P.I. claims "proof" Patrick McDermott lives

A private eye searching for Patrick McDermott, Olivia Newton-John's former boyfriend who vanished five years ago, says his hunt is over after he received "conclusive proof" he's alive.

McDermott was 48 when he disappeared from a fishing boat that set off from San Pedro on June 30, 2005. He was believed to have fallen overboard but his body was never recovered, and it wasn't long before it was revealed he had financial troubles and may have faked his death and was hiding out on Mexico's Baja coast.

Texas-based P.I. Philip Klein worked on the case for NBC''s tabloid show Dateline. He said yesterday that he had "concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. McDermott is alive."

He said his team was checking documents and voice recordings of McDermott that he and his lawyer had provided in return for detectives agreeing to leave him alone.

Said Klein: "Mr. McDermott's wishes, according to his counsel, is not to be 'hounded' any longer by investigators or the media."

He alleged that McDermott faked his death to escape mounting debts and to enable his teenage son to benefit from a $100,000 US life insurance policy.

McDermott's disappearance wasn't made pubic for seven weeks, when a reporter linked his name to Newton-John. The Aussie songbird never reported him missing, despite claims they'd been involved in a nine-year romance. Newton-John later gave conflicting responses for the oversight, and finally said that she'd broken up with McDermott. The Coast Guard kept the case open. In 2008, Newton-John married someone else.


Tabloid Baby was the only news organization to remain on the story since 2005. Our reports kept the story alive, and led to reports of McDermott sightings and Klein's involvement last year.

Klein reported contact with McDermott in 2009, though he has not shown any concrete "proof of life" which he claims to have in possession. We do know he is writing a book about his search.

We'll withhold huzzahs until he produces the live McDermott.

Ryan O'Neal gets that date with his daughter

His pickup line at Farrah Fawcett's funeral must have worked, for Ryan O'Neal is seen as a third of an attractive threesome with his recently-reconciled daughter Tatum and a "mystery blonde" at last night's premiere of The Runaways movie at the Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood.

We just ran into Dennis Woodruff

Dennis Woodruff is part of the Hollywood firmament, known for decades as the man who drives along Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards in a car or van covered in hand-painted signs advertising his acting services. More recently, this human work of naive folk art and male Angelyne has taken to writing, directing and starring in his own films and talk shows and hawking DVDs from the trunk of his latest vehicle, a former police car.


This afternoon, Dennis Woodruff ventured farther west on Sunset than he's been in some time, and stopped to walk his faithful dog and try to sell some DVDs not far from the Tabloid Baby offices. That's when we noticed the car and walked right into him and his dog. His latest project is a film called Cold Creepy Feeling. He has been chasing his dream since the Seventies and he has not given up.

Farrah Fawcett's life and death become an E! True Hollywood Story

When NBC Dateline took Farrah Fawcett’s cancer documentary (as was its right since the network paid for it) and turned it into a morbid maudlin “mainstream news” version of a tabloid television special, critics groaned, millions watched in horror, the original producer sued and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences gave it an Emmy nomination.

When The E! True Hollywood Story dedicates an hour to “the life and legacy of the iconic Hollywood beauty” on Wednesday night, there may not be awards cast in its direction, but viewers can expect they'll be able to sit down to a compelling hour of tabloid show business biography.

The E! True Hollywood Story is television’s premier entertainment biography show, turning each of its stories into a down-and-dirty Hollywood noir, laying its subjects bare while treating them with the respect and awe that their achievements and status command. Whether Natalie Wood or Ray Combs, Liberace or Jan-Michael Vincent, Rebecca Schaeffer or Joe Piscopo, all the THS subjects wind up together in the equivalent of a low-rent Sunset Boulevard motel-- not diminished but enshrined equally as True Hollywood Stars, for why else would we care so much about their personal travails?


It’s a pre-TMZ approach that comes closest to the Hollywood myth-handling of the early days of tabloid television when James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis were still fertile subject matter.

As for the series’ latest portrait of Farrah-- she was featured in 1999, in Season 3-- take it from the press release :

“In 1976, a famous hairstyle and a red swimsuit turned unknown actress Farrah Fawcett into a pop culture icon, but the Texas-born beauty never lost her girl-next-door humility and charm. Diagnosed with cancer in 2006, Fawcett was also an inspiration to many people as she waged a courageous battle with the disease that ultimately took her life. THS chronicles the complicated journey of this blonde bombshell through intimate interviews with those who knew her best…”

The hour-long episode features a rare interview with Farrah’s college friend Sylvia Dorsey, “who sat with Fawcett in the hospital during her final days, along with Farrah’s longtime stylist Mela Murphy and “Charlie’s Angels” creator Leonard Goldberg.

There are also “never-before seen photos taken by her best friend, Alana Stewart.”

In light of the turmoil among those closest to Farrah in the weeks preceding and after her death, those alone should make for a very interesting hour, while adding to the bigger picture.

“Farrah Fawcett: The E! True Hollywood Story” premieres Wednesday, August 5th at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific, and ten show up throughout the E! schedule.