden lust object) Helen Mirren to dine with her at Buckingham Palace. Reports spread quickly that Mirren turned the invitation down, for the rather unregal excuse that the actress was unable to escape the South Dakota shoot of the much-unanticipated next installment in the Bruckheimerian scavenger hunt series, National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Now, via a message tied to the leg of a carrier pigeon branded with the logo of a leading Hollywood P.R. firm, comes Mirren’s own official explanation of the royal regrets: “I was honoured to be invited to dinner at the Palace. This was a gracious gesture and very appreciated by me. It was therefore hard to have to decline. I was contracted on that date to be working in South Dakota, in a situation which was impossible to change. More »

The Queen Makes George W Bush LOL With Her Rapier Sharp Royal Wit!

3:41PM Jess McGuire | Hot on the heels of yesterday’s hoo-haa over President Bush’s royal gaffe during his welcoming speech for Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to the United States comes news that Her Majesty has mustered up her own pithy riposte, leaving a crowd of 104 guests at a black tie dinner rolling in the aisles. The Queen flashed a bit of royal wit at President George Bush on Tuesday, getting back at him for a faux pas a day earlier that nearly placed her in the 18th century. With a playful grin, the Queen opened a dinner toast to the President saying: “I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, ‘When I was here in 1776 …’” The 104 guests invited to the black-tie gathering at the home of British ambassador David Manning erupted in laughter. Mr Bush laughed along and the Queen smiled broadly before continuing with her text. “Your Majesty, I can’t top that one,” Mr Bush reciprocated, at the beginning of his toast. Who could, George? Who could? Next stop for The Queen? We can only hope it’s New York – so Liz can host Saturday Night Live. She and Amy Poehler would comedically bounce off each other like it ain’t no thang, mark our idiotic words. More »