Rock and role

August 5, 2006

The recent huffing and puffing on the Internet about Hilary Duff's relationship with singer Joel Madden is but the latest iteration of one of the oldest story lines in celebrityhood: the Actress and the Rocker.

Duff, of course, embodied larky, G-rated teen innocence as Lizzie McGuire in the Disney Channel show of the same name. (The TV program also spawned a movie in 2003 that was less a film than a catalog of glamour shots of Duff, with Rome as a prop.) Now 19, she is dating Madden, the tattooed lead vocalist for the pop-punk band Good Charlotte.

Pop! has no doubt there are genuine romantic sparks between the pair, and is also aware of the old adage that opposites attract. But historically, if you're an actress with a goody-goody image you'd like to shed, or if you'd just like to add a little edge to your persona, there's no surer way to do it than to embroil yourself in a relationship with a high-profile musician. The Good Girl/Bad Boy paradigm is irresistible to the tabloids.

Cast your mind back a quarter-century to 1981, when apple-cheeked sitcom star Valerie Bertinelli married heavy-metal guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who had a reputation for walking on the wild side. On the sitcom ``One Day at a Time," much was made of the fact that Bertinelli's squeaky-clean character, Barbara, remained a virgin until her wedding night. After marrying Van Halen, Bertinelli was cast in darker roles in TV movies-of-the-week (as a compulsive gambler, a nun who leaves the convent, a woman who witnesses a gang rape). She also sat down for an interview with Playboy, where, sipping a daiquiri and smoking a cigarette, she confided: ``I'd seriously consider breast implants, but my husband won't let me do it because he likes them the way they are."

And many an actress apparently likes musicians the way they are. All-American beauty Heather Locklear , for instance, has twice succumbed to the charms of rock 'n' roll. First, in 1986, she married self-described ``rock pig" Tommy Lee , the hard-living drummer for the heavy-metal band Motley Crue . At the time, Locklear laughed off the band's reputation for dabbling in satanism with ``Tommy doesn't worship the devil; he worships me." After the marriage ended seven years later, Locklear wed another rocker, Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi .

Maybe there's just a built-in chemistry between people who make their living performing for the public. Maybe one side has a desire to reform the other, or to taste the forbidden fruit, or to see beyond the public image. For whatever reason, actresses and musicians have hooked up time and again over the years in highly publicized romances. Pamela Anderson , formerly married to Lee, just tied the knot with Kid Rock . Last month, Nicole Kidman married country singer Keith Urban . And there are the just-split Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro , long-split Jennifer Lopez and Sean ``Puffy" Combs , and famous mates Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson , sitcom star Kimberly Williams and country singer Brad Paisley . . . .

So Hilary and Joel, best of luck. You are on a much-traveled road. Just watch out for the potholes.

DON AUCOIN

A push to move the bronze statue of a triumphant Rocky Balboa to the foot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps is on the ropes. Sylvester Stallone donated the statue of himself playing the boxer from the film ``Rocky III." Since that 1982 donation, the city has debated where to keep the statue of Rocky with his gloved arms raised. Most recently, a group proposed putting the 8-foot - 6-inch statue (inset) at the base of the museum steps that the cinematic icon climbed in the original 1976 ``Rocky" movie. But the city's Art Commission objected to that move this week, questioning its artistic value. ``It's not art," said artist Moe Brooker, a member of the city Art Commission. ``It was a prop." The 3-3 vote by the commission's art and architecture committee was not a knockout, but left the proposal on the mat with the referee counting. Joan Schlotterbeck, city commissioner of public property, who spoke in favor of the site, withdrew the application before it went to the full commission and said she would return and make a new presentation. The commission has said other locations should be considered.

Grammy-winning opera singer Sylvia McNair, who performed for Pope John Paul II and has sung at the US Supreme Court, is recovering from breast cancer surgery. The 50-year-old soprano underwent a radical mastectomy July 7 following two months of chemotherapy. She told The Indianapolis Star she was diagnosed after a ``crystal clear" mammogram in October. McNair said she'll undergo another round of chemotherapy next week in Bloomington, Ind., where she has joined the staff at Indiana University as a voice instructor.

Jason Alexander plans to drop in on ``Everybody Hates Chris" next season. Alexander, who starred in the sitcom ``Seinfeld," is set to play the principal of Corleone Junior High on two episodes of the sitcom and will direct a third. Air dates have yet to be announced. Chris Rock's UPN sitcom, based on the comedian's childhood in Brooklyn, survived the merger of that network with the WB. It is now on new network CW's debut schedule and is set for an Oct. 1 premiere.

'I don't think he should be totally drummed out of the business. I think he should just have to start all over again.' Radio host and comedian Al Franken, talking about actor Mel Gibson, who has apologized for making anti-Semitic remarks during his drunken-driving arrest last week.
FROM WIRE REPORTS