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Dickinson's life anything but model

Beauty reveals all in memoirs

Photo: Janice Dickinson (AP).

Supermodel Janice Dickinson has survived a punishing childhood, various addictions and a truckload of bad relationships. She's done everything to excess -- and lived to tell about it. A recovering alcoholic -- "... even today, in my darkest moments, I want to drink so badly my entire body is screaming" -- Dickinson found it therapeutic to write down her feelings about the abuses she'd suffered as a child and the life issues she's suffered since. That writing became her first memoir, No Lifeguard on Duty, which told the story of how she became one of the world's top models during the 1970s. Now she's back with Everything About Me Is Fake . . . and I'm Perfect! (ReganBooks), in which Dickinson writes about some of her not-so-glamorous modelling jobs (swimming in a shark tank, passing out while wearing fur on an oppressively hot day) and being under constant scrutiny, even when she was eight months' pregnant. Eating is strictly forbidden when you're the world's first supermodel, Dickinson says. Has she had plastic surgery? You bet. As for the men in her life, Dickinson vents about several famous ex-boyfriends, including Mick Jagger and Sylvester Stallone. "I believe in kissing and telling; I figure I've earned the right. We're talking about my memoirs, for God's sake." Now a judge on America's Next Top Model, a reality TV show about the making of a new supermodel, Dickinson offers beauty tips, including how to apply individual false eyelashes, extols the virtues of exercise and admonishes readers to "please learn how to walk in high heels." The book's most heartfelt moments are the glimpses Dickinson offers into life with her two children, Nathan, 16, and Savvy, 10. After stewing for weeks because Nathan failed to give her a Mother's Day card or present, she came to this realization: "In my own compulsiveness, I was trying to write a script for everyone in my life. . . . I've got to stop that. We all have to stop that. And I'm trying. Really." Just don't expect insight and sobriety to turn her into a shrinking violet -- or a woman who doesn't hold a grudge. "In case you're reading this, Mick? I'm Janice, babe. The original. Don't forget it. Don't underestimate it, either." -Carole Deegan.

Bullish Miramax boss writing a book

Harvey Weinstein's memoirs to be published in 2006

Photo: Tom Cruise, left, executive producer of the film The Others, with fellow executive producer Harvey Weinstein

NEW YORK (AP) -- Get ready for an earful -- or at least an eyeful -- from Harvey Weinstein. The famously bullish boss of Miramax Films is writing his memoirs. HarperCollins will publish the book, currently untitled, in 2006. "Harvey is someone we read about every day. Now, in this book, we will read the true story behind Miramax's amazing success, as only Harvey can tell it," Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins, said Thursday. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but Weinstein will donate all profits to charity. According to HarperCollins, "The memoir will trace the lives of the Weinstein brothers (Harvey and Bob) from their lower-middle-class roots in Queens, New York, through the founding of Miramax . . . and will chronicle the premier independent movie studio's triumphant and sometimes turbulent history." Weinstein, 52, has released such Oscar-winning films as The English Patient, Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love. But in an industry with a history of hot tempers, he's known for an especially short and heated fuse, with some of his outbursts documented in Peter Biskind's bestselling Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film. Weinstein's latest controversy involves Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which Miramax plans to distribute through a third party after its parent company, Walt Disney Co., refused to release it. Moore's film criticizes President George W. Bush's handling of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and connects the Bush family with Osama bin Laden's.

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