You have to give her her due

I'll go on record as saying I don't care much for Paris Hilton. She's a tribute to excess and living proof that you can succeed in America with zero talent or looks as long as you were born into money.

According to the New York Daily News, her former manager, Jason Moore is now shopping a book around titled "Controlling Chaos" about how he turned the socialite he describes as a "blonde piece of clay" into a star. He describes how he saved her career despite her making sex tapes with boyfriends, suffering from hangovers during photo shoots and numerous arrests for driving citations. According to the book, if Jason hadn't been pulling strings she would have faded into oblivion. Thanks a bunch Jason.

But the point of this isn't to rake Paris over the coals. That's already been done to death. I actually have a fair amount of grudging respect for her. She's the Keith Richards of her generation, minus the talent of course. Let's take a look at some of her friends that have attempted to keep up with Hollywood's version of the energizer bunny.

We can start with Tara Reid. She was on her way to a nice career as a supporting actress in films. Remember that she played the virginal girlfriend in the American Pie series. She was also in Van Wilder with Ryan Reynolds. She became well known for both her movies and her party girl lifestyle. After a series of failures which included having her character written out of the sitcom Scrubs, after 11 episodes her only income came from making appearances in nightclubs. At the height of her popularity she was reportedly commanding a $60,000 fee for these appearances. By late 2008 that was reportedly down to $1,500.00 and she is alledgedly suffering from liver failure.

Another starlet that tried to keep up with Paris was Lindsay Lohan. If you remember, her movie career began at age 11 in the Disney movie, "The Parent Trap". She continued in Herbie:Fully Loaded. She was moving on to more serious films when the problems started. She received a scathing letter from a studio executive during the filming of Georgia Rule criticizing her party lifestyle and lack of professionalism. She entered rehab for the first time in January of 2007 and received DUI's in May and July of the same year. Her fame now consists of screaming fights with her on again/off again girlfriend Samantha Ronson.

I imagine you remember what happened to Britney Spears after spending a week with Paris in Las Vegas. First she lost the ability to remember if she was wearing underwear, followed by shaving her head and winding up in a psycho ward. The Olsen twins have pretty much been on suicide watch for the last 5 years and Nicole Richie lost about 40% of her body weight simply trying to keep up with Paris.

But for all these problems, Paris continues to roll along, despite destroying everyone she comes in contact with. Needless to say I wasn't auditioning for a part in her series to pick a new BFF. I can admire her resilience, but I prefer to do it from a distance.

I got into a discussion on a message board I frequent a couple of days ago about favorite sports movies. I was thinking about mine and will talk about it some next week. Have a great weekend!