Skip navigation

Fashion Week celebs: McGowan lusts after geezers

The latest gossip on the ‘Grindhouse’ star, Sophia Bush and more

Rihanna, Rose McGowan and singer Fergie attend the Max Azria show.
Peter Kramer / AP
Slide show
Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela reacts after being announced Miss Universe 2008 during the annual pageant held this year in central Vietnam's resort city of Nha Trang
  Miss Universe 2008
Venezuela’s Dayana Mendoza, 22, took the crown at this year’s global pageant that included 80 beauty queens. Here are the highlights from the competition.

more photos

Slide show
Check out these ambush makeovers
TODAY fashion and beauty experts provide new looks and styles to lucky viewers.
Slide show
Check out these ambush makeovers
TODAY fashion and beauty experts provide new looks and styles to lucky viewers.
updated 8:15 p.m. ET Feb. 5, 2008

Shhh, don't tell anyone what Rose McGowan's been up to for the past few months.

"I've spent most of the writer's strike... writing. Wait, that sounds terrible!" she said, standing backstage Monday at the Max Azria show at Fashion Week.

"But I'm not part of the union, so it doesn't matter," explained the 34-year-old strawberry blond, known as much for her failed engagement to Marilyn Manson as for her roles on the TV show "Charmed," or as a go-go dancer with a machine gun for a leg in last year's film "Grindhouse."

Story continues below ↓
advertisement

Manson has since gone younger — the singer is currently dating 20-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood. McGowan, meanwhile, has been nursing an interest in slightly older men — the subject of her writing project.

"I'm writing a TV show about old men. I have kind of a yen for them. It's going to be like a 'Golden Girls,' but with men," said McGowan, for whom no writing credits are listed on IMDB.

So why the geezers?

"They are just so funny and hilarious and sweet and kind of crotchety," she said. "I'll probably have to cast younger and then make up the actors to be older, because my dream actors are all dead. I mean, I'd love to use Jack Lemon. But he's dead. Or James Garner! Actually, he's not dead. Yet."

McGowan has been a regular in the tents this week, but not as steady an attendee as Sophia Bush, who has racked up more front-row seat sightings than Vogue editix Anna Wintour.

Before heading to her seat at Ports1961 after the Max Azria show, the "One Tree Hill" actress even asked a makeup artist backstage to take a moment away from the models to put some powder on her nose. Other Ports1961 attendees included actresses Mandy Moore, Aisha Tyler and Emily Deschanel.

Party dress
Monday night was an evening of parties for fashionistas in New York.

While actress Chloe Sevigny hosted a party at Webster Hall to promote her new clothing line, veteran designer Patricia Field, with her fire engine red hair, attended The Blonds rhinestone and whimsy-inspired fashion show at the Prince George Ballroom, scoffing and rolling her eyes whenever anyone asked her about the upcoming "Sex and the City" movie, for which she did the costumes.

A little further downtown, socialite Nicky Hilton sat on the top of a booth at designer Charlotte Ronson's after-party at the club Butter, wielding a cigarette. Across the room, New York City socialite-turned-handbag designer Tinsley Mortimer, wearing an aqua-colored sleeveless dress and a thick red belt, explained that she doesn't get insulted when people say how she's "big in Japan."

"For me when people say 'Oh you are so popular in Japan,' it's like the biggest compliment ever," she said. "I work very hard and I feel very rewarded for my work when I go there. Some of my most cherished moments have been in Japan."

Meanwhile, at the Diesel extravaganza, guests flocked to take naughty photos at the photobooth that was onsite while bartenders dealt with petulant partygoers. One bartender complained that one of the Olsen twins had yelled at him when he said he didn't have any vodka.

But which one?

He said he couldn't tell them apart.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.