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Kanye, Kim and their celebrity child ... remembering the fun of 'Funny Girl'

"A GENTLEMAN fits in anywhere, mama."

"A sponge fits in anywhere!"

So it went between Barbra Streisand and the late great Kay Medford in "Funny Girl."

Barbra's first movie -- for which she tied with Kate Hepburn for the Best Actress Oscar in 1969 -- aired over the weekend on Turner Classic Movies. It's not a perfect film and Barbra was not as assured a dramatic actress as she later became, but she is mesmerizing even when not quite up to the demands of crying for Omar Sharif. Except in the epic "My Man" finale, filmed partially live; she weeps most convincingly there. It is said she was mourning the end of her marriage to Elliott Gould, and the tears flowed like wine.

Rarely has an actress been so lovingly photographed as Barbra is in "FG." The legendary cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr. made her look like a goddess. Every time she -- as Fanny Brice -- referred to her homeliness it didn't ring true. And why should it? It's a movie!

I decided to go back in time this weekend, rather than head out to the Cineplex, even though I am most curious about "Guardians of the Galaxy," which as you probably know, made about $100 million in just three days.

SOMEHOW, I have never been to Ibiza, in Spain.

And I don't have wanderlust these days, but I have to admit, if I could have been whisked to Ibiza over the past couple of weeks, I might have said yes. The deliciously absurd carrying on over there is filling gossip columns almost every day.

Leonardo DiCaprio's corpulent belly, Leo's pointed refusal to party with Justin Bieber, Justin and Orlando Bloom getting into a mini-flailing match over a woman they both knew -- Orlando's ex, Miranda Kerr (as Jimmy Kimmel remarked of the Bloom/Bieber kafuffle, "Now, girls"), Orlando then being barred from a party when Bieber complained and Zac Efron definitely kissy with Michelle Rodriguez.

Lindsay Lohan was in Ibiza too, and managed not to fall down. So maybe there is hope for her London stage debut.

But the real horror of summer in Spain was Justin Bieber cuddling up to Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian clan. And then -- the happy reunion of former best friends and then worst enemies, Paris Hilton (remember her?) and Kim Kardashian. Paris wore huge sunglasses and Kim wore a huge smile. It was if they never said goodbye.

Forget the false hysteria over Ebola. Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian have made up! Some news outlets love to emphasize potential end of the world stories -- meteors, murders, microbes and Mexico.

Disease and illegal immigration? That's small change. Paris and Kim are together again. Darkness falls.

I DID my best to get through GQ's cover story on Kanye West (Mr. Kardashian), but I almost couldn't go beyond his first sentence. The author of the piece, Zach Baron, read Kanye a recent Page Six item. The singer's response: "For the person who wrote that, were they involved with anything last year that was as culturally significant as the "Yeezus" tour or that album?"

A bit later: "Kim and I are going to fight to raise the respect level for celebrities so that my daughter can live a more normal life. She didn't choose to be a celebrity. But she is. So I am going to fight to make sure she has a better life."

First of all, most celebrities get attention. They don't get respect, certainly not in our ravenous social media age. Second -- you want respect? Restrain your wife from taking lurid, stupid selfies. (The last one I saw, there was Kim grinning and in the background Kanye shirtless in bed.) And third -- your child, the fancifully named North West, is not a celebrity. Not unless you and Kim make her one. Angelina Jolie has six kids. None of them are celebrities. She seems not to see that as a goal for them.

Raise your child as a human being. And get over yourself.

ENDQUOTE: "People are increasingly getting information from an atomized, partisan, choose-your-news smorgasbord, where you are as likely to process the State of the Union through your brother-in-law's Facebook rants, the tweets of a few favorite reporters and the top 17 GIF's of Nancy Pelosi blinking, as curated by Buzzfeed."

That's Rolling Stone writer Reid Cherlin, chronicling "The Presidency and the Press" in the current issue. It deals mostly with the contentious and deteriorating relationship between President Obama and the media. It's a great, slightly scary read -- nobody really knows anything, they just tweet as if they do!

And for Republicans counting on a GOP president in 2016, the article concludes: "There's no clean shot for communicating the president's message. That's just where the country is going. And it's going to be worse for the next president."

(E-mail Liz Smith at


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