The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 54

12 THE AGE FRIDAY 20 AUGUST 1999 FRIDAY 20 AUGUST 1999 THE AGE 13 his teenage boy by ogling my breasts Beauty: Very large breasts. Has one bad tooth. Talent: None discernible. Purity: Raised in a log cabin in Alaska by wild wolves. Used to wash her hair in a Kmart washroom in San Diego because she had "nowhere else to AmbitionEntitlement: Dated Sean Penn (see Madonna), who bankrolled her video to You Were Meant For Me-which finally got her Pieces Of You album noticed a year after its release.

Britney Spears Tragedy: Injured her knee while learning a dance on Jay Leno's The Tonight Show. Looks like Debbie Gibson. Beauty: Everyday teen albeit one with rumored breast implants. Talent: Looks good on the cover of Rolling Stone. Purity: Was the '90s Tiffany.

Toured America's shopping malls for a month. AmbitionEntitlement: A member of the Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club at 11. Recorded with Max Martin (Backstreet Boys, Ace Of Bass, Robyn). Planning a guest spot on Dawson's Creek for 2000. Shania Twain Tragedy: Put off career to raise siblings (her parents died in a tragic car accident when she was 22).

Her real name is actually Eileen, but for years site told people it was Shania and claimed she was Native American. Yeah. On her stepfather's side. Beeuty: Model-like good looks. Some say.

Talent: Always sings like she's just woken up. Wears very tight jeans. Purity: See Tragedy. AmbitionEntitlement: All Canadians are ambitious American wannabes like Alanis. Married to her producersongwriter Robert "Mutt" Lange (ACDC, Def Leppard, Michael Bolton).

Madonna Tragedy: Can't maintain a steady relationship. Her movie career is kinda tragic see Shanghai Surprise, Body Of Evidence, Wlm's That Dick Tracy, A league Of Their Own, etc. Beauty: Works out a lot. Telent: Morphing chameleon. Has a real talent for making all her songs sound like they're from 1986.

Actually sings worse since she started taking voice lessons, over-enunciates all her words. Purity: Her baby and her yoga. AmbitionEntitlement: Well, dull! 0 1 i ft '-A fi" 1 Kylie (VI mm i Alanis Morissette I mi I r-v I jrz I 1 een any of those M'lV-style concerts, where Shania Twain is 1 lined up next to Brandy and Aretha Franklin in an attempt to prove that record sales somehow equate with artistic merit? Pretty, it ain't. F.ver wondered how IV bosses stumbled across The Diva especially considering that the main point of the '90s Diva seems to be to see how much easy-listening radio stations can irritate us by replaying the theme song to Titanic! Ever wondered why an artist of the (dubious) calibre of Britney Spears can make it to the front cover of Rolling Stone1. Have you ever wondered what defines a Diva? What are those mysterious elements that, when they come together, can create an icon as powerful and marketable as Princess Di or Evel Knievel? It's quite simple, actually.

There are five essential Diva qualities: tragedy, beauty, talent, purity and tin additional factor that we shall call entitlementambition. F.ntitlementambition? What the hell does that mean? S'easy. Nancy Sinatra had the former, Courtney l-ove has the latter. So there are five qualities each of which, coincidentally, matches up with a member of the Spice Girls (as was). Think about it.

Posh is the girl with the bad skin and rabbit smile who reinvented herself as a Gucci-championed beauty that professional sportsmen fawn over. Baby is purity, the lollipop-sucking paedophile fantasy with massive thighs who every mother would love their boy to erm, kiss. Scary is blind ambition, the one who fought with the band's original leader, (iinger, and got her dismissed, the modelbrat with the megamoulh who gets to interview The Artist on TV. Sporty is the talent, obviously the only Spice Girl with a recognisable singing voice and the only one who can do back-llips. And Ginger is the tragedy: the one with the shadow)' past as a topless model and chat-show host, the member forced to leave and become Miss UN, lecturing Third World countries on birth control.

(Besides. Have you heard her solo album?) Together, the Spice Girls make up the Ultimate Diva, but who else should be included on our list? Here's FG's leading Diva Dozen. Marian Carey Married (and later divorced) her control freak of a manager, Tom Mottola, president of Sony Records. Beauty: Chipmunk face, made to look beautiful. After her divorce, post-Butterfty, she's no longer cutsie girl-next-door.

She's started to dress more sluttery. Talent: Hits the high notes, but her songs suck. Purity: Babysitter when her demo was discovered; also worked as the catering trade equivalent of a potted plant a restaurant hostess. AmMtloiiEntttlement: Given own vanity label, Crave, by her husband (see Tragedy). Duetted with Whitney Houston Prince Of Eg)'pl).

Dated New York Yankees baseball player Derek Jeter. Rumored to be half-sister to transsexual TV star Drew Carey. Possibly. 8 Iff Whitney Houston Tragedy: Married to Bobby Brown -whose charge list is longer than her hit list. Her cover of I'm Every Woman was the Oprah theme song for a while and that show is pretty damn tragic.

Beauty: Teenage fashion model. Talent: Hits a lot of high notes, but her songs suck, too. Purity: All victims (see Tragedy) have a certain "babes in the wood" purity. Sang The Greatest Uwe Of All, a song about self-love. Has recorded Coke commercials that's pure, right? AmbitionEntitlement: Related to Dionne Warwick (who now runs a psychic hotline see also Tragedy).

Her mother, gospel singer Cissy Houston, used to be in Aretha Franklin's backing group. Celine Dion Tragedy: French Canadian. Youngest of 1I kids. High school mop-oat at 15. Sang theme song to Titanic, which is a very tragic film.

No discernible sense of style. Beauty: None discernible. Talent: Sings very loudly, holds a note forever. Purity: Beats chest in emotive fashion. Sting theme song to the purest love story of our age, which ended in tragedy (see Tragedy).

AmbitionEntitlement: Married to personal manager Rene Angelil, 27 years her senior, who mortgaged his house to finance her debut album "because he believed in young Celine so I 1 'J'-iiHl -1 league Tragedy: I Should Be So Lucky- that's pretty tragic. So are her movies The Delinquents, Streetfighter). Her 1997 album, Impossible Princess, had its title changed after Princess Di's death, for fear of offending the British public. Recorded the tragic tale Wlxere The Wild Roses Grow with Nick Cave. Beeuty: Waif-like, at best.

No timeless beauty is our Kozzer. Talent: Good marketing skills, great connections. Purity: Recorded with Jason Donovan (see Tragedy). AmbitionEntitlement: Former soap star. Linked with Michael Flutchence (see Tragedy).

Sister to Dannii. Natalie Imbruglia Tragedy: One of four sisters from a tiny redneck beach town near Sydney. Torn is not her song, contrary to popular belief. Played construction worker and heartbreaker Beth on Neighbours, Beauty: Yes. In a Kate Moss wastrel fashion.

Leann Rimes Tragedy: Rimes' debut hit, Blue, was written for seminal country singer Patsy Cline, who tragically died in '63. Parents entered her in show business at the age of live. Beauty: Don't even think it. Talent: Well Purity: Parents Wilbur and Belinda's biggest dream upon marriage was to have kids. They were told this wasn't possible.

In 1981, Belinda turned to praver AmbitionEntitlement: At the age of 1 1, sang The Star Spangled Banners cappella at a Dallas Cowboys game. Dad Wilbur is her co-manager and producer. Last album was called Sittin'On Top Of The World because "it shows the person I Favourite pop stars: Alanis, Celine, Whitney. Tragedy: Alanis only discovered tragedy with You Oughta Know before that she was very happy. Since moving to LA, she's been treated for clinical depression.

Child prodigy. Once boasted the biggest hair in the Northern Hemisphere. Beauty: Naked in recent video. Who needs beauty when no one's looking at your face? Talent: Yodels. Purity: Was the Canadian Tiffany.

AmbitionEntitlement: Was the Canadian Tiffany. Her parents taught in a military school. Her producer, Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson, Wilson Phillips, Paul Abdul), is rumored to write her neo-feminist lyrics. Signed to Madonna's label. Jewel Tragedy: Have you read her book of poems? Tlie father tries to bond with I A CV; II II "3v--Hi im Every age brings forth one -or 12.

EVERETT TRUE and I I i JJk i I 1 SHIRLEY RODELL-SZYZMYJEC Talent: Writes some lyrics. Purity: Doe-eyed. Has done adverts for Coke (see also Whitney), Bubblicious Gum and Twisties that's pure, right? AmbrbonEntmement Teen actress. Originally envisaged by record company RCA as a less neurotic version of Alanis Morissette. Recording songs for new album with Eurythmic Dave Stewart.

Gloria Estefan Tragedy: Family fled Cuba in '59 upon rise to power of Fidel Castro. US Army vet father exposed to debilitating defoliant Agent Orange and later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Estefan herself was almost killed in a coach accident in 1990, during which she sustained a broken and dislocated vertebra. Beauty: The Spanish Celine Dion (see Celine Dion). Telent: Sells a lot of records.

Purity: Miami's Cuban community refers to the singer as neustra Glorita -our little Gloria. AmbitionEntitlement: An estimated billion people saw her perform Reach at the closing ceremony to the Atlanta Olympic games. use their own criteria to define what makes a Diva 1.