Even for the most confident, red-blooded straight single man, approaching the stunning (and towering) actress and supermodel Rebecca Romijn for a conversation can be a bit daunting. So try doing it while the beautiful blonde is standing underneath an enormous black and white photo of herself. Naked. Clutching a live chicken in front of her bare breasts.
Fortunately, I was already a couple of glasses of liquid courage into the evening at the chic West Hollywood restaurant Morton’s, and the last time I spoke with my favorite X2 hottie at the Golden Globes, she un-shyly showed me where she sewed up her otherwise see-through gown to conceal her own, uh, golden globes–though she revealed slightly more to me than she meant to in the showing and telling. Which made for a good icebreaker to segue in to ask about how hard it was to pose with the chicken concealing her cutlets in the photo hanging above her.
“With a chicken covering my…vitals?” Rebecca giggled. “Uh, it was fun. It was really fun. A good day.” How easy was the little pecker to handle? I wondered. “Very–remarkably easy. I was actually kind of afraid about that, but it was fine.” Easier than some of the other models you’ve worked with? “Yes!” she exclaimed.
Rebecca had joined a wealth of fine-looking femmes who proved they weren’t at all chicken themselves when it came to doffing their designer clothes for a good cause. In this case, the magnificently photographed coffee table book Four Inches, which collected the celebrity nudes and semi-nudes (snapped by an equally starry array of top photographers) under its covers, was being sold to raise funds for the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Sir Elton had sweet-talked a bevy of babes into posing nearly au natural. I say nearly because all the girls accessorized their birthday suits with Jimmy Choo shoes and Cartier jewelry-including Kate Moss, Elle Macpherson, Heidi Klum, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Carmen Electra, Christina Aguilera, Lara Flynn Boyle, Anne Heche, Minnie Driver, Mimi Rogers, Serena Williams, Sarah Ferguson, Iman, Rachel Hunter, Rosanna Arquette, Jenna Jameson and Macy Gray.
Even more remarkably, many of the ladies turned out for the live auction of their photos in an extremely elite bash, set in a tent outside Morton’s. The bidding for shots was fast and furious (while they were often cheeky, these pics were indeed art, not cheesecake-y Maxim shots or soft-focus Playboy snaps), raising over $350,000 for the charity.
Rebecca, whose off-kilter but still sexy shot sold for $13,000, revealed that for her, it was even more daunting to stand in front of a crowd next to a nude shot of herself than it was to shed her clothes for the actual shoot. “Oh, that’s my worst nightmare!” she admitted. “I thought a couple times about coming here, because of that. It was like, ‘I have to be in the same room as the picture of me that’s being auctioned off? I don’t know about that!'”
Although Paris Hilton‘s dog Tinkerbell, dozing in her lap, was wearing more than the heiress was behind the wheel of an SUV in her photo, Paris told me appearing next to her nearly-naked image was nerve-wracking, “but it’s for charity. But I was a little shy.” Yes, you heard right: Paris was shy.
To wit: when bidding stalled briefly, Christie’s celebrity auctioneer-to-the-stars Andrea Fiucznski tried to coax Paris into throwing in a kiss for the winning bidder. But Paris balked and said she might–but “not on the lips.” Her image went for $11,000, but Paris kept coy on whether she threw in the free smooch. She did tell me also had to make sure no other photographer got the shot of her sans clothes, especially one of the paparazzi variety. “There was a lot of paparazzi around on that street, and I was trying to get them away and all this stuff was happening, but we finally got rid of them.”
On the other hand, Paris’ sister Nicky–who brought beau Kevin Connelly–was more unnerved by her bum-baring photo shoot than showing up at the auction. As soon as the final shot was snapped, she rewarded herself for her bravery–and her discipline. “I dieted a lot before the shot,” said Nicky, “and the minute we did the last shot, I ordered a huge large cheese pizza.”
A nervous Anne Heche said “It feels good when the numbers get higher” when her sexy photo–Anne upright in bed with long hair cascading over her naughty bits–went on the block. She needn’t have worried: her CAA agent Kevin Huvane was the winning bidder at $10,000, garnering many kisses from his client. “I wanted it to sell!” Anne told me. “After it got over $5,000 I got comfortable.”
Lara Flynn Boyle described how photographer Isabel Snyder talked her into being tied naked to a tree in Isabel’s garden. Snyder admitted that it was with the help of a bottle of whiskey, which was near empty by the end of the shoot (though her photo didn’t make Lara blush, Isabel’s revelation did). That shot went for $11,000, sold to famed hairstylist Vidal Sassoon. On the more serious side, Minnie Driver, who posed discreetly under sheets with her sister Kate, spoke eloquently of her opportunity to visit people living with AIDS in Africa, and how much the experience moved her.
“I bared my soul. So bare your wallets,” Mimi Rogers instructed the bidders, and after the auctioneer tried to get the actress to throw in something special to goose the bid up to $10,000, Mimi responded “I’m not taking my clothes off again.” Mimi revealed that the obscured nude figure in the background of her photo was actually photographer Tierney Gearon, (who stood at Mimi’s side onstage), inspired to ditch her clothes and fill a vacant space in the shot she set up and had the makeup artist click.
It seemed everyone was willing to strip down to help in the battle against AIDS: even Jimmy Choo’s gorgeous founder and CEO Tamara Mellon showed she had the cause’s back, and she proudly positioned herself near the bar under the big blow-up of her baring her backside, much to the appreciation of party guests including Virginia Madsen, Molly Sims, Julie Delpy, Jane Leeves, Jill Marie Jones. And the one guy who has also mastered the art of persuading women to drop their tops, though primarily for his own profit: Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis. Francis must have figured it would take more than a t-shirt to get these ladies topless, but they clearly did have a price: the books sold for $70 each, or $1000 autographed by Sir Elton.
Even the ladies who couldn’t make it to the auction fared well: two adorably cheeky images of Elle Macpherson–caught surprised and naked a) on the loo and b) at the breakfast table–were hotly contested with the opening bid for the pair coming in at $50,000, finally selling together for $76,000; an ingenious-if slightly disturbing-nude of Carmen Electra digitally altered to make her appear like a puppet on strings went for $8,000; and a shockingly gorgeous and glamorous image of a brunette Jenna Jameson sold for $10,000.
The big ticket item of the evening was a glorious B&W portrait of Kate Moss by photographer Sam Taylor Wood. Her recumbent pose was clearly inspired by a ’60s-era shot of Paul Newman from Cool Hand Luke. It became the evening’s fiercest contender, ultimately selling for $57,000. “It’s one of the coolest shots that I’ve seen in a long time,” Rebecca Romijn told me as we studied the enlargement. “Really, there are a million beautiful women out there, and a million different ways to shoot beautiful women, and there are varying degrees of magic that happen when it’s a beautiful photograph, but that picture of Kate Moss is such an amazing, amazing image. It’s just so hot.”
Uh, yeah! I agreed. But don’t take Rebecca’s word for it, or mine. Buy the book and see for yourself. After all, if you’re going to pay to see a celebrity naked, put the money toward a good cause.
