The Starter-Wife League Of America Saves The Planet!
In what has evolved into an unofficial Hollywood Woman's Week of sorts—to culminate in a massive bra-burning protest staged around The Grove's dancing waters tonight at 8 (trashing of the Nike Goddess store to follow)—we now turn to arguably the most formidable strata of showbiz vagina-havers: the wives. The LAT chugs along in a cooking-oil-powered pickup with green warrior Kelly Meyer, wife of Universal's Ron, learning much about what Hollywood wives are doing to help save the world along the way:
Laurie David (soon to be ex-wife of Larry David) was, of course, the ringleader. She started reading about global warming years ago and decided — after watching the SUV trend take hold — that she had to act. She called her friend Elizabeth Wiatt, wife of super-agent Jim Wiatt, and together they formed the National Resources Defense Council Action Committee.
They got all their friends involved: Gigi Grazer (married to Brian Grazer), Gwen McCaw (wife of John McCaw of McCaw Communications), actress Heather Thomas (wife of entertainment lawyer Skip Brittenham), Colleen Bell, Sofie Howard and Meyer. The group held fundraisers and traveled to D.C. (All the husbands got involved as well.)
No one was going to ignore them. (Want to know why Al Gore is now the international green poster boy? It's because David discovered his global warming slide show and wouldn't rest until Hollywood had made a documentary about his efforts.)
The story was filed, of course, before today's history-making announcement that Gore had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, arguably rendering the ex-Mrs. Larry the most influential starter wife in modern history. It's a remarkable chain of events that, while perhaps setting the bar unrealistically high, should still inspire her less proactive peers to reach further than the status quo—which for many of them consists of shouting from an upstairs window to the housekeeper lugging garbage across the lawn, "I think there's a Whole Foods bulk granola container in there that I forgot to put in the blue bin! Could you? Thaaaanks!"
