Katie Holmes can’t get no respect. Okay that joke doesn’t really work. But it sure is the truth. Katie hasn’t gotten much attention for her acting career in recent years. She is, at best, an okay actress. If it weren’t for marrying Tom Cruise, she wouldn’t exactly be memorable. Tepid. That’s the word I was searching for.

But Katie is still a big name, regardless of the reason. Which made Broadway producers think it was a good idea to sign her star in “All My Sons.” Unfortunately for them, it appears theater-goers care more about talent than a big name – they’ve barely been able to sell tickets to the show.

“Where are all the Scientologists? Don’t they want to see her?” jokes one person, who requested anonymity for fear that the followers of L. Ron Hubbard would hunt him down and make him read all 10 volumes of “Mission Earth.”

Ticket brokers and group sales agents, who at one point thought Holmes would be this season’s Julia Roberts - who pretty much sold out “Three Days of Rain” in One Day of Rain - say interest in the Holmes show is nil. “I bought 1,000 tickets to the show,” says one broker. “I still have them.” The advance for “All My Sons,” which opens in September, is said to be less than $1 million.

Holmes, meanwhile, is in the public eye only because she’s Mrs. Tom Cruise. [She] is also up against a troubled economy, which, several ticket brokers say, is starting to take its toll on Broadway. “People aren’t shelling out $110 for a play anymore,” says a broker. “It doesn’t matter who’s in it.”

Backstage at “All My Sons,” the buzz is that the cast has been forced to sign confidentiality agreements. The Scientology minders in charge of Holmes apparently don’t want any press they can’t control.

[From the New York Post]

The Post focuses quite a bit on how successful Nicole Kidman was in her 1998 run on Broadway in “The Blue Room,” noting that she “she set the town on fire.” Of course she also took her clothes off for the show – and Holmes is keeping hers tightly buttoned.

The New York Times Magazine also points out that the producers have made a critical error promoting the show. They have only talked about Katie Holmes in all of their promotions - completely failing to mention that the play also stars John Lithgow, Patrick Wilson, and Dianne Wiest. Perhaps if they’d bother to mention their well respected Broadway vets, more people would be willing to shell out the cash.

It’s probably not fair to blame the whole thing on Katie Holmes, her acting skills, or the bad publicity her husband brings to the whole affair. And there’s a chance she’ll get great reviews come September. Failing that, Holmes could do what someone suggested in the Post article to compete with Kidman; “I think if she takes off her clothes, she may catch up.”

Here are Katie and Tom at LACMA’s Opening Celebration of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum on February 9th. Images thanks to PR Photos.

There are a lot of stories in the tabloids this week about how Katie Holmes is once again under her husband Tom Cruise’s thumb or something. The main one is a cover story in Life & Style that reads “Katie: Tom’s Prisoner Again!” and focuses on the fact that Tom is apartment hunting in NY with Katie ahead of her fall Broadway debut. She supposedly wanted maintain her own place in NY with visits from her husband and daughter, but Tom insisted on coming and setting up house there, just like when she was on set for Mad Money in Louisiana. There are also some maybe-true details that show how airless and dark it is in Katie’s gilded cage. They say she is only shuttled between her hotel and rehearsals and that she’s accompanied by a bodyguard at all times who whisks her off in a waiting SUV. She probably has breaks for shopping, though.

Life & Style compares Katie’s well-monitored and controlled life to her statements before she got married. In 2005 she said “New York has so much to offer… I get stir-crazy if I don’t go out… twice a week. I need to feel like I’m part of the world.”

Katie seems like a willing prisoner to me, and if I was working in another city I would want my husband and son to come along too. Damn you, Life & Style, for making me defend that cult spokeswhore couple.

One article that seems to have an element of truth to it is In Touch’s claim that Tom Cruise has a whole fleet of bombproof and bullet proof SUVs. Someone takes his roles as action hero a little too seriously:

The 45-year-old superstar has a fleet of very expensive cars and all of them are equipped with bulletproof windows and are bombproof, too. “It sounds like he’s taken a page out of one of his action movies,” explains an insider. “A-list celebrities know they can’t be too careful. Tom’s vehicles look perfectly normal, but in reality they are more like armored trucks…”

All of Tom’s chauffeurs are professionally trained defensive drivers, says the insider, so they can get him out of traffic problems and protect him from possible trouble. Still, he often prefers to drive his wife, Katie, and his three children himself.

[From In Touch, print edition, June 23, 2008]

In Touch also notes that Cruise has plenty of other vehicles, including “practical everyday cars, classic collectibles and high-powered sports cars like the Porsche 911.” Must be nice. My husband loves Porsches too, but we can’t afford one.

Would you trade your thoughts and free will for a relationship with a man who had nearly unlimited resources? There are plenty of women who would. At least Katie doesn’t have to worry if she’s safe in those giant tricked-out SUVs. She’s got plenty of muscle and steel to keep her safe in her well-accessorized cocoon for years to come.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are shown out to dinner on 5/5/08, thanks to Splash News. Isn’t it comical how much bigger she looks?

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes held a star-studded housewarming party at their new recently-renovated $35 million Beverly Hills estate this weekend. What I found surprising were some of the famous names on the guest list who you may not know were friends of the worlds most famous Scientologists. We’re not suggesting that just because they showed up at a party they’re getting pitched auditing sessions, but there’s at least one couple on the list that I would think might want to distance themselves from Tom and Katie:

Guests included movie industry execs, Scientology dignitaries and celebrities. Eva Longoria Parker, Kimora Lee and Djimon Hounsou, Tobey Maguire,Rita Wilson, Oprah Winfrey,Gail King, Kyra Sedgwick, Kirstie Alley and Victoria Beckham-who arrived without hubby David Beckham–were among the first to arrive.

Also in attendance–Cruise “frenemy” Brooke Shields, Jennifer Lopez and Keri Russell.

Eyewitnesses tell OK! that the Cruises pulled out all the stops for the party, enlisting good pal and renowned chef Wolfgang Puck to cater the event. From the street, the sounds of horns pierced the warm night air as a full orchestra played big-band music throughout the night, at one point striking up a rendition of the Mission Impossible theme song.

[From OK! Magazine]

So there were “Scientology dignitaries” there as well as Kimora Lee Simmons, whom Scientology head David Miscavige once claimed was distributing Scientology pamphlets among inner city youth. Kimora denied that claim, and said through her rep that she wasn’t a Scientologist, so what’s she doing hanging out at a party with them? If I was famous and some cult leader tried to tie me to his organization I would keep a wide berth. Maybe she was trying to show there were no hard feelings and has ambitions that Cruise could help her with, but it sounds more to me like Miscavige’s claims had some element of truth to them. He also claimed that Coca Cola, Philips Electronics, and 7-Eleven outlets in other countries were distributing Scientology literature too, which was false according to all those companies, but something tells me they got to Simmons. She might be hiding her involvement like Will Smith, and it could come out eventually that she’s sinking her wealth into the cult too. It’s either that or buy a bunch more purses and shoes.

Shown are arrivals at Tom and Katie’s party on Saturday, including the Beckhams, Kirstie Alley and her daughter, Rita Wilson, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle, Rita Wilson, and Kyra Sedgwick hiding her face. Thanks to WENN.

Gossip blogs aren’t the only ones who think Katie Holmes has changed for the worse since marrying Tom Cruise. Apparently her friends think so too. Where Katie publicly comes off as soft-spoken-to-the-point-of-meek since hooking up with the pint-size actor, her friends say she’s become demanding, rude, and borderline abusive to her staff.

Has fame and fortune gone to the head of Mrs. Tom Cruise? We hear that Katie Holmes has developed quite the attitude lately, treating her hired help like crap! That beacon of virtue and truth The National Enquirer reports that Katie has been bullying her household help, with sources saying living with Tom has changed her personality for the worse.

“She treats the help like slaves,” says the insider. “At times, she just leaves everything she doesn’t wear on the floor where it drops for the maids to hang up.

“That’s so unlike the old Katie, who would never want to be any trouble or be at all aloof.” And we thought she was just a Stepford robot these days! The insider also told of an incident where Katie took a sip of Tom’s “daily smoothie” after their housekeeper prepared it for him.

“One day, the housekeep was making Tom his daily smoothie and Katie came along and sipped a couple of inches from it. Then she told the housekeeper that she’d blame her for drinking it! She was just goofing around to see the woman squirm. The poor woman was terrified because she didn’t know what she was going to say to Tom.”

[From Nine MSN]

If there’s any truth to it, then that’s quite the unbecoming story. In a way it makes sense though. If Katie felt frustrated and angry with Tom, it would figure that she would take it out on her underlings. I doubt Tom hears much of Katie’s dissent. But a maid or housekeeper would have to listen to her.

When you hear Katie speak now, there is this overly-controlled robo-wife quality to her speech. It’s really creepy. You can’t help but think the poor woman must have an axe-murderer’s rage building up inside her. I feel it just looking at Tom Cruise. Imagine if you had to kiss him.

Here’s Katie leaving Joan’s on Third in Los Angeles after having lunch on 01/30/08. Images thanks to WENN.

We all thought Tom would never let her out of her cage – but somehow Katie Holmes has managed to escape long enough to actually do something to salvage her career. Holmesbot will be playing the role of Ann Deever in Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons. Which means she’ll be heading to the Big Apple – presumably with Tom in tow. It has been widely reported that Katie wanted to go to New York as a sort of trial separation from Tom. Not surprisingly, he put the kibosh on that pretty quickly.

Discussions to bring the actress to Broadway were confirmed back in March, and now a deal seems inevitable. Producer Eric Falkenstein tells OK! he thinks Katie is perfect for the part. “Katie is very well suited for the role of Ann,” he says. “There is an additional layer of soul to Ann and from the work I’ve seen of Katie, she has always impressed with multi-faceted characters. She would nail it.”

Falkenstein also feels that Mrs. Cruise’s star-power won’t overshadow her acting ability. “Despite being in the spotlight and her celebrity status, the fact remains that she has a tremendous record of performances,” he says. “I think Katie is a tremendous actor. Whenever she decides to come to the stage she’ll be terrific.”

All My Sons will hit Broadway with a preview in September and open a month later in October. A formal announcement is expected to take place within the next 10 days.

[From OK! Magazine]

Notice how nice OK was to sidestep the whole Tom issue? Will Tom let Katie off her leash? Will he reprogram her circuits? Will Katie cut the cord? What other ridiculous metaphors can we use to imply that Tom Cruise is a controlling nut bag?

It would really be fabulous if Katie got a little time away from the Scientology influence. But with all the minders Tom keeps around, that seems highly unlikely. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to see if she can pull off the role. I’ve always found her acting rather drab at best. And since Tom’s groomed her, she speaks with this ridiculous faux-softness that I just can’t stand. I’m not sure how that will transfer to the stage. Nonetheless: spread your wings Katie! Break out of the cage! Fly away! Okay I really am done with the metaphors now. Just leave the guy.

Here’s Katie and Tom at the Fashion and Fantasy’ Costume Institute Gala on May 5th. Images thanks to WENN.

Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham in Paris. October, 2006

Victoria Beckham sure is having a bad day today. Nobody wants her. According to the Daily Mail, Tom Cruise has had just about enough of Posh and her bad influence on wifebot Katie Holmes. He seems to feel that Katie and Posh have morphed into the same person, who I like to call Kosh. Apparently the weight Katie has lost recently isn’t due to Tom refusing to feed her anything but barely water and vitamins. Instead it’s due to Victoria’s bad influence, and he wants to put a stop to their friendship. And as a little more salt in the wound, Fred Segal and Kitson have dumped Posh’s denim line. Everyone’s dumping poor Vicky.

Victoria Beckham’s new best friends may be Hollywood’s biggest stars – but Tom Cruise is concerned that the Spice Girl is rubbing off on his wife just a bit too much. According to my spies in LA, the actor is keen to put some distance between his actress wife Katie Holmes and Victoria, who have morphed into each other.

“Katie sees Victoria as a role model,” says my mole. “She copies Victoria’s look and even cut her hair the same way. But it concerns Tom that Katie has lost so much weight recently. She is very thin largely because she is following Victoria’s strict 900-calories-a-day eating plan. She is copying Victoria’s fad of eating seaweed shakes, frozen grapes and edamame beans. She is tiny.”

[From the Daily Mail]

Every so often you hear a story about Victoria giving someone a piece of her mind. It always comes as a surprise since you never really hear her say anything publicly. I always assumed she lacked a voice box. But something tells me Tom’s concern over Posh’s influence in Katie’s life may also have to do with the fact that she’s openly stated she’s not falling for Scientology. And we all know Tom has to control everything and everyone. It seems likely that Posh isn’t the drone Tom requires in a person, and that’s the real problem. Not that I’m supporting a 900 calorie a day lifestyle. But something tells me the problem has less to do with frozen grapes and more to do with Tom’s paralyzing fear of his wifebot being deprogrammed.

Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham in Paris. October, 2006
It’s been a while since Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham have been seen out together spending their husbands’ money on overpriced clothing they’ll wear for a fraction of a day. Star offers a potential explanation for their maybe-rift in the form of “insider information” that’s likely to be completely fabricated, but is too good to pass up. Katie is said to have called tattoos “trashy,” and since Victoria Beckham enjoys decorating her twig-like limbs with permanent ink, she is said to have found that comment particularly insulting:

It’s arctic between Katie Holmes and her fashion mentor, Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, and a source tells Star that it’s all because of a tattoo! Thrilled with her latest tat [on the inside of her wrist] of the Latin phrase “De Integro” - it means “afresh” - Posh urged BFF Katie to get inked herself. Posh, who got this fifth one to mark her new start in the U.S., “was pretty shocked and upset” when the Mad Money actress called such body art trashy, says the source.

[From Star Magazine, print edition, March 10, 2008]

You can see Katie Holmes saying this. She dresses and acts like an old lady, it’s not a stretch to claim she thinks like one too. (Although people of all ages think tattoos are trashy.)

Katie and Victoria famously attended Paris Fashion Week together in October, 2006, and spent time in Paris again in January, 2007. Apart from some get-togethers with their husbands they haven’t spent a lot of time together since. The last we heard of the Cruises and Beckhams together was in early December, 2006 2007 when Tom and Katie took Suri to a Spice Girls concert. Maybe they just aren’t best buddies. Or maybe Katie did insult Victoria - by copping her look and then calling her former good friend’s body art “trashy.”

According to Mike Walker in the National Enquirer, who isn’t the most reliable source but manages to come up with zingers about the celebrities every week (which would probably be impossible if all of it was true), Rosie O’Donnell pissed off pint-sized Tom Cruise by telling him that she read the very unflattering biography of him recently put out by Andrew Morton. The story is that when Rosie ran into Cruise at Madonna’s Kabbalah fundraiser, she blurted out that she had read the book but didn’t believe any of it. Tom got pissed that she had even read it and had the tenacity to tell him about it, and stormed off:

Rosie O’Donnell… rushed up to her idol Tom Cruise, planted a wet kiss… and instantly stuck a foot in her big, fat mouth! Babbling about Brit muckraker Andrew Morton’s controversial new Cruise bio, Rosie barked: “I bought that book, but don’t worry, Tommy - I don’t believe a word in it!” Stunned and speechless, the InterGalactic Lord of Cruise Control finally gasped: “You actually went out and paid money for that book? I can’t believe you’d buy that book - and then actually read it!” Sputtered Rosie: “I - I had to read it… so I could give my opinion if I was asked about it.”

My spywitness says Tom lashed back: “No one cares about your opinion. I don’t care about your opinion!” He grabbed wife Katie Holmes’ arm and stormed off, leaving Rosie red-faced [and] humiliated.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker’s column, March 3, 2008]

Sounds like someone is pretty touchy about that book if this story is true. In this photo that came out of Rosie posing with Madonna, Lourdes, Tom and Katie, Rosie is off to the side but everyone looks perfectly happy. Rosie blogged after the event that:

my tommy was there
handsome as ever
he makes me smile
i love that guy

[Rosie’s blog via Just Jared]

You would think that Tom would handle that better, but maybe not. As it is, this story sounds fake and there’s not much evidence for it, but it’s juicy enough that we couldn’t resist reporting it.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are shown in the header image at the First Annual Essence Black Women In Hollywood event on 2/21/08, thanks to Splash News. They must’ve been working the crowd for Xenu. I really don’t like Katie’s hair like that. She’s one of the only celebrities who works the helmet hair, so she should embrace that and not mess with it like that. Those curls don’t suit her. She used to look so young with long hair.

Katie Holmes and her helmet hair made an appearance at the Costume Designers Guild Awards on Tuesday night. She presented the “Swarovski President’s Award” to her husband’s partner, Paula Wagner. Wagner is the CEO of United Artists and Cruise is a producer and actor for the studio. We were wondering if Katie just slouchy when she appeared at the premiere of her flop Mad Money looking like she either was in the beginning stages of pregnancy or had bad posture. She stood up straight for her solo appearance last night and had a perfectly flat stomach.

The Daily Mail said that Katie has “spearheaded a return to old Hollywood glamour,” but a commentor retorted that “I don’t recall the old dames of Hollywood a) looking like a skeleton on tranquillizers, or b) showing off their girdle underneath the dress.”

It is a lovely dress, though. I love the rhinestone detail on the front and the cut is gorgeous. It’s easier to focus on Katie’s fashion when Tom isn’t around. I still don’t like her. She stepped into her Stepford wife role a little too well. You have to give her credit for it though, she really knows what she’s doing.

That reminds me - one of the Scientology cults most vocal critics has just “committed suicide”. Not that it has anything to do with Katie Holmes and her charmed life.

Word on the street is that Katie Holmesbot might actually be rebelling a bit against her keeper. By street, I mean internet superhighway. Does anyone call it that anymore? Well let’s pretend so. And by keeper, I mean husband Tom Cruise. “Mad Money,” Katie’s first movie since Tom jumped into her life – isn’t doing so well at the box office. Or with the critics. Basically, it royally sucks. I’m not sure how a film with the sensible casting of Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton, and Katie Holmes could possibly go wrong. Oh yeah, make it a girly-bonding bank caper. Because nothing gets women to the theater in droves like a good heist.

Apparently Katie’s a little pissed at Tom – who encouraged her to do “Mad Money.” I think even the most desperate, starting-out-in-the-world-young-actress would be pretty mad if they were stuck in this film. You’d think with Tom running a movie studio… and being Tom Cruise… he would have given her better advice. Or at least bribed someone else into putting her into a better film. Between the “Mad Money” embarrassment and Tom amping up the crazy Scientology rantings – via video, no less – Katie’s supposedly reaching her boiling point.

A distraught Katie Holmes has stormed out of a crisis meeting with her husband Tom Cruise, furious over damaging publicity about his Scientology beliefs, and humiliated over the disastrous reaction to the movie he told her to make.

The actress is said to be inconsolable after a string of leaked Scientology videos, featuring her husband saluting a portrait of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, declaring war on psychiatry and claiming that members of his religion are “the only ones who can really help” accident victims, have flooded the Internet and divided Hollywood.

“Oh, I’m going hard on those guys and their reign … psychiatrists,” says Tom in one disturbing video. “It’s disgusting to me. No mercy … none. Psychiatry doesn’t work… When you study the effects, it’s a crime against humanity.” … after this new scandal she can no longer ignore the Hollywood backlash.

[From Woman’s Day]

To be fair, Katie really shouldn’t have been ignoring the “Hollywood backlash” for a long time. The backlash is there because your husband is cray-to-the-z. I really doubt Katie Holmes finds Tom’s mental health issues adorable. I’m guessing at first she thought he was a little intense, but relatively charming and still Tom Cruise. Then the next thing she knows there’s a ton of press and hoopla and everyone who was close to forgetting about the girl from “Dawson’s Creek” suddenly remembered her again, and that was pretty enticing. So what if your husband ruins all the furniture jumping around like an under-medicated eight-year-old? You’ve got the money to replace the cushions. But when your A-list husband tells you to do a B-movie, that’s where you draw the line. I think “Mad Money” pretty much confirmed that Katie has completely sacrificed her career to be with Tom. Next goes the sanity. In other news, it sounds like Katie might be pregnant. This past weekend she bought a t-shirt that says “Big Sister” (ostensibly) for Suri, along with two matching onsies which said “Little Sister” and “Little Brother.” Let’s hope they’re for Nicole Kidman.

Picture note by Jaybird: Awesome image below thanks to NachoBaby. Katie and Tom are shown in the header image at the Mad Money premiere on 1/9/08.