McCartney wants to be
a paperback writer

Plus: Bush library exhibit bags complaints

By Jeannette Walls with Ashley Pearson

MSNBC

updated 6:53 p.m. ET March 17, 2004

Look out, Madonna.

Paul McCartney is getting into the kiddie-book writing biz. And publishing sources say that McCartney — because of his rock-star status — could generate the sort of best-seller that Madonna did with “The English Roses.”

McCartney is penning a children’s book called “High in the Clouds," about two squirrels and a frog who try to rescue animals endangered by urban development. It will be co-written by Philip Ardagh, and illustrated by Geoff Dunbar.

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“High in the Clouds” is being published in the U.K. by Faber and Faber, but no U.S. publisher has been announced, and one book world insider tells The Scoop: “This will be a hot property. Even if the book is awful, it will sell like hotcakes. Because he’s Paul McCartney, he’s almost guaranteed to get on all the talk shows to promote it, and what politically correct, baby boomer parents wouldn’t want their children — or their grandchildren — to read a book by a former Beatle?”

Bush exhibit bags some complaints
Joe Cavaretta / AP file
Some recent visitors to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas, were startled by the subject of a current exhibit there: Judith Leiber handbags.

More than 160 of the handbags favored by socialites and ladies who lunch are on display at the museum of the former president. The bags, which frequently come in whimsical shapes such as animals and fruits, are often encrusted with crystals and usually retail for thousands of dollars.

“It’s not exactly the sort of thing I associate with George H. W. Bush,” one perplexed visitor told The Scoop. “We’re at war with the terrorists and so I was expecting something a little more weighty and political.” There is, perhaps, a political component to the exhibit. A description of the handbags pointed out: “Leiber bags are one of the few products still made by hand in the United States.”

Notes from all over
Mark Mainz / Getty Images file
A British art gallery says it plans to sue Val Kilmer for pulling an exhibit of photographs. The “Wonderland” star had agreed to have the Proud Gallery in London exhibit behind-the-scenes pics that were taken by a friend on the set of the flick. The show was due to go up on April 2 — much to the anger of some of his co-stars — but Kilmer has since changed his mind. “Val Kilmer has undoubtedly breached the contract we had by unilaterally deciding to pull out of the show,” gallery owner, Alex Proud told the London Independent. “It’s going to cost us a lot of money and we are pursuing him legally.” . . . “Jinx,” the James Bond spinoff that was to star Halle Berry, was shelved due to disappointing box office for the sequels to the Charlie’s Angels and Lara Croft films, says a source. “The script was all written, Halle was happy, but then the studio saw the figures for ‘Full Throttle’ and ‘Cradle of Life,’ and said, ‘Chick action flicks are not hot.' ” . . . Jim Caviezel once told J. Lo to put her clothes back on. The “Passion of the Christ” actor starred opposite J. Lo in “Angel Eyes,” and the devout Catholic told the London Mirror that during a sex scene, he asked his co-star not to strip because he didn’t want to upset his wife. “I want to respect her,” he told the paper, which says that Lopez ended up filming the scene wearing both her bra and a pair of knickers. “The only bare breasts I want next to me in my life belong to my wife.”