Saturday, April 5, 2008

Medical high jinks leave Tom Cruise camp fuming

Tom Cruise isn't getting any giggles from a new strain of medical marijuana being marketed as "Tom Cruise Purple."

Word is that the actor's lawyers are taking a serious look at the strong brand of bud after we brought it to their attention.

One of Cruise's friends found it "outrageous" that licensed cannabis clubs in Northern California are selling vials of pot featuring a picture of Cruise laughing hysterically.

Like other followers of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Cruise is opposed to the use of psychotropic drugs.

Staffers at several California clinics we called said they were forbidden to discuss any of the herbal varieties in their "inventory."

But one weed devotee said, "I heard it's the kind of pot that makes you hallucinate."

Meanwhile, a woman who has been identified as Cruise's former alternative-medicine consultant is due to stand trial in L.A. Superior Court on April 17.

A spokesman for the L.A. City Attorney's office tells us Feline Butcher - aka Feline Kondula - has been charged with 18 counts of unlawfully practicing medicine and one count of grand theft.

The charges stem from Butcher's treatment of Clive McLean, a cancer patient who died in 2005.

McLean's widow, Erica McLean, tells us that Butcher, who's a Scientologist, and another unlicensed practitioner encouraged her husband to abandon chemotherapy in favor of a regimen of "vitamins and 'magic drops.'"

Erica McLean, who was assisted by private investigator Paul Barresi, claims that the couple paid close to $120,000 on useless treatments.

Butcher has pleaded not guilty.

Additionally, Cruise is the unwitting star of a new spoof video in which he's seen cavorting with the bouncing head of Hubbard and dancing Scientologists like Kirstie Alley, Beck and John Travolta.

The video - which you can find at http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/scientolulz - mocks the controversial church's war with Internet critics, who've come to be known as Anonymous.

A representative for Cruise declined to comment on the video and the "purple" pot, but insisted that Butcher "was not his adviser. He has nothing to do with her."

Despite getting top billing for her first film role in "My Blueberry Nights," Norah Jones isn't interested in pursuing an acting career. "I'm not necessarily going to take another film project. This one was hard!" she told us at the flick's Cinema Society and IWC screening. The singer-turned-actress says she "took only two acting lessons, but [director] Wong [Kar-wai] told me to stop acting and just react to what was around me. I'd like to learn the process [of acting] if I ever do another movie." If producer Harvey Weinstein has a say, it'll be sooner rather than later. "Norah's a natural," he told us at the Soho Grand after-party. "She has a great career ahead of her, if she wants it. I want to find a musical project to put her in. I don't have anything specific yet, but I'll find something."

Farrah Fawcett has been hacked. The "Charlie's Angels" star, who's battling cancer, is the latest celeb to have her medical file leaked at UCLA Medical Center. Since the start of the year, 12 hospital employees have been fired for snooping into Britney Spears' records.

"A great dining room leads to great happiness," Zac Posen told us at DIFFA's Dining By Design charity event to fight AIDS on Tuesday. The joyful accents in his? "Swan chairs at my pea-soup-green, high-lacquered dinner table." The event itself boasted a range of dynamite dining rooms, all by top designers like Marc Blackwell, who offered a purple flower-accented room for Beringer Vineyards. Said Blackwell, "Every dining room should have something live on the table."

Laughing during love-making is allowed - in fact, it was encouraged at the Museum of Sex party for "Sex and Sensibility," the seductive new look at "the lunacy of modern love" by nine female cartoonists. Roz Chast, Barbara Smaller and Julia Suits were among the ink-slingers toasting New Yorker magazine cartoonist Liza Donnelly on the collection that probably would have given the mag's late editor William Shawn a heart attack.

When a shoulder injury sidelined Maria Sharapova from a tournament in Miami this week, Sony's VIP program, Sony Cierge, sent the tennis ace the industry's first organic light-emitting TV so she could watch the action in style. Andy Roddick didn't score one, but he's attending the tourney with something even more luminous - his new fiancée, Sports Illustrated model Brooklyn Decker.

At last count, Everlast has gotten 215,299 plays of his song "Letters Home From the Garden of Stone" - many of them from American soldiers in Iraq. One e-mailed his MySpace page: "You got this song - and very deep video - just right. You really got to me. Everyone needs to watch it."

R&B hottie Ashanti celebrated younger sister Shia's 19th birthday at Jay-Z's 4-0/40 Club, where bartenders served up soft drinks for the underage revelers.

Congrats to Kurt Andersen, former editor of Spy and New York. His "Heyday" picked up the Langum Prize as best American historical novel of 2007 and has been named by the New York Public Library as one of the 25 best books of the year.

Diva alert: Mena Suvari marched around the AX Music Lounge in Miami swilling Belvedere cocktails, making out with her boyfriend and loading up on swag bags valued at more than $1,000 each. But when it was time to pose for a sponsor photo, the actress declined to be snapped with her gifts. Ouch!

Which proud new papa cheated on his fiancée two years ago with a famous starlet? The two were hanging at a private bash in his apartment when the mood turned a little lustful.

Bjork sent hipsters outside Wednesday night's Paper magazine and H&M's Beautiful People party into a twitter, arriving just after Victoria's Secret hottie Selita Ebanks and "Gossip Girl's" Ed Westwick. The Icelandic star gushed over singer Joanna Newsom's performance, but not everyone was so impressed. "Even your band is better than this," one girl joked to Westwick about his punk outfit, the Filthy Youth. The actor feigned heartbreak and gave her a wink.

Shia LaBeouf turned up at a downtown boite Tuesday night looking "haggard," according to a spy. The "Transformers" star "almost didn't get in. Finally, one of the guys he was with told the doorgirl who he was." Despite their hard-earned entry, the trio left after a quick lap. Said the witness: "On his way out, he asked where the 'good parties' were that night."

Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson presided over a karaoke contest with Lydia Hearst and Damien Fahey at Angels & Kings. Simpson was bleary from a red-eye but chatted brightly with a gaggle of boys who cooed over her new red hair.

rushmolloy@nydailynews.com

With Sean Evans and Shallon Lester. Edited by Lance D. Debler

Original here

No comments: