The shame. The ignominy. The RASCOs!

Famous Person of the Year

Once upon a time, it was easy to determine the Famous Person of the Year. Who had the big breakout movie? Who was suddenly on every magazine cover? Who, by virtue of his or her resplendent talent and unrelenting charisma, got the biggest bump in notoriety over the past year?

Now, however, in our post-Paris Hilton, post-Jessica Simpson, post-having-to-be-good-at-something-in-order-to-be-famous world, the question of fame is trickier. Is it the person most deserving of our increased attention? (Heath Ledger, come on down!) The person who simply hogged our attention most shamelessly? (Can't...tear...eyes...from...Nick...Lachey... and...his...dancing...brother...Drew....) Perhaps this prize should be renamed, simply, Train Wreck of the Year. (Now arriving on track 15, the Lindsay Lohan Express -- oh my God! Oh the humanity! Body parts everywhere! Very skinny body parts!)

This year, though, was a gift from above. This year, the Famous Person of the Year arrived on a shining beam of light, his pearlies gleaming and the angel choirs of L. Ron himself serenading our hero's descent. Because this year, one star personified both the best-slash-worst of mega-movie-star celebrity AND the best-slash-worst of twenty-four-hour, can't stop/won't stop, tabloid mayhem.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Famous Person of the Year for 2005: Mr. Tom Cruise.

You want hits? War Of The Worlds was one of the year's few certifiable blockbusters. You want media moments? The sofa-surfing on Oprah launched its own handy new phrase: jumping the couch. You want all-out, no holds barred, balls-to-the-wall, cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs craziness? Well, now you're just being glib. Because you don't know about the history of crazy. We do.

Or, rather, Tom Cruise does. He knows about the history of crazy. Because this year, folks, he was making it.

Who could have guessed that our biggest movie star would also be the biggest clown in the three-ring celebrity circus? That the formerly tight-lipped, super-controlled, nary-a-misstep-making Tom Cruise would unravel like a cheap sweater snagged on a bent nail? Holy Moly Moses, he was the perfect storm of celebrity. There he was: on screen, on TV, on the web, grinning, leaping, snapping, fist-pumping, Katie Holmes-impregnating, sonogram-machine-buying, expectation-confounding, celebrity-redefining Tom Cruise. It's like fame was Tom Cruise's cellmate, and last year, he made fame his bitch. One crazy, over-the-top, unbelievable antic at a time.

And this year, Heaven help us and saints run for cover: he's having a baby.

Most Undeservedly Famous Person of the Year

Again, a conundrum: how do you define "undeservedly famous"? Is it simply the person who gets paid the most attention for the least defensible reasons? In that case, you could pick any of ParisJessicaNickNicoleRichie and be done with it. Especially Nicole Richie, whose fame rationale has gone from "She's the undeservedly famous friend of an undeservedly famous person" to "She's the undeservedly famous former friend of an undeservedly famous person -- and she's so skinny!"

But let's ignore the tabloid flotsam for a moment -- people who are famous for no good reason, and so, arguably, don't really qualify as famous at all. "Infamous" is closer. "Irritants," closer still.

Instead, let's look at that person whose kernel of talent is the tiniest, yet whose magnifying glass, held over said kernel, is the most magnify-iest. Make sense? Not really. But it will when we say: Jennifer Aniston.

Aniston was once the Generation X version of Mary Tyler Moore. Fair enough. Then she was one-half of an improbable, tabloid-friendly couple. Okey-dokey. Then, suddenly, she was GQ's Man of the Year. Then, suddenlier, her soft-focus, not-totally-naked-but-close-enough boobs were hanging out of every magazine spread in the nation. And why? Why?

Why?

Sure, she got divorced. Usually, celebrity divorces aren't cause for sudden national fascination. (We don't expect -- nor hope -- to see Heather Locklear's Man-of-the-Year boobs hanging out anytime soon. Nor Richie Sambora's, for that matter.)

Aniston also had what was, by any measure, a terrible artistic year. Her thriller, Derailed, stank. Her comedy, Rumor Has It..., stank. There has never been an iota of proof that anyone in America wants to see her doing anything other than fluttering her hands anxiously while fretting over whether or not to kiss Ross Geller. Or...you know. With the boobs hanging out.

We're not saying she's not talented. That would be Nicole Richie. We're saying that her talent has not yet been translated, either last year or in previous years, into anything that anyone wants to actually look at or experience.

Maybe one day Aniston will make a great, smart comedy or a taut, fantastic thriller. It's totally possible. Until she does, though, she doesn't deserve to be the Man of this year, or last year, or any other year. She does, however, deserve the most Undeservedly Famous Person of the Year award.

Newgoer of the Year

This category is always a tough one here at Fametracker HQ. So often, we base our picks on a faulty premise -- not the star or stars that are really the most likely to have shed their fame skin within the next year, but the one or ones we want to go away...permanently.

This year, we tried to think logically instead of wishfully. (It was hard.)

Katie Holmes seemed like a promising choice: true, she's hooked up (for now -- or not, if Life & Style is to be believed) with our Famous Person of the Year, which suggests that her fame is built on a solid foundation -- or as solid a foundation as is possible when it's tethered to the left ring finger of a complete nutter. But then again, her next movie (Thank You For Smoking) is about to come out, and she'll be unable to attend any of its premieres because she'll be too pregnant (or "pregnant," if your own common sense is to be believed) to travel; Sir Nutter has already started to choke off any fame she has independent of himself, as evidenced by the fact that her next project post-Smoking is nothing -- all the better for her to watch the nanny raise her "child" while she studies her Dianetics. But then again again, having been the dude's wife magnified Nicole Kidman's fame exponentially; maybe Katie Holmes's fame confinement is just an elaborate staging area for her eventual comeback in about...not quite ten years. Mark your calendars!

It seems to us like America is fixing to break off its love affair with Fergie ("The Pea, Not The Duchess," as those hilarious bitches at Go Fug Yourself have designated her), much as they have tired of her waxy-faced, chemically altered, blowsy godmother, Courtney Love. But maybe Fergie is canny enough to keep, as her fame trump card, a lavish ad campaign in which she endorses a new adult diaper for the incontinent hook-warbler on the go. (Proposed ad jingle: "My Dumps.")

Considering this year's crop of TV shows going tits-up led us to our ultimate pick for 2006's headlining Newgoers: the kids from That '70s Show. And the fall for these clowns is not going to be pretty.

This series's breakouts were Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace, and guess what they both did in 2005? Left the show. Grace appeared in several well-regarded films, which is one way to go; another is to produce a beee-yad reality show in which hot dumb girls mix with ugly dorks, and marry someone your mom's age. Is a sixty-year-old Kutcher going to look back on his late twenties and feel like his life was one great decision after another? Probably not. The choice to leave '70s as it started its benighted final season? One he's unlikely to regret.

But the rest of them -- woof. Each one is a hotter mess than the next. Instead of spending her non-sitcom time learning how to modulate the pitch of her voice (and don't go hanging the "Mission Accomplished" banner on that one quite yet, dear), Laura Prepon tried to pull a Monster by playing the title role in Karla, the Karla Homolka story. Could have been a good gambit -- lord knows she's got dead enough eyes -- except for the way Homolka's victims' pesky parents kept protesting the movie's Canadian release. (Plus we could never accept any Homolka biopic that didn't star a slimmed-down Dave Foley as Paul Bernardo. The resemblance is uncanny.)

Mila Kunis has been eclipsed by Rachel Bilson (who'll end up in this position herself in...yeah, give it eighteen months, at the most). She has an unpleasant screen presence; it's hard to make a generation forget the fact that you played a shrill nag for the better part of a decade; and no good shall befall any person who helped make Family Guy.

Wilmer Valderrama and Danny Masterson may be able to cobble together a decent living by showing up at launch parties for magazines or credit cards -- such events are keeping longtime '70s guest star Shannon Elizabeth in thongs and Jägermeister -- but with each year that goes by in which that's the only way they ever show up in Us Weekly, another $10,000 falls off their asking price. And when the two of them are only partying with Seth Green and Ashton Kutcher's off opening a new Dolce in Singapore...well, they just got even less interesting. Fez's next role is as Ponch in a big-screen CHiPs -- I mean, of course it is -- even though (a) the only thing that made Starsky & Hutch kind of funny is that Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller were old enough to remember what they were parodying; and (b) Starsky & Hutch wasn't that funny anyway. And Valderrama still has ex-girlfriend Lindsay Lohan's reflected non-glory to work off (bonus: when they were dating, she was underage!). And as for Masterson...Scientologist. Sure, Jason Lee is burning through his OT rolodex to cast guest stars on My Name Is Earl, but that's good for one, two episodes, tops before it's Erika Christensen's turn. Then what?

Then nothing. Hang up your bell bottoms, and you're hanging up your fame right along with them. Heavy.

The William H. Macy Memorial HITG! Graduation

There's been a lot of talk this year about what a bad year it's been for actresses, as evidenced by the Best Actress Oscar nominations for both Keira Knightley and Judi Dench. But it's actually been a tougher year for HITG!s.

This is true both in terms of their personal lives, and the endings thereof. Consider Vincent Schiavelli and Patrick Cranshaw, both graduating from the mortal world within a few days of each other.

But it's true professionally as well: it's been difficult for us to pick a character actor out of the herd and say that he had a life-changing year.

Naturally, we have to look back to the field of Oscar contenders. One Best Picture nominee -- Capote -- featured Bruce Greenwood, a fine Canadian actor who portrayed the title character's long-suffering partner (sexual partner, that is, and not to be confused with Tru's other long-suffering lifer partner, Harper Lee). He does a great job, sure, but for one thing it's a minuscule role, and for another, we can't in good conscience award this honour to him at the end of a year in which he also starred in Racing Stripes. Opposite a wisecracking zebra. Catch us next year, pal.

Another Oscar nominee would seem to be a contender -- one David Strathairn. We've admired him a good long while -- going back at least as far as Bob Roberts, in which he co-starred with fully three-quarters of Hollywood's HITG population. He's elegant and restrained as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, And Good Luck., and he looks amazing in that beautiful black-and-white photography. But the man seems embarrassed by the attention he's received for the role and is actively shunning the spotlight, which doesn't bode well for a transition to being a leading man; even if he wins the Best Actor award (unlikely), you just know he's going straight back to making John Sayles movies.

Which brings us to the man we've designated as the year's HITG! graduate: Sayles veteran Chris Cooper. "Why him?" you ask, or maybe "Why now?" To which we might reply, "Who asked you?" But then after we recovered our composure, we would note that Cooper made three movies in 2005, and two of them (Capote and Syriana) are nominated for several Oscars. The third (Jarhead) didn't do great, but it was a nice role for Cooper -- giving him an authority he handles so well onscreen. These are not the choices of a character actor who wants to spend his year on seventeen different movie sets for a few weeks at a time, taking whatever teeny priest or judge roles are offered to him. These are the choices of a man who wants you to remember who he is, and more importantly remember that he's younger, better-looking, and better-acting than Harrison Ford, hint hint.

Chris Cooper has already won more "Best Supporting" Oscars (1) than all our previous HITG! graduates combined. We feel he's started trading on it, and we applaud him.

Most Likely to Become a Personality Before the Rascos are Awarded Again

Hi. I'm a Personality. What does that mean? It means I did something once -- maybe something quite remarkable, maybe something downright astounding -- that brought me to your attention. Now, though, I just kind of exist. My existence isn't pointless -- I exist to endorse products, and make appearances, and show up in ironic cameos in Ben Stiller comedies.

I, in short, am Lance Armstrong.

Sure, I could be Ray Romano. He definitely seems to have shifted seamlessly into a kind of Seinfeldian semi-retirement, which he no doubt deserves, and which he will spend doing whatever he damn well pleases, while sitting atop piles of money, chuckling. I could even be Adam Sandler, who, while he still makes movies, seems to be slowly morphing into a kind of actor/producer/Rob Schneider-enabler who simply makes a high-concept comedy every few years or so (next up: Click! He stops time with a remote control! Take that, nagging wife!) as a way of building back up the cash reserves. Romano and Sandler, though, are too reclusive to become true personalities. I, Lance Armstrong, am not.

Because I love being Lance Armstrong. I love being a seven-time winner of the Tour de France, charity spokesman, and rubber-bracelet impresario. I love it because it allows me to do all the things I do now, and will do more and more of in the future, all of which are variants, essentially, on Being Lance Armstrong. What could be easier than that? Not winning seven Tour de Frances, let me tell you!

And that's what I did. I won seven Tour de Frances. And you know what you learn after so many bike races? Sometimes, you just have to coast.

And, baby, I'm coasting.

Lifetime Achievement Award

When idle political chat among one's friends these days turns to the subject of whether America is ready for a President who is black (like Barack Obama) or female (like Hillary Rodham Clinton), we have begun to wonder if the question is moot. Isn't America already governed by a leader who is both? Have our idly chatting friends really never heard of Oprah Winfrey?

It's nothing new to observe that Winfrey is powerful and rich, that she commands a congregation of women who count on her guidance on everything from how they should raise their children (even though she doesn't have any) to how to clean their houses (even though it has surely been decades since she's done so, not counting the time she spent pretending to on Beloved). But it is not only common people who look to her as their exemplar: celebrities, too -- even ones you've just been reading about -- count on her to provide them a safe space where they can talk about how well they're doing since they divorced Brad Pitt, or how screamingly, overactingly in love they are with Katie Holmes. When Dave Chappelle came back from his African sabbatical, he would talk only to Winfrey (and to James Lipton, the one and only celebrity interviewer guaranteed not to pitch him any softballs he couldn't lob back with a Nerf bat). It doesn't matter if Winfrey asks a star stupid questions or obvious questions or questions the star has already answered so many times in interviews that we are yelling out the answers for him from home: the star is just happy to be there with her -- to bask in the presence of pure fame.

Oprah Winfrey's is the kind of fame that makes things happen. Its prodigious reach wasn't even something we could quite appreciate until this year. It was all chugging along fine, business as usual: she presided as new celeb slang was born; mediated the deliciously acrimonious divorce of chicklit novelist Terry McMillan and her gay ex-husband; let us know we were wearing the wrong bras and jeans. But then Hurricane Katrina hit and Winfrey travelled to Houston and to the Gulf coast, and okay, it could have been self-aggrandizing editing, but hell if those people, standing in the Astrodome in their one change of clothes, didn't seem more excited to see Winfrey there than anyone in any of the affected states ever was to see the President. (Perhaps that's because Winfrey got much closer to the action than the Compassionate Conservative-in-Chief.) Six months on, Winfrey is still reporting on the devastation in the area and the government's many and continuing failures to address it; furthermore, by pledging $10 million of her own personal money to work with Habitat for Humanity to build an entire new neighbourhood of homes for flood victims in the Houston area -- and using her website to allow viewers to outfit them with housewares through online gift registries -- Winfrey is arguably doing more to help Katrina victims than anyone else in the country.

Oprah giveth -- she giveth you a house free and clear, or a car, or all the items on her annual list of "Favorite Things" -- and Oprah taketh away. Winfrey will read your addiction memoir and make all her staff members read it and testify as to how moving it was to each of them personally, but if an online muckraker proves that you made a lot of it up, and you deny it, and she defends you on Larry King, and then you finally admit the truth...may God have mercy on your soul. (And...hey! That means you also deceived Nate! Not NATE! DAMN YOU!) The same bullhorn Winfrey uses to make all her minions ("Winions"?) buy your book and be titillated by your dissolute adventures can be used to trumpet your shortcomings as a writer, as her friend, and as a human being. She will make you come back on her show just so she can scold you in front of a live audience prepared to boo you at the least provocation, and she will try to end the episode on a high note and prove she's the bigger person, but you'll still be disgraced and dumped by your publisher. This is why you don't cross her, EVER.

(The kind of funny thing, for us, about Freygate, was how it pointed up how credulous and how far behind the times Oprah can be. Surely part of the reason she wasn't initially concerned by the research published about A Million Little Pieces on TheSmokingGun.com is that she'd never heard of the site before the day the news broke. She's like your mom in a lot of respects: she wants what's best for you; she's sometimes kind of annoying in the way she expresses that, even if it comes from a place of love; and she's pretty seriously out of touch. She'll host episodes of her show with topics like "Men On The Down-Low" and "Body Dysmorphic Disorder" long after the rest of the world's stopped talking about them, as though she's discovered them -- which, as far as many of her viewers are concerned, she has. The reason we so clearly remember the episode where she held up webcam and explained what it was and how some people -- even teenagers! -- use it to make amateur porn is that it aired about two weeks ago. The exposé on how people don't always use proper spelling and punctuation when they send text messages is probably scheduled for next month.)

Oprah Winfrey is more than a show, or a magazine, or a brand. She has become America's best friend, dearest confidante, and most revered spiritual leader. Could she be America's first black and female president? Probably. But it would actually lower her profile.

- MFF & WC