Grams and Pops Opine About Hollywood A-Listers

Grams with a man who is not Pops.

Yesterday morning I went with my mom to my grandparents’ house. My grandparents, Grams and Pops, are 84 and 87, respectively. They lived through the Great Depression and are very down-to-earth, practical people. It is often interesting to hear their take on current events, particularly on some of the more superficial goings-on of famous people.

Yesterday morning we somehow got on the topic of marriage. Now, whenever this topic comes up, I feel it is my duty to explain that, as someone who has been married and divorced once, that I don’t ever plan to get married (or divorced) again. It’s sort of cathartic just to say it, and to explain that not even George Clooney or Bradley Cooper would make me change my mind on that. Once I stated my feelings, my mom suddenly brought up Halle Berry, who has been married multiple times. A debate began about how many times Halle Berry has been married. I said she’d been married twice, while my mom said she thought it had been three times. Of course we settled the debate the way most debates today are settled: no, not by a Step Up-inspired dance off, but by looking it up on the iPhone.

My mom, the designated looker-upper, reported the following facts to us about Halle Berry’s past romantic entanglements: she was married to Braves’ player David Justice in the late nineties, then to musician Eric Benet in the early 2000’s, and is currently married to actor Olivier Martinez. We also debated whether or not Halle Berry had been married to the father of her daughter, model Gabriel Aubrey. I said no, and the iPhone said I was correct! In celebration of my correct assumption, my mom treated us all to her rendition of the over-the-top French accent used by Olivier Martinez’s character in the 2002 Richard Gere/Diane Lane movie Unfaithful. Olivier bites it in, like, the first half hour of the movie, but his character  made quite a grand impression on my mom during his limited screen time.

My mom engaged in some more of her iPhone wizardry, and then reported to the group that Halle Berry is currently pregnant with Olivier Martinez’s child.

“How old is she?” I asked.

My mom did her fast fingers move.

“47,” she replied.

“Oh my God,” I stated, “That means she’ll be like 66 when the child goes to college. That sounds awful.”

“Oh my Lord. We’ll have to say prayers for that baby,” said Grams. “You know, as women get older you have to worry that the baby will come out alright.”

“I’m sure Halle and Olivier will appreciate that, Grams,” I said.

The discussion moved to the age of Halle Berry’s current and former flames, and we discovered, courtesy of Wikipedia, that they were all either currently 47 years old or, in Eric Benet’s case, about to turn 47. What if a potential suitor happened to be 48 years old, or even (shudder!) 46 years old? It would clearly upset the very fabric of space-time!

“You mean she is about to have her second child?” Pops asked, barely looking up from his newspaper. “Maybe she’d like to go for the hat trick.”

Pops thinks Halle Berry should go for the hat trick!

“I doubt that Pops,” I replied, “She’s getting kind of old for all that.”

“And you have to worry at her age that the baby will come out alright,” Grams reminded us all.

Conversation then turned inexplicably to Woody Allen.

“Isn’t he the one who had an affair with his stepdaughter?” my mom asked. “I’m going to look it up!”

She turned quickly back to her iPhone and proceeded to read to us all about the scandal involving Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, and Mia’s adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi Previn.

“When they started having their affair,” my mom proudly reported from her iPhone, “he was 56, and she was 21.”

“Eww!” we all chorused.

“How old is he now?” I asked.

My mom did some quick calculations in her head.

“He’s 78. He was born in 1935. And she’s 43!”

My mom looked positively gleeful.

“Eww!” said Grams, Pops, and I.

“That would be like me dating someone just a little younger than Pops and Grams!” I shouted.

“Eww!” we all exclaimed.

My mom held up her phone to show us all a photo of Woody Allen. He just looked old, with white hair and lots of wrinkles, and he wasn’t at all attractive to begin with.

“Can you imagine,” my mom asked, “Looking at that and thinking it was the height of attractiveness?”

We were all having a good laugh at Woody’s expense.

“He sure is ugly!” said Pops.

We continued laughing, and I thought, just at that particular moment, how lucky I am to not only still have my grandparents in my life, but also that they are such cool people that I could basically bring an US Weekly over to their house and we could all read it and laugh at it. Yes, you heard it here. Grams and Pops are awesome!