LOL...This was on the front page of the Times-Picayune today....
Hollywood heavyweights make N.O. their home
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie buy historic house in Quarter Thursday, January 18, 2007By Kate Moran
The average income in New Orleans scooted a bit higher this month when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie dropped $3.5 million on a French Quarter mansion.
The Hollywood couple, who occupy the upper strata of celebrity, bought a three-story, 7,400-square-foot home in the lower French Quarter this month and have enrolled their oldest child at a local school. The house they selected -- their fourth, according to a tabloid that posted the story on its Web site this week -- is a gray-green, balconied affair near the riverfront, complete with a two-car garage, a detached guest house and a rear courtyard cloistered from view of even the surrounding houses.
Apparently intent on staying awhile, they have also been mingling with the hoi polloi at bars and restaurants near their house.
New Orleans was atwitter for weeks as the couple checked out private schools and went house-hunting around the French Quarter and Garden District. The gossip about where they had finally settled took on all the detours and wrong turns that might be expected from amateur celebrity watching.
Jolie, who is famous for adopting children from poor countries, and Pitt indeed seem to have adopted New Orleans and its recovery as a pet cause. Last year, Pitt held a competition for architects to design eco-friendly homes in devastated areas of New Orleans.
"This is a social justice issue," Pitt has said of Katrina recovery. "In a catastrophe, you help the most vulnerable first, and we failed to do that."
One prominent Realtor said the couple's presence in the city would boost recovery -- and property values.
"I think it's a fabulous thing for the city," said Arthur Sterbcow, president of Latter & Blum Realtors. "It's a real boost for consumer confidence. And it will add exactly what we need, which is more focus on what needs to be done down here."
Sterbcow also said the sale to perhaps America's best-known couple is likely to intrigue other wealthy celebrities and could have a snowball effect.
"It's a huge thing for the city," he said. "These are two of the most popular people in the world."
Neither Pitt nor Jolie signed the bill of sale on the cash deal with Fairview Realty. Instead, they delegated that job to Richie Malchar, who is identified in various news reports as the actor's security chief. He is also the trustee of Mondo Bongo Trust, a Pitt holding listed on the deed as purchaser of the property.
"Mondo Bongo" is the name of a song by Clash singer Joe Strummer that accompanied a steamy sex scene in the movie "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." Pitt and Jolie began seeing each other while filming that movie.
A 2005 newspaper story said that a studio executive wanted the music changed because it made the scene "too sexy," and he was afraid of offending fans of Jennifer Aniston, the actor's jilted ex-wife. But the director, Doug Liman, successfully argued to retain the song.
Quarterites who live and work near the couple's new digs responded with characteristic indifference to the news that international celebrities had alighted in their neighborhood.
Up the street from Brangelina's place, Allison Miller and friend Joelle Robertson stood on a corner trying to figure out which house might be the couple's new fortress. Miller had recently seen Pitt in the area while he was filming a new movie, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which also stars Cate Blanchett.
"He seems to have a liking for helping people out," she said.
Around the corner on Decatur Street, John Haubrich sipped a beer Wednesday at the Abbey, a relentlessly dark bar even during the day, where he was camped out last week when Jolie walked in with several friends. He said she made small talk with the other patrons, who were intrigued by her presence but generally left her alone.
"She was nice to everybody who came in, and I found that refreshing because some people with money are high on themselves," Haubrich said. "I think it is good for the city, but they should be left alone and given their privacy."
The bartender seemed to have appointed herself protector of the newcomers, glaring at the local media who had started to congregate in the neighborhood by mid-afternoon.
"I wish everybody would leave them" alone, the bartender said. "If people want to see them, they should go to the movies."
. . . . . . .
Kate Moran can be reached at
[email protected] or (504) 826-3491.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1169109823202260.xml&coll=1&thispage=1
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