In two weeks, Brad Pitt's new film, the long-delayed and much-troubled "The
Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford" opens in New York,
Toronto, Austin and Los Angeles before expanding to other cities in the U.S. and
Canada on September 28.
At the Venice International Film Festival on Sunday, Pitt was in Venice for the
film, signing autographs for hundreds of adoring fans -- mostly screaming young
women -- when one woman, bolted from the left of the picture in the video (and
its various incarnations) that you are about to see below and gripped her arms
around Pitt's neck in an attempt to embrace him. The star angrily
responded and within a millisecond security grabbed the woman and whisked her
away. The actor continued to sign autographs and talk with some of his
fans, to his credit, as if nothing happened.
One can only imagine if the woman had instead plunged a knife into Mr. Pitt's
neck, instead of gripped her arms around it. The question begs to be
asked: where was the security on the right hand side of Mr. Pitt? Asleep
at the wheel? Pitt seems to be shouting, either at the woman, or at the
security team just a second after the attack takes place.
The woman is shown detained by security officials and gives the camera a wave.
When so-called fans do desperate, crazy things -- when "fans" attack, stalk, or
even murder the celebrities they claim to be
amorous of (remember Rebecca Schaeffer, the 21-year-old American sitcom star
killed in 1989?), how can security people take their eye off the ball?
California became the first American state to have anti-stalking laws following
the murder of Schaeffer.
And with the recent commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the death of
Princess Diana in Paris in late August 1997 when paparazzi besieged her car
during a hot pursuit through the streets of Paris, it may not be so hard to say
where admiration and adoration ends, and obsession and recklessness begins.
It is too bad that Angelina Jolie wasn't there with Pitt in Venice to go Tomb
Raider on that young fan's little . . .
(Courtesy You Tube)
