Hollywood’s spilling the secrets, and some of them stink – literally.
An original Oompa-Loompa dishes on the disgusting truth behind Willy Wonka’s famous chocolate river, while Paul McCartney has a bone to pick with his big-screen Beatles portrayal. Meanwhile, Demi Moore’s wild partying nearly cost her a career-making role, and Sydney Sweeney discovers she’s related to Marilyn Monroe.
Plus, Tyler Perry swears off marriage, Hugh Grant turns down a massive sitcom payday and Tupac Shakur’s killer learns his fate. Talk about a Hollywood roller coaster.
This is HOLLYWOOD 411 by KEEPING TABS – let’s get into it.
WILLY WONKA’S FILTHY SECRET
TALK about a recipe for disaster! The famous chocolate river in the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was actually a stinking cesspool of filthy water, cigarette butts and discarded script pages, reveals surviving Oompa-Loompa actor RUSTY GOFFE!
The 78-year-old Brit, who was just 22 when he played one of the orange-faced workers in the 1971 classic, says crew members eventually dumped real sugar and cream into the river - but after days under hot studio lights, the concoction began to reek. “Everything started smelling terribly,” he recalled.
Rusty also revealed makeup artists kept piling on orange powder until it had to be scraped off at day’s end. But revisiting Wonka’s world brought sweeter memories of late costar GENE WILDER, whose voice was recreated with Al for a new Netflix reality show. “I loved him,” Rusty said of the Blazing Saddles actor, who died in 2016. “He was a funny man yet serious.
PAUL’S MEASURED BEATLE BEEF
Fab Four legend PAUL McCARTNEY is taking issue with director SAM MENDES’ upcoming Beatles biopics - claiming his onscreen alter ego looks too puny next to JOHN LENNON’s! The 84-year-old rocker says he complained after the filmmaker sent him a still of the actors recreating the band’s iconic Abbey Road album cover. “Mescal’s smaller than the guy who plays John!” griped Paul, referring to actor PAUL MESCAL, who portrays McCartney opposite taller HARRIS DICKINSON as Lennon.
McCartney even texted Mendes, who insisted it was just a matter of the actors’ strides and sent another image with the pair appearing equal in height. But it’s not the first time Paul’s bristled at being portrayed as Lennon’s little sidekick. He made the same complaint about the 2009 movie Nowhere Boy, grumbling that its version of Paul was “kind of wimpy” and smaller than John. “There was I, little Paul, John the great big hero,” he recalled. “No, it’s not true!”
DRUNK DEMI NEARLY DUMPED
DEMI MOORE almost got bounced from her breakout role in St. Elmo’s Fire after allegedly showing up drunk and high for a costume fitting - prompting director JOEL SCHUMACHER to deliver a brutal warning! Screenwriter
CARL KURLANDER says the future Oscar nominee, now 63, was so deep into the hard-partying lifestyle of her character that Joel was ready to dump her. The director, who had battled drug addiction himself, reportedly told the young actress, “Go kill yourself on someone else’s movie.” Producer LAUREN SHULER persuaded him to give Demi one last shot - but she had just 10 days to get clean and sober. Joel even had MADONNA lined up as a replacement, declaring he could feel she’d become “the biggest star in the world.” But Demi turned things around, attending AA meetings and getting sober.
She later credited Joel’s “tough love” with helping change her life, calling the 1985 film a turning point in both her career and recovery.
SYDNEY’S BOMBSHELL PEDIGREE
Buxom beauty SYDNEY SWEENEY has a family connection to the original Hollywood sex symbol MARILYN MONROE - the two screen sirens are ninth cousins once removed! Genealogy platform MyHeritage traced the Euphoria star, 29, and the late Monroe, who died at 36 in 1962, to a common ancestor, Ezra Perry, a 17th-century settler in Massachusetts.
The discovery adds a new twist to the comparisons between the two blondes, who share a taste for bombshell glamour. Sydney even wore the same vintage Ceil Chapman gown Monroe modeled on the cover of Life magazine in 1952 when she accepted an award in February. She also channeled Marilyn’s iconic white dress at a movie premiere last December.
And there may be another connection: Sydney is reportedly exploring Judaism amid her romance with businessman SCOOTER BRAUN. Monroe converted to the faith in 1956 before marrying playwright ARTHUR MILLER.
BILLIONAIRE, BACHELORHOOD… AND MORE!
TYLER PERRY says he’ll never get married! The 57-year-old filmmaker says, “It’s not the marriage that bothers me; it’s the divorce,” the Madea creator told JENNIFER HUDSON during a recent interview. “Everybody that I know that did well and went broke, it was because of a divorce. So, I’m good just being free.”
The man convicted of shooting and killing rap legend TUPAC SHAKUR has been sentenced to 40 years to life behind bars. DUANE “KEFFE D” DAVIS’ sentencing came decades after the 1996 Las Vegas murder that prosecutors said he masterminded and later detailed in the 2019 memoir that led to his arrest.
HUGH GRANT nearly replaced CHARLIE SHEEN on Two and a Half Men, according to creator CHUCK LORRE, who said he offered the English star $750,000 an episode, which he turned down. “We met with him. He confided that he was terrified of working in front of a live audience,” Lorre says.